Scholars oppose Eng-medium instruction
   
Chennai, Aug 2,2012: A body of Tamil scholars today opposed a proposal to introduce English-medium instruction in state government-run schools, insisting that it should continue with Tamil. Members of the Tamil Elites Forum contested government's claim that its proposal would result in an increase in admissions since English-medium private schools were being preferred over state-run schools as they taught students in Tamil.
  
Noted academician and Forum member S Muthukumaran, who had headed a committee on Uniform Education, said that government's contention that its move would help increase admissions was not true. "The government-run school are actually not managed properly. There are no proper blackboards (in some schools) and school teachers are used for other work such as population or ration card enumeration," he said.
  
Tamil scholar Kumari Anandan said that despite mushrooming of private schools in the state over the years, which mainly imparted education through English, government schools did not follow suit. He expressed apprehensions that Tamil may lose its place among the subsequent generations if the latest government propsal was implemented in toto. The members of the Forum demanded rollback of the proposal.