Linguistic minority students exempted from writing Tamil paper in class 10 boards

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government has announced that students studying in linguistic minority schools will be exempted from attending Tamil language papers in the upcoming class 10 board exams this month.

As per the schedule, the board exam for class 10 will be held from March 26 till April 8, the results will be announced on May 10.

This announcement is made following the Supreme Court order in February last year extending the exemption for linguistic minority students from writing Tamil language paper in class 10 board exam.

Earlier, the SC has granted exemption to students of linguistic minority schools from attending Tamil paper from 2020 till 2022.

However, a recent circular from the education department clarified this ahead of the board exam that students who are not native speakers of Tamil are exempted from attending Tamil paper in board exam.

Besides this, the TN director of private schools in May last year announced that all private schools, or rather schools affiliated to different boards will have to teach Tamil as a compulsory subject to students of classes 9 to 10 from 2024-25 academic year.

This order passed by the State government under the Tamil Language Learning Act 2006 has also mandated that private schools teach Tamil to students from classes 1 to 10.

However, this provoked mixed reactions from educationalists, parents and students, calling it harsh on non-native speakers of the State and freedom to choose in learning.