The South African government agreed to retain four Indian languages right up to matriculation level in the school curriculum after weeks of protests from persons of Indian origin.
The languages are Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.
The latest development followed a high-level meeting in Pretoria on Wednesday between Education Minister Kader Asmal and representatives of the National Council for Eastern Languages.
The meeting came about as a result of widespread protests from the country's large Indian-origin community over recent moves by the national education department to phase out Indian languages from schools by 2006.
The meeting was held in a congenial and constructive manner and the minister heard our plea to further the teaching of Indian languages to our children, Ram Maha Maharaj, president of the Council told PTI.
He said the minister, whose ancestors were from Gujarat, had assured that the languages would continue to be taught right up to the matriculation level.
Asmal agreed that he would do a rethink on the Gujarati language if there is sufficient demand from Indian students. At present only 39 students have taken up the language.
Within the next three weeks, a delegation of the Council would visit Gauteng province to request the provincial education department to re-introduce the teaching of Indian languages.
Hindi and Tamil were taught in schools in Gauteng, but were dropped from the curriculum after 1994.
"We have a large Indian-origin population in Guateng and every year this is increasing with people moving from KwaZulu-Natal to Johannesburg and Pretoria for employment," Maharaj said.
At present, 76,704 children have registered for Indian language courses at 352 schools in KwaZulu-Natal. Over 600 part-time teachers are engaged in teaching Tamil, Hindi, Urdu, Telugu and Gujarati, he said.
