SUALKUCHI, Feb 3 - The newly-elected president of Asam Sahitya Sabha, Dr Kuladhar Saikia on Monday appealed to all sections of the people to revive and strengthen the community life of the Assamese society.
Addressing the gathering during the Kaliram Medhi Soworani Bhashabid Sanmilan held on Monday as part of the 75th biennial conference of the Asam Sahitya Sabha at Jyoti Kshetra here, Saikia said, �Today we are accusing our new generation of not using their mother tongue in day-to-day life but the allegation is totally false. The new generation is not responsible for the critical situation our language is in. Rather, we have failed in educating them properly on the language.�
Saikia pointed out that popularisation of folk tales could be a way to educate the youth about their mother tongue.
Speaking on the occasion, educationist Dr Bibha Bharali said that the lack of proper infrastructure was the biggest challenge hindering the functioning of most of the government Assamese medium schools of the State.
Explaining the Assamese medium education system, she said that illiteracy among the parents and poor economic condition, lack of adequate number of teachers, mobile addiction among teachers, irregularities in classes, scarcity of free textbooks, etc., were some major factors responsible for the pathetic condition of government-run education.
�The situation in the private education system is totally different where all the staff of a school pay enough importance to the needs of each and every student. Today it is the need of the hour to build up such an environment in every government school of Assam,� Bharali added.
Another scholar, Dr Phanindra Narayan Dutta Barua also emphasised on the need to strengthen the English language teaching system in government schools to make students competent. He also asked for taking steps to increase the enrolment rate.
Dr Jayanta Biswa Sarma, an NRI Assamese from England and a speaker of the session, stated that in comparison to other regional languages of the world, Assamese still was in a very good position. He also dwelt on the �creativity crisis� which has been plaguing Assamese language.
�The life of a language depends upon its use in speaking and writing. So every Assamese should practise writing and speaking Assamese to keep the language alive. Again, starting of primary education in English language is not a good sign for the Assamese children,� he said.
In the same event chaired by educationist Dr Ramesh Pathak, the Sabha conferred the �Bhasha Pran� award on Dr Narayan Das.
