karmakerala.com news

The new gen kids in Kerala have long ceased to speak pure Malayalam, their mother tongue thanks to the high profile residential school education and NRI status tagged to most of the families. Most of the kids speak “ Manglish”, which in local parlance means poor  quality Malayalam with a rich smattering of English. The parents and the teachers do not seem to bother even when the students  use the Malayalam words and phrases  wrongly!

The present schooling system allows the students to select any second language of their choice and Malayalam is not compulsory. It is ironical to note that in many schools in Kerala there are more students learning French and Sanskrit than their mother tongue of Malayalam! While our neighbouring  States like Tamilnadu and Karnataka, are putting  special emphasis on promoting and propagating their mother tongues, are we lagging behind?  It goes without saying that this strange phenomenon has created a shortage of manpower that can handle Malayalam fluently and the Government is planning to set this anomaly right before things go out of control.

The Kerala Chief Minister opined that steps would be taken to make the proficiency in Malayalam mandatory during the recruitment process for State Government Jobs. The Government might have to bring out a new piece of legislation to change the existing PSC guidelines and recruitment policies in this regard. There could be separate sections for questions in Malayalam in qualifying examinations or the Government can make it compulsory to clear the qualifying language test before the probation period. It is high time that we start loving our mother tongue just like many of the successful nations like Japan or Korea, where people take pride in conversing in their mother tongue all the while being successful in the global arena.