Roman script row: Joint committee for Kokborok announces statewide agitation
The Joint Movement Committee demanded that both the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the TBSE publish question papers in Roman script
Agartala: The Joint Movement Committee for Kokborok (JMCK), a social organisation in Tripura on Friday said that they would hold a statewide agitation from February 12 on over the Tripura Board of Secondary Education’s (TBSE) decision not allowing tribal students to write the ‘Kokborak’ language board examination papers in the Roman script.
The statement came following a similar announcement made by the Tipra Indigenous Students Federation (TISF), Tripura’s main opposition party TIPRA Motha’s student wing, earlier in the day. The student body is planning an indefinite statewide road and railway blockade from February 12 over the issue.
“The TBSE president asked us to wait till February 10. But we shall wait till February 11 and if no positive thing comes within this time, a statewide movement will begin from February 12,” committee convenor BR Debbarma told the reporters in Agartala. “We demand to allow both the scripts so that the students could write in their choice,” he said.
The Joint Movement Committee demanded that both the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the TBSE publish question papers in Roman script.
Also Read: Kokborok script row: Student body calls for roads, railway blockade from Feb 12
It also demanded that the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and the Directorate of Kokborok and Other Minority Languages publish all Kokborok books in Roman script besides Bengali script.
Debbarma said that last year, Class 12 students in three schools were prevented by the TSSE from writing their Kokborok paper. “When we asked, they (examination centres in-charges) said that they were given instruction from the TBSE office. Why didn’t the TBSE issue notice on it but give only verbal instruction? It is not acceptable,” he said.
The agitation announcement comes hours after TBSE president Dr Dhananjoy Ganchoudhury made a U-turn over allowing Roman script for Kokborok subject.
The TBSE chief earlier in January asked all the examination centre in-charges to allow only Bengali script for writing Kokborok papers in Class 12 and 10 board examinations scheduled to begin from March 1 and 2 due to insufficient qualified evaluators to check answer copies written in Roman script.
His statement invited protests from TIPRA Motha and other different social organisations after which the TBSE chief said that the students would be allowed to write in the script of their preference.
Later, he was instructed by his higher authority to continue the board exam only allowing Bengali script till the CBSE gave any reply on it.
