india

Updated: Nov 11, 2019 18:44 IST

YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday took pot shots at Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu and his political detractors for opposing his government’s decision to make English medium compulsory in all government schools in a phased manner.

“I want to ask Venkaiah Naidu in which medium did your children study? What is the medium of instruction in the schools where your grandchildren are studying now?” Jagan said, while addressing a gathering at the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad birthday celebrations and award presentation programme in Vijayawada.

Last week, the state government issued an order converting all the Telugu medium schools into English medium from the academic year 2020-21. In the first phase, all the government schools would compulsorily introduce English medium from Classes 1 to 8.

Later, the orders were slightly modified to make English medium mandatory from Classes 1 to 6 and subsequently, each class would be upgraded into English medium till Class 10.

The opposition parties including the Telugu Desam Party, BJP and Jana Sena criticized the Andhra Pradesh government’s move to make English medium compulsory in all schools.

Even Venkaiah Naidu wrote an article in a vernacular daily stressing on the importance of teaching subjects in the mother tongue. He expressed concern that as many as 196 languages in the country are on the verge of extinction due to teaching in English medium. He stressed on the need to impart primary education in the mother tongue to bring out and encourage creativity among children at that tender age.

Apparently referring to this article, Jagan wondered why some people were finding fault with him when he was trying to do something good for the next generation.

“Chandrababu Naidu, Venkaiah Naidu, Pawan Kalyan and others – everybody criticized me. A couple of Telugu dailies have been writing articles against my decision every day. They all should question themselves as to whether they are justified in the criticism,” he said.

Attacking the TDP president, Jagan wanted to know which medium Chandrababu Naidu’s son (Lokesh) had studied in during his schooling and in which medium of instruction his grandson was going to study when he got into school.

Jagan also chose to make a comment on the personal life of Jana Sena Party chief and actor Pawan Kalyan, who had attached Venkaiah Naidu’s article while questioning the government’s decision. “This actor Pawan Kalyan has three wives. He has four to five children. What medium of instruction are they studying in?” he asked.

Stating that the people of the state had suffered a lot for not studying in English medium all these years, Jagan said his government was introducing English as a compulsory medium of instruction only to make the children of the state compete with others across the world.

“Every school will have an English lab from this year and from next year, all the government schools will have only English medium. However, Telugu or Urdu will be a compulsory subject in those schools,” he said.