Date:18/04/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/04/18/stories/2005041809250500.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Tamil, Gujarati medium B.Ed colleges likely

Ravi Reddy

Institutions proposed in Chittoor district and twin cities

304 B.Ed colleges in the State
43,755 students study in Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali medium

Chittoor AIADMK unit submits memorandum

HYDERABAD: The Government is actively examining proposals for establishment of linguist Minority College of education in Tamil and Gujarati languages in the State.

Sources in the education department said that proposals had come for setting up two linguistic minority colleges in Tamil and Gujarati medium.

The first proposal is to set up a college of education in Chittoor district while the second proposal came from a society in the twin cities to set up Gujarati medium college.

The Government had been according minority status to several educational institutions on the basis of the religion.

A senior official told The Hindu that the proposal was under active consideration as for the first time request had been made to open linguistic minority institute to impart teacher training.

"When so many religious minority colleges have been sanctioned, there should be no problem considering their request," he added.

The move comes in wake of appeals made by the linguist minority groups seeking teachers training courses in the regional languages.

Tamils particularly those settled in Chittoor district had been making a fervent appeal to the Government establish a Tamil medium B.Ed college in the district.

The AIADMK Chittoor district unit had recently submitted a memorandum seeking a B.Ed college.

According to statistics, there are 304 B.Ed colleges, 25 District Institute of Education and Training and Teacher Training Institutions besides four College of Physical Education and 64 Pandit training colleges in Hindi, Telugu and Urdu medium. All put together, these institutions have 41,343 seats and 4,306 teachers.

The Government runs schools in Telugu, English, Urdu, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali medium.

There are in all 90,673 such schools in the State.

Of these, 2,095 schools have parallel media where students are taught Telugu and other nine languages.

As per the statistics gathered by the department, there are 16,349 students studying Hindi medium, followed by 14,529 (Oriya), 13,395 (Kannada), 11,269 (Tamil), 6,240 (Marathi), 1,022 (Bengali) and 586 (Gujarati).