Students at government schools across the country will be introduced to 22 Indian languages in a span of one month under a new project initiated by the Ministry for Human Resource Development (MHRD).
The Bhasha Sangam programme, under the 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat' project of the MHRD, will be followed in schools from November 20 to December 21, 2018, during which schoolchildren will be introduced to all 22 India languages of Schedule VIII of the Constitution.
The ministry has released a schedule marking dates for each language. As part of the programme, several students have already been introduced to Assamese and Bengali on November 20 and 22, respectively. Next on the schedule is Bodo on November 26, and Dogri on November 27. Kannada is scheduled for introduction on November 30.
During the Bhasha Sangam programme, the school authorities have to introduce students to five sentences of the language fixed for that particular day or date by reading out the sentences in the morning assembly and asking the students to repeat them. "
We need to read out five simple short commonly-used sentences, for eg, what is your name, hello, how are you, etc. In case there are any students who know that particular language we can make them read out the sentences in the morning assembly," said a teacher from a government school in Bengaluru.
According to the notification issued by MHRD, this programme aims to enhance linguistic the students' tolerance and respect and promote national integration. "It may be noted that the translations in Roman and Devanagari scripts have been simplified for use by children in the booklet supplied and the details uploaded on the website.
In case any school misses a language on any day, then it should continue and cover the missing language at the end," the notification says. A digital book with audio recordings of the sentences is available on the websites http://epathshala.gov.in/ and the MHRD website http://mhrd.gov.in/bhashasangam so that students can hear the correct pronunciations.
The Ministry has also requested the State and UT Departments of School Education, and other block and district-level officers to upload photos and videos of activities at their level according to the procedure mentioned on the website, and are required to submit these directly to the Department of School Education and Literacy.
