Sanskrit to get a fresh boost in Tripura schools | Times of India

AGARTALA: The BJP-IPFT government in Tripura, while reviewing the status of education at the school-level, has decided to give Sanskrit a new boost. Referring to the latest discussion at the ministerial level regarding Sanskrit taught in schools, a top official said the Tripura government had earlier introduced five subjects, including Sanskrit and Arabic, options for the first language at the secondary level. But there has been was no proper initiative to encourage the students to study Sanskrit and Arabic so far.

“There was no recruitment of teachers of classical subjects after 1990 and as a result, except Bengali and English, study of all other languages became inconvenient for the students. At present, only students of Classes VII and VIII study Sanskrit. Hardly, any student opts for the subjects at the secondary and higher secondary level,” the official stated.

He mentioned that the state government now plans to re-introduce Sanskrit from Class VI and students will be encouraged to study the subject till the postgraduate level. The same thing will be done for Lushai (a tribal dialect) and Arabic in the state from the next academic year.

“Our predecessors deliberately prevented the student from learning Sanskrit, Arabic and Lushai but our government will not allow that,” said education minister Ratan Lal Nath.

A couple of days ago, CM Biplab Deb had indicated that the government will adopt NCERT syllabus in schools. “The Communists only wanted the people to study Mao and forget our Hindu kings. Some textbooks featured the Russian and French revolutions, while others had pages devoted to the birth of cricket, Nazism and the rise of Adolf Hitler,” the CM had said.