The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Mother tongue should be the medium of instruction: Stalin

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Thursday, Nov 05, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Mother tongue should be the medium of instruction: Stalin

Special Correspondent

Says this will help students to express their ideas clearly

— Photo: V. Ganesan

Special Moment: Governor Surjit Singh Barnala presenting degree certificate to a student at the fourth annual convocation of Tamil Nadu Open University in Chennai on Wednesday. Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin and Vice-Chancellor Kalyani Anbuchelvan are in the picture.

CHENNAI: Mother tongue should be the medium of instruction to improve the thinking skills of students, which will help them to express their ideas clearly, said Deputy Chief Minister M. K. Stalin here on Wednesday.

Addressing students at the fourth annual convocation of Tamil Nadu Open University, Mr. Stalin said the reason for the rapid development of countries such as Japan and Russia was that the medium of instruction was their mother tongue.

He wanted the university to take necessary steps for making Tamil the medium of instruction or at least make Tamil a compulsory subject. Similarly, it should provide education to those who could not pursue their studies owing to various reasons, so that the State could achieve its dream of cent per cent literacy.

Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy, who is also the Pro-Chancellor, said as the degrees from the open university had not been recognised for recruitment or promotion in government departments, students might not be interested in enrolling for its courses.

He appealed to Governor Surjit Singh Barnala, who is the Chancellor, to take up the issue with the officials concerned so that the degrees were considered at least for departmental promotion.

Vice-Chancellor Kalyani Anbuchelvan said the objective of the university was to enable those who had been deprived of and/or denied access to higher education and those who had discontinued education due to various reasons to continue their education.

Rapid growth

The university, started with 14,000 students in 14 programmes in academic year 2003-04, now had 2.5 lakh students in 108 programmes at various levels.

At the convocation, 15,650 students received their certificates. Presiding over the function, Mr. Barnala honoured 131 students who had secured ranks with gold medals and conferred degrees on students.

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