New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Education today directed all school and higher education regulators to make study material available digitally for all courses in Indian languages included in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution, in the next three years.
These education regulators include the University Grant Commission (UGC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and heads of Institutes of National Importance like Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Central Universities and National Institutes of Technology.
The Ministry also asked UGC, AICTE and the Department of School Education to take up the issue concerning state schools and universities.
The above directions emerged from the recommendations of the National Education Policy – 2020 (NEP-2020) 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.
“Studying in one’s own language can provide a student the natural space to think innovatively without any language barrier,” the Ministry stated.
The NEP-2020 “strongly conveys the idea” that the multilingual nature of India is its huge asset and strength which needs to be utilized efficiently for the socio-cultural, economic and educational development of the Nation.
“Content creation in local languages will boost this multilingual asset and pave the way for its better contribution to ‘Viksit Bharat’ to make our country a developed nation by 2047,” the Ministry said.
It informed that the Government had been working in this direction during the past two years, with the translation of Engineering, Medical, Law, Undergraduate, Post Graduate and Skill books being done through the Anuvadini AI-based App. These books are available on the ekumbh portal.
In the school education ecosystem also study material is available in multiple Indian languages including over 30 languages on the Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) portal. Competitive exams like JEE, NEET, CUET are also being held in 13 Indian languages.
– global bihari bureau
