(a) whether the Government is planning to encourage Indian Languages in
education under the New Education Policy;
(b) if so, the details thereof;
(c) the steps taken under the policy