Ludhiana: Telugu camp concludes amid mixed reaction from teachers
The week-long Telugu language classes held across Punjab government schools under the Bharatiya Bhasha Summer Camp wrapped up on Thursday, but not without raising eyebrows among educators and experts. While the initiative, driven by the Union ministry of education, aimed to promote cultural exchange between Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, many teachers believe the focus should have been on strengthening Punjabi skills, especially for migrant students who continue to lag.
According to Punjab School Education Board results for 2024-25, over 1,500 students from Class 10 and 386 from Class 8 across the state, did not qualify Punjabi exam, despite it being their primary language. The concern, teachers say, isn't about resisting multilingualism, but prioritising basics before diversifying.
Dharamjeet Singh Dhillon, district president of the Lecturer Cadre Union, questioned the timing and relevance of teaching Telugu. 'Migrant children struggle with Punjabi. They live and work here, why not focus on their proficiency in the state's language first? Instead of a central gimmick, we needed classes that strengthen academic foundations,' he said.
Still, not everyone echoed this sentiment. Charanjeet Kaur Ahuja, principal of Government Senior Secondary School, Cemetery Road, called the programme 'refreshing and insightful'. She said, 'Teachers learnt Telugu via video modules and brought those lessons alive in classrooms. Students not only learnt greetings and songs, but even prepared Andhra cuisine, it truly brought cultural learning to life.'
The students also seemed enthusiastic. 'We made Telugu charts, sang songs and interacted in a new language, it was fun and different,' said a Class 8 student. Another student shared how the experience transported them into the heart of Andhra Pradesh in just seven days.
Responding to concerns about Punjabi proficiency, Ahuja added that the government's Mission Samrath initiative is already addressing this gap, helping underperforming students, particularly migrants, strengthen their language skills.
District education officer (secondary) Dimple Madan did not respond despite several attempts.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hans India
4 hours ago
- Hans India
MyVoice: Views of our readers 17th July 2025
Kudos to The Hans India It is indeed great that in the fiercely competitive world of media, particularly when the electronic media is getting louder and creating nuisance, The Hans India has withstood everything to successfully complete 14 glorious years. My association with the daily goes back to the year of its launch. It is delightful that many of my thoughts have found a place in its columns. Wishing many more successful years to Team Hans. N Nagarajan, Hyderabad More glory to the media 'all-rounder' I wish more glory to The Hans India that has completed 14 years since inception. A defining factor is that it covers news with equanimity and comes up with rational analysis and solutions without any bias or leanings, whatsoever, including its edit page, Young Hans, national and world news, education, research and development, sports, politics and womenia, et al to earn it the distinction of being an all-rounder. Most importantly, the Hans India has never gone for sensational journalism, while its satire-laced cartoons are quite educative and thought-provoking. PVP Madhu Nivriti, Secunderabad-61 A must in all TG and AP public libraries It is really a proud moment for any newspaper to step into its 15th year of existence. The Hans India, which took off 14 years back, has been in the public domain and winning accolades for its wonderful all-round coverage all these years. It is one of the few newspapers that runs readers' columns even on Sundays. Though it focuses on local issues, it also gives due weightage to national and global issues, including sports and the world of entertainment. A unique aspect is that it maintains a regular column on women. On this occasion, I urge the management of the daily to impress upon the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments on the need to have the paper in public libraries across the two Telugu speaking states. Many librarians are shying away from subscribing to it, despite its readership value, citing 'resource crunch'. Pratapa Reddy Yaramala, Tiruvuru (AP) Check food poisoning cases in Gurukuls The news item 'KTR blames the government for the deaths of Gurukul students in Telangana (The Hans India July 16) makes for disturbing reading. He has alleged that over thousand food poisoning cases were reported across the State, and there were over 100 deaths of Gurukul students, over the past one year. It is a 'serious issue' and the government of the day should address it on a priority basis. TSWREIS and TTWRES are the two societies primarily responsible for overseeing Gurukula patasalas, which also feeds students from marginalised sections. The incompetent government departments are to be blamed for providing rotten rice and contaminated drinking water, which are resulting in many food poisoning cases. It will be a good augury if NGOs like Akshayapatra Foundation and Arunodaya Trust are roped in to be assured of delivering nutritious food to the hapless students, who, otherwise, live in horrifying conditions. R J Janardhana Rao, Hyderabad-28
Indian Express
16 hours ago
- Indian Express
Cages in place, drains covered at airport to nab elusive leopard
Admitting that the leopard was sighted on several occasions at Pune international airport, Union minister of state for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol on Wednesday said that cages have been put up at the airport premises to catch the elusive leopard and steps have been taken to ensure that birds and animals that stray on to the premises don't lead to untoward incident and accidents at the airport. 'It is true the leopard has been sighted at the airport premises many times. It has been seen in CCTV footage. The leopard has not yet been caught but the Forest department has been roped in for the purpose,' said Mohol. The minister said the forest department closed all drains, which could be possible hiding places, at the airport with nets. 'The forest department has also set up cages for catching leopards. The area has also been cleared of things that could be a potenital food source for leopards. The boundaries of the airport have been sealed,' he added. Mohol said a discussion was held to keep a check on the entry of domestic or stray animals at the airport premises. 