Rajasthan Plans To Run Christian Institutions

The Rajasthan government is planning to run all educational and charitable institutions operated in the state by the Emmanuel Society, a Christian mission whose head was detained in connection with a controversial book.

The society runs and maintains schools, hospitals and orphanages in the state.

The state government earlier this month had cancelled the registration of the society and arrested its chief Samuel Thomas on charges of distributing the book Haqeeqat, which allegedly insulted Hindu deities and gods.

The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Rajasthan's Social Welfare Minister Madan Dilawar after several of the establishments run by Emmanuel Society complained about lack of basic facilities like water and electricity after cancellation of its registration.

Official sources said the state government has sought legal suggestions to go ahead with its plan of appointing an administrator to look after these establishments.

The Japanese scripts, Hiragana and Katakana, and the pictorial script, Kanji, would be introduced through Roman letters. While students will be taught to write simple Japanese words in the Japanese scripts, this ability is not to be evaluated for Class VI students.

The focus initially will be on teaching the spoken Japanese and to make it easier for students, teachers would use teaching aids including flash cards, pictures and audio materials, board officials said.

Emphasis will be on interactive language teaching, adopting a functional approach to language teaching and learning.

The board is also exploring possibilities of interaction with Japanese school students thorough e-mails, and internet-based video-conferencing.

While assessing the language ability of a student, active class participation, periodical written tests and simple listening comprehension tests may be tried for Class VII and VIII. In the case of Class VI it could be only an oral test.

source(IANS)