HT Correspondent
JORHAT, March 10: The Asam Sahitya Sabha has decided to urge the state government to appoint special English teachers and formulate a syllabus for children in schools so that they can speak English fluently from primary level.
Addressing newspersons at the Danbir Radha Kanta Handique Bhawan within the premises of the Sabha’s Central office here on Sunday, after the first executive committee meeting of the 2025-2027 term of the premier literary body, Sabha president Dr Basanta Kumar Goswami said that the objective to teach English to students of government schools was to enable them to learn and speak English, government should appoint trained English teachers and frame a proper syllabus in this regard.
Related Posts:
Goswami said that this proposed move from primary level is expected to overcome the inferiority complex of not being able to converse in English like a native.
The newly elected president said that these were one of the several decisions taken at the meeting today for betterment of society.
Goswami said that another decision was to request the government to constitute a three tier cell at the state, district and co-district levels — to monitor the use of Assamese as primary administrative language along with with certain other tribal languages in official works, as proposed by the government to be strictly implemented from April 14.
Goswami said that Assamese and other mother languages were not state languages but were languages for administrative purpose.
He further said that the three tier cells with proper coordination should from time to time take updates on implementation of this language policy from the government departments.
Speaking on the matter of decreasing enrollment of students in government schools and the ongoing process of closing and merging of schools with low enrollment, the Sabha president said that the government should constitute a high level committee to look into the causes of decline in enrollment and find out ways to deal with it.
He stated that merging was not the solution as there were reports that lack of proper infrastructure was one of the causes for low enrollment.
Dr Goswami said that another decision was to approach the government to make use of the Sabha land in Kohima (one katha) and Dimapur where there were offices and other Sabha entities lying in a defunct state.
He said that the Sabha would request the government to build an Assam House at Dimapur and allotment two storeys above the Assam House to the Sabha to restart its activities.
Another proposed step was to translate the works of Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardeva into Hindi and English to promote his teachings among a broader audience.
The Sabha president said that in consonance with the reforms announced by the Sabha during the five-day 77th biennial conference of the Sabha held at Pathsala in Bajali district, earlier this year, all delegates of today’s meeting were welcomed with packets of books instead of gamosas.
Breaking away from the tradition of customary welcoming with gamosas, a packet of books to all the delegates as a new approach and which was also in sync with the state government declaring 2025 as Year of Books.
It may be mentioned that through this initiative, the government wants to foster book reading habits, especially among youths to develop positivity in life.
He said that the Sabha had approached several government employees’ bodies, and teachers’ bodies which have assured that they would ask their members to buy books.
In a bid to root out fake Sabha branches, the literary body has decided to bring out a book, Sabha Sakha Parichay Grantha, including the Bonafide branches, Goswami said.
Regarding the confusion that arises from time to time on meanings of Assamese words, Goswami said the Sabha is taking steps to deal with it by enabling people to approach it directly for clarifications of meanings.
Goswami also said that another decision was to request the government to train youths of the state for employment at the upcoming Semi- conductor project at Jagiroad and also for the jobs that would result from MoUs signed with big companies at Advantage Assam 2.0.
