SHILLONG, AUG 18: The newly formed Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) has demanded that the Meghalaya Board of School Education (MBOSE) immediately scrap its decision to derecognize Khasi as a compulsory subject at the higher secondary level of school despite the fact that the state is making an efforts to get the language included in the Eight Schedule.
The decision was taken at the Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting of the organization held on Monday.
“We expressed our strong reservation and protest the notification issued by the MBOSE on September last year, to derecognize Khasi (Modern Indian Language) as a compulsory subject in the higher secondary schools in the state,” HYC general secretary Robertjune Kharjahrin told reporters at a news conference.
According to Kharjarin, as per the notification the Khasi subject has been made only as an optional or elective subject where students have been given the liberty to opt or to drop the subject depending on their interest.
Stating that the decision has huge demerit for the indigenous Khasi society, Kharjarin said, “We felt that such decision will to a great extent bring a huge disconnect between the local people and their mother tongue and on top it will also bring a gloomy hope for the authors in our state.”
Kharjarin also questioned that when the North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) can come up with rules allowing indigenous people to write their thesis in Khasi, then why is the MBOSE trying to bring up rules which are not in the interest of the people and the state.
“We, therefore, demand the MBOSE and government to immediately scrap of the notification and instead make Khasi the only optional subject for indigenous students studying from class X to XII,” Kharjahrin said.
Kharjarin also informed that the organization would soon write to the state government to make Khasi as a compulsory subject in all the schools and colleges. “Besides, we would also demand that Khasi be made a medium of instruction at the school level and the language to communicate in all the government offices,” he said.
The HYC also expressed the urgency to pressurize the state government to make all effort to ask the centre to recognize and include Khasi language in the Eight Schedule of the Indian Constitution.- By Our Reporter
