TEZPUR, May 12 � At a time when the Assamese people and the Asam Sahitya Sabha have been asking the State Government to make Assamese a compulsory state language in every government office and to use the same in every private or English medium school, the decision to close down the primary section of the Assamese medium high school functioning over the last many decades within the campus of the Tezpur Don Bosco School by the school authority has created a sharp reaction among the common people, teachers and the parents of the students.
It is to be stated that as part of a voluntary act of the missionary services provided in the region over the years, the Tezpur Don Bosco ME and Primary School came into being in 1938 and the ME section was recognised in 1962. Moreover, though the school has yet to get teacher grants, it has been receiving free books, evaluation copy, teaching learning materials (TLM), repairing grants etc., as per SSA norms after the school was registered under the Gabharu Education Block under SSA in 2008.
On the other hand, though in 2011, the school got a chance to get provincialised, it is alleged that the school authority did not desire it. Rather, the school authorities has already removed the Class I of the Assamese medium school by introducing English medium with an intention to kill the age-old Assamese medium school.
Coming down heavily on the decision of the school authority, different organisations, including the Tezpur unit of the Asam Sahitya Sabha, Sonitpur district Sahitya Sabha, Tezpur AASU, AJYCP, Jatiyatabadi Yuba Sanmilon, People�s Committee for Constitutional Rights etc., have warned the authority to withdraw the decision to abolish the vernacular medium from the school. The vice president of the Tezpur Sahitya Sabha, Hemanta Baruah in a statement said that Lakshminath Bezbaroa had said that the mother tongue is the main base of a nation, but a section of the so-called English-medium schools have always gone against this process over the years, only in the interest of running a profitable business in the name of education. The president of the People�s Committee for Constitutional Rights, Pulin Bhattacharya vehemently criticising the destructive act of the Don Bosco School authority said that at a time when the Supreme Court has ordered every Kendriya Vidyalaya to introduce the Assamese language as the third language, the decision of abolishing an age-old Assamese medium school must be condemned.