'There are chronic garbage spots at the airport premises that becomes sources of food for stray animals and birds. As a result, there have been bird hit incidents at the airport,' he said. Mohol said the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has been instructed to demarcate spots around the airport from where regular moitoring can be conducted. He added that he has told authorities to remove illegal encroachments in the vicinity. The PMC recently demolished 17 structures that were illegally constructed in the restricted area of the airport in Lohegaon. A survey was conducted under the Bombay High Court's directions to ascertain illegal constructions in the restricted area of the airport. Ajay Jadhav is an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express, Pune. He writes on Infrastructure, Politics, Civic issues, Sustainable Development and related stuff. He is a trekker and a sports enthusiast. Ajay has written research articles on the Conservancy staff that created a nationwide impact in framing policy to improve the condition of workers handling waste. Ajay has been consistently writing on politics and infrastructure. He brought to light the lack of basic infrastructure of school and hospital in the hometown of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde even as two private helipads were developed by the leader who mostly commutes from Mumbai to Satara in helicopter. Ajay has been reporting on sustainable development initiatives that protects the environment while ensuring infrastructure development. ... Read More
India.com
a day ago
- India.com
How A Bureaucrat's Childhood Memory Led To A Literacy Revolution Touching Over 16 Million Children
New Delhi: It started with a question that stayed long after the files were signed, the speeches were made and the transfers were ordered. Somewhere in the Bodo-dominated interiors of Assam in 1986, a young IAS officer named Dhir Jhingran noticed something that tugged harder than routine ever could – children sitting silently in classrooms and lost in a language they did not understand. He was then district magistrate in Kokrajhar, a region shaken by conflict and instability in Assam. There was no Right to Education law back then. But to Jhingran, the idea that a child could be in school and still not learn felt like a breach of something sacred. That quiet discomfort would travel with him for decades. It would later take the form of the Language and Learning Foundation (LLF) – a movement now reshaping India's literacy landscape. Since 2015, the LLF has reached over 14.2 lakh children directly and impacted more than 1.6 crore through materials designed to unlock learning in the languages they know best. A Classroom Comes Alive in Varanasi In the primary school of Koirajpur, Uttar Pradesh, teacher Smita Chaturvedi remembers the days when her blackboard felt more like a wall. Students showed up, nodded through definitions, recited textbook lines and left the classroom behind, both physically and emotionally. Things shifted when her school partnered with the LLF. She was given workbooks and guides that invited curiosity. Flashcards, cue-based games, storytelling techniques and posters – all in sync with how young minds play, feel and understand. Three years in, her classroom does not sound like a classroom. It sounds like a place where children belong. 'The stories are on the walls now. The kids do not wait to be told, they begin learning the moment they walk in,' she said. Sapna Spoke, The Class Listened In Haryana, a girl named Sapna sat quietly for weeks after enrolling. She was seven. Her mother tongue was a Punjabi dialect her teachers did not speak. She was not slow and shy. She did not understand what the adults around her were saying. Trained under LLF's multilingual approach, her teacher began teaching concepts in Sapna's home language – not permanently, just as a bridge. It gave her enough confidence to cross over. Today, Sapna is the child who raises her hand first. The Experiment That Started It All Kokrajhar was burning when Jhingran was first posted there. Ethnic tensions had turned violent. But amid the conflict, he discovered something unexpected – a dormant hunger for education. Parents wanted learning. Even inside refugee camps. The solution was not more policing. It was books. Volunteers. Hope. He helped launch an adult literacy campaign across the district. Over 3,000 local youth, mostly women, became teachers overnight. They taught adults to read, to write, to count and, somewhere in the process, to heal. Tribal songs echoed in makeshift classrooms. Community peace meetings replaced armed stand-offs. Within nine months, the district had turned a corner. The experiment worked. Literacy did not follow peace. It created it. Language as a Lifeline, Not a Luxury A large number of Indian children still start school in a language they do not speak at home. They listen. They copy. They pass. But they do not understand. And when comprehension breaks, confidence collapses. This mismatch often pushes children to drop out silently. LLF's work builds a bridge between home languages and school languages. Its programmes help children transition into reading and writing while preserving what they already know. Three Tools, One Mission LLF's model rests on three pillars: Teacher training – intensive workshops, online courses and regular support for educators. Government collaboration – formal partnerships with seven states, including Assam, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Teaching materials – custom handbooks, daily lesson plans and bilingual workbooks that reach the child in her own voice. One Memory Stayed Jhingran spent years at the Ministry of Human Resource Development. He coordinated primary education programmes in eight states. He was advisor to the UNICEF, helped Nepal restructure its education policy and still chose to return to the grassroots. To start from scratch. In every workshop, every workbook and every smile of a child who finally understands a poem, the memory of Kokrajhar lives on. 'I remember those children. They sat in silence for so long. I do not want any child in this country to feel that silence again,' he says. And just like that, from a forgotten district in Assam, a revolution was born – not to make children study harder, but to make them feel heard.
