After making Telugu a compulsory language paper in all the schools in Telangana since 2018, the Telangana government has now sent a letter to all the CBSE, ICSE and IB schools to ensure that their 10th class students mandatorily appear for Telugu in the Board exams as Second Language paper or else they may lose recognition.
Though the order was sent to these schools now given that their 10th class students have to appear for the Board exam, the government had directed them to make Telugu compulsory in 2018 itself. As per those directions, these schools had to teach Telugu as a second language paper even for non-Telugu students and a special book was designed for the non-Telugu speaking. So the Telugu language books are different for Telugu in the Government sector and in schools affiliated to CBSE, ICSE and IB.
The idea of making the language compulsory was born at the World Telugu Conference in 2017 where the Chief Minister, K. Chandrashekhar Rao announced that those studying in Telangana, irrespective of their school affiliation, must study Telugu as one of the languages. The Telangana (Compulsory Teaching and Learning of Telugu in Schools) Act 2018 was thus brought to introduce Telugu in a phased manner from 2018-19 to protect and preserve Telugu language and literature.
