The states grand plan to make Telugu a compulsory fell through midway with the government admitting it cannot make the regional language compulsory in colleges owing to changes required to be made in the states complex education laws,besides central board schools were not under its ambit. Making Telugu compulsory in state board schools will hardly make a difference to the current educational system as most schools in the city were already implementing the three language formula in which Telugu was a compulsory paper and 99% of the students will not be affected by the same,experts said.

Like every order pertaining to policy changes,this too seems like an eye wash.If the order does not affect the scheme of things as they stand right now,why issue it at all, said K Nageswar,member,state legislative council.In the state board examination,SSC,over 9.95 lakh students in an average of 10 lakh write Telugu paper,the only exemption being students from outside the state who opt for Special English.Further,the secondary education department has exempted 11.5 lakh Intermediate students from the compulsory Telugu rule,making the new rule rather redundant in the current scheme of education.Ironically,the decision to introduce Telugu language in educational institutions started with the AP official language commission saying that about 90% of the students who write Intermediate Public Examination opt out of Telugu and take Sanskrit as their language option.

The state has decided against making Telugu compulsory in Intermediate since amendments need to be made in the AP Education Act for the same.The proposal was only to make the language compulsory in schools.We did not want to extend it to Intermediate, said Rajeswar Tiwari,principal secretary,secondary education.He said the order from the Chief Ministers office is to copy the Tamil Nadu model of language system.We will study their system thoroughly and will issue a detailed government order in a short while, said Tiwari.

One of the reasons for the non-implementation of compulsory Telugu in Intermediate colleges could be lack of teachers.As very few colleges opt for Telugu paper and hence 40% of Telugu teaching posts are vacant in government and private colleges, explained Reddy.However,the state government has not clarified whether the same rule would be applicable to CBSE and ICSE schools as most of these schools do not offer Telugu as a language option.We have not decided anything about the same.The managements of these schools will have to wait and watch, said Tiwari.CBSE Sanghatan,a collective of such all central board schools in the city,expressed their concern over the lack of clarity.We would expect the government to issue a clearer order for the benefit of schools which do not offer Telugu from Class I, said Usha Reddy,principal of Meridian School,Banjara Hills.