LAHORE: World Punjabi Congress (WPC) Chairman Fakhar Zaman has deplored what he called the criminal negligence of the Punjab government in not encouraging the teaching of Punjabi language at the primary level.

Speaking at a meeting of the WPC executive committee on the eve of the International Mother Language Day, he said the WPC had been demanding that all languages spoken in the country be declared national languages, but regretted that Punjab was the only place in the world where education is not imparted in the mother tongue.

He claimed that the attitude of the Punjab bureaucracy was “anti-Punjabi”, the proof of which was that more than 10,000 MA in Punjabi degree holders were unemployed.

Zaman said the Lahore Declaration issued at a recent National Punjabi Conference was now the agenda of intellectuals, writers, scholars and protagonists of the ‘Punjabi movement’. He said such conferences would be held every month to convey the demands of the WPC.

He said the entire syllabi right from college level to university had to be radically changed to make it conversant with the contemporary sensibility of Punjabi ethos, literature and culture.

Published in Dawn February 21th , 2015

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