HINDU STUDIES IN ENGLISH

Mr P. Selvadurai asked the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education why Hindu Studies, which will be one of the subjects offered under the Religious Knowledge Courses proposed for Secondary Ill and Secondary IV students, will be offered only in English and not in Tamil as well.

Dr Tay Eng Soon (for the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education): Mr Speaker, Sir, I am replying to this question on behalf of the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education.

When Hindu Studies is made available as one of the Religious Knowledge subjects in 1984, it will be taught in English. At a later stage, if there is sufficient demand from students and parents, it can also be offered as an option in Tamil.

Our records show that out of 4,330 Indian students in Secondary 3 and Secondary 4 in 1982, less than half or only 46% are taking Tamil as a second language. Most of the rest are taking Malay as a second language, On the other hand, all Indian students study English. The teaching of Hindu Studies in English should therefore enable more Indian students, many of whom are not Tamil speaking, to take up the subject.

The importance of English is well recognized. The use of English for teaching of Hindu Studies should help the students to improve their English. In contrast, the second language poses few problems for the majority of students and does not need as much encouragement as English. In the case of Tamil as a second language, 87.3% passed it at 'O' level in 1981 compared with 40% for English.

As the Hindu Studies course will be a new and an untried one, the Hindu Advisory Board, with whom we are in close consultation, has agreed that the course should first be offered in English. They have further cautioned that the new syllabus as well as the textbooks should be thoroughly tested in the schools. Until the teething problems of the new textbooks are sorted out, the Hindu Advisory Board feels that it would be premature to offer the course as an option in Tamil.

They have also pointed out that mainstream Hindu thought in India today is studied and taught in English at major Hindu centres of learning rather than in any of the Indian languages. Most of the great Indian scholar-thinkers who led the modern Hindu renaissance were men like R. Tagore, Aurobindo Gosh, M. K. Gandhi, S. Radhakrishnan and Swami Vivekananda. Their major works were in English. The study of Hindu Studies in English would give the students access to these great works.

Finally, Tamil parents should not worry that their children will lose touch with the Tamil language by studying Hindu Studies in English, nor should they worry that their children will become unfamiliar with Hindu literature in the Tamil language. Tamil, as a second language which their children will study for 10 years from Primary 1 to Secondary 4, includes many passages and poems taken from the Hindu classics. Approximately 60% of the materials studied in the TL2 course consists of moral education passages and religious poems taken from Hindu literature. Children who take TL2 are therefore well exposed to Tamil Hindu literature.