Governor calls for efforts to bring glory to State Language

Expressing concern over the closing of Marathi medium schools in favour of English medium schools, Maharashtra Governor CH. Vidyasagar Rao has called for renewed efforts to bring glory the State language Marathi language ahead of the Diamond Jublee of the formation of Maharashtra next year.

“While we have to welcome English as a world language, education up to sixth standard should be provided in the mother tongue”, said the Governor, citing the findings of a UNESCO report.

Observing that many children are neither reading nor writing and in some cases not even communicating in their mother tongues, he felt that schools and parents should be taken into confidence to encourage Marathi and other regional languages among children.

The Governor was speaking at the launch of a short film ‘MyBoli’ at Raj Bhavan, Mumbai on Wednesday (26 June). The short film brought out by an NGO Pallavi Foundation stresses the importance of mother tongue as a medium of instruction.

Noting that students are opting for foreign languages after SSC citing that those languages are ‘good scoring’, he said if this is the case, efforts should be made to make all regional languages ‘good scoring subjects.’

The Governor said that Government of Maharashtra should take up a project of digitization of state libraries and set up a common Marathi digital library that would be accessible to all. He felt that such digital library will help the entire Marathi speaking diaspora to stay connected to the language and literature.

Deputy Speaker of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Vijay Auti, Chairman of the Pallavi Foundation Bhau Korgaonkar, teachers and invitees were present.