SAfrican govt asked to include Indian languages in curriculum

The group of 30 teachers made a submission to the Minister of Education to consider allowing the languages as a subject at school as the ministry prepares for a curriculum revision in 2012.

The Indian languages,though taught in some schools,are only recognised as an extra-curricular subject and students do not get credits towards the total courses required to pass a grade.

A spokesman for the group,principal Vishnu Naidoo said South African Indians were losing their culture: “In the next 50 years or so we could lose it completely,but by introducing the subjects in formal studies at schools,we could preserve our culture.”

Naidoo said they were calling on the education ministry to recognise Indian languages as an optional third language in addition to the two required as compulsory.

The compulsory languages only allow for English and one of the ten official indigenous languages of South Africa.

The education ministry said it was looking into the proposals.

However,some Indian teachers said that when these languages were taught at schools administered by the erstwhile House of Delegates,the Indian arm of the tricameral parliament in the apartheid-era dispensation that excluded the majority black community,they failed to generate interest from students and parents.

Cultural activists were supportive of the new proposal,but expressed concern that the new generation of South African Indians hardly recognise any of the languages brought here by their ancestors 150 years ago.