AASU protest against model school policy on July 4

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, July 1: The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) feels it honour–bound to pay respects to language martyr Ranjit Borpujari through protest against, what it says, dishonour to the Assamese and mother tongue. Late Borpujari was martyred on July 4, 1960.

Of late, the model schools in the State have hit headlines for right or wrong reasons. The State government wants to recruits its teachers from amongst candidates who are passed outs from English medium school. Dispur is of this view since the models schools are in English medium and being run under the CBSE. On the contrary, the AASU and a lot of other organizations in the State feel that this is nothing but utter neglect to the Assamese and mother tongue. They say that examples of people having educated in Assamese medium holding high ranks as that of Supreme Court judges and becoming professor on many universities abroad galore.

In a statement issued to the press today, the AASU said: “We’re going to stage a statewide agitation on July 4 in protest against the neglect being meted out to the Asamese and mother tongue by the State Government’s policy of model schools. We want the model schools in the State are set up in Assamese and vercular medium. They should be also be set up under the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA). We pay respects to all those who had to sacrifice their lives during the language movement in 1960 and the movement for medium of instruction in 1972. We won’t let their sacrifices go in vein. We won’t tolerate disrespect of any sorts to our tiol martyrs.”

AASU president Dipanko Kumar th and general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi said: “Dispur wants to set up model schools in English medium, that too under the CBSE, not under the SEBA. Our demands are crystal clear – the models schools should be of Assamese and vercular media and under the SEBA. We’re not against English and the CBSE. However, the model schools being set up in the State should be in Assamese and vercular media and under the SEBA. Let the government introduce methods that can make students of Assamese and vercular media schools speak English fluently. Dispur forgetting the history of Assam is not just. There was a mass movement each for the 1960 language movement and the 1972 medium of instruction movement in the State. And in each of the agitation a section of our people had to lose their lives. The government that came to power with the promise of bringing change in the State should translate their promises by keeping the importance of the Assamese and mother tongues intact.”