Sanskrit to be taught in Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas too

NEW DELHI: Central government run Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya are set to offer Sanskrit as one of the third language options to its students. The move comes days after Kendriya Vidyalaya schools, also run by the Centre, replaced German as third language with Sanskrit. The academic advisory committee of the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) Samiti in its last meeting decided to add Sanskrit to its already long list of third language choices.

JNV officials said Sanskrit will not be compulsory but one of the options. The move would require approval of the executive committee—the highest decision-making body of the NVS headed by Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani—before it can be implemented from the next academic session. The executive committee will meet after the parliament’s winter session.

Like Kendriya Vidyalaya schools, which are meant for children of central government employees, JNVs are a system of alternate residential schools for gifted students, especially from rural parts of the country. There are about 596 JNVs across the country with classes from VI to XII.

All schools are affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education. NVS schools currently offer a choice among 17 regional languages as the third language subject, which includes Urdu, Marathi and Kannada. NVS officials declined comment when asked if the move was at the behest of the government.

Incidentally, Sanskrit Shiksha Sangathan, which dragged KV schools to court prompting the government to drop German for Sanskrit as the third language, has said that it will target private schools and JNVs next for not offering Sanskrit as a subject to students. “JNVs have been offering Urdu but not Sanskrit. There is no reasonable explanation for why they are not doing so.

We’ll wait and watch what the government does and if they don’t get JNVs to offer Sanskrit, we’ll take them to court as well,” DK Jha, head of Sanskrit Shiksha Sangathan, told ET.