The Hindu

Mangalore, May 14: The Department of State Education Research and Training (DSERT), Bangalore, has recommended to the Karnataka Government that Tulu could be introduced as the third optional language from the sixth standard, according to M. K. Seetharama Kulal, president, Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy. He told The Hindu here on Sunday that the State Cabinet should give its consent if the recommendation was to be implemented. This subject was likely to come up for discussion during the next Cabinet meeting.

Mr. Kulal said that a 13-member committee under the auspices of the academy was preparing the syllabus for Tulu. It was being prepared as per the DSERT guidelines. If the Government approved the proposal, the academy was ready to submit the syllabus any time. He said that if the Cabinet cleared the proposal, the academy wanted it to be implemented in schools from the academic year 2007-08. The academy would print the textbooks if DSERT had not been prepared for the same. He said that it had been planned to teach Tulu in Kannada script.

Although Tulu had its own script, there was lack of qualified teachers to teach the same. The committee members did not favour the idea of teaching Tulu in Tulu script. The academy's intention was to first stabilise Tulu as the third optional language in schools. According to a Tulu academy report, American and European varsities had recognised Tulu as an important Indian language.

In the information bulletin of the GRE and TOEFL examinations of the American universities, the candidates had to record their mother tongue in the application form by filling the code number of the mother tongue. Tulu was one of the languages that had been given the code number.