On January 19, Friday, the Ministry of Education said that study material for all courses in school and higher education will be made available digitally in Indian languages. Adding more, the ministry said that the decision has been taken to provide students with the opportunity to study in their language, as stated in a report by IANS.
Further, it said that study material will be provided in all languages included in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution. “The government has directed all school and higher education regulators like UGC (University Grants Commission), AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education), NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training), NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling), IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University) and heads of Institute of National Importance (INIs) like IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology), CUs (Central Universities) and NITs (National Institute of Technology) to make study material in Indian languages available for all courses in the next three years,” the ministry said.
Moreover, it said that UGC, AICTE and the Department of School Education have also been asked to take up the issue of state schools and universities. Briefing about the aim behind this move, the ministry said that the direction has been given following the recommendations of the National Education Policy (NEP) for promoting multilingualism in education at every level, so that students get the opportunity to study in their language, and can have better learning outcomes.
NEP 2020
“Studying in one’s own language can provide a student with the natural space to think innovatively without any language barrier. The NEP-2020 strongly conveys the idea that the multilingual nature of Bharat is its huge asset and strength which needs to be utilised efficiently for the socio-cultural, economic and educational development of the nation,” the ministry said.
Further, it added that the content creation in local languages will boost this multilingual asset and pave the way for its better contribution to Viksit Bharat to help our country become a developed nation by 2047. In this regard, the ministry said that the government has already been working in this direction during the past two years, with a translation of Engineering, Medical, Law, UG (undergraduate), PG (uostgraduate) and skill books being done through the Anuvadini AI-based App.
“These books are available on the Ekumbh portal,” the ministry said by adding that in the school education ecosystem, the study material is available in multiple Indian languages including over 30 languages on DIKSHA. “Competitive exams like JEE (Joint Entrance Exam), NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) and CUET (Common University Entrance Test) are being held in 13 Indian languages,” the ministry said, as reported by IANS.
