The directorate of higher education has sent a notice to all educational institutes directing that all the advertisements related to admission procedure should be published in Marathi too.

Incidentally, Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena (BVS), the student unit of Shiv Sena had made a demand and wrote to the director of higher education a fortnight ago.

When contacted, R V Kirdak, director of higher education, said that it does not mean that institutions cannot publish the advertisements in English. “The idea is to ensure that people who don’t know English should also understand the advertisement. There are people in the state who don’t know Marathi. Therefore, we haven’t put any ban on publishing the advertisements in English,” he said.

Ajay Shinde, city unit president of BVS, who had written to the directorate about making educational institutes compulsory to publish advertisements in Marathi, said the government should also take action on the institutes, that fail to abide by this rule. “Marathi is our state language. So the government should make it a compulsion,” he said.

“We have asked the institutes to take cognisance of the notice, but there is no hard and fast action recommended in the notice,” he said.