Udupi students oppose to take up Tulu as a third language

Udupi students oppose to take up Tulu as a third language

Mangalore Today News Network

Udupi: September 10, 2015: Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy Chairperson Janaki Brahmavar, said on Wednesday that there was no response in Udupi district from high school students for studying Tulu as a third language.

 

Speaking to presspersons here, Ms. Brahmavar said that there was an excellent response for taking Tulu as an optional third language in Puttur Education Block in Dakshina Kannada district. Nearly 200 students in schools from Ramakunja, Kaniyur, Papemajalu, Kabaka and Kombettu villages near Puttur had taken Tulu as an optional third language. This was because of the efforts put in by the Puttur Block Education Officer.

In many instances, even if children showed interest in studying Tulu as an optional third language, their parents were not keen on encouraging them to do so as they felt it will not be value addition to their ward’s skills when it comes to employment prospects. So, many students end up studying Hindi as the third language.

As many as 18 students, who had taken Tulu as the third language, had passed SSLC in Dakshina Kannada district in the last academic year. But there has been no response from Udupi district for studying Tulu as an optional third language, she added.

“We will try to popularise Tulu as a third language in Udupi district and other parts of Dakshina Kannada. We are laying more emphasis on teaching Tulu in classes eight, nine and 10,” she added.

Students taking Tulu as third optional language answered most of the questions in Kannada barring four-mark questions. Though Tulu had a script, it was not in use. The academy was trying to popularise the Tulu script. She said that software expert K.P. Rao had developed Tulu software in Unicode. But some scholars had been using other Tulu software. Hence, the academy would call a meeting of all scholars to resolve this issue, Ms. Brahmavar said.