A special meeting to discuss the proposed scrapping of GCSE and A’ Level Gujarati by exam boards was convened in Birmingham last Thursday.
Co-ordinator Jayesh Chavda encouraged parents to sign a petition in the hope that decision-makers will consider their concern. The one-hour meeting took place at at Shri Lakshminarayan Temple in Tyseley, where Gujarati classes run every Friday. Speakers included Britain’s most prominent and veteran Gujarati head-teacher Ramanbhai Narottam Parmar, teachers Gopalbhai Champaneri and Saryuben Patel, poet and ardent community activist Prafulbhai Amin.
Also, our senior news editor Dhiren Katwa, a former Sparkhill Gujarati School student, urged parents to speak Gujarati at home and pledged to support the campaign. Some current teachers, most of them volunteers, have been with Sparkhill Gujarati School for over three decades. Worldwide, there are around 65 million speakers of Gujarati. In England, according to the 2011 Census, there are 213,000 speakers of Gujarati. For more information contact Ramanbhai Parmar on 0121 474 4906.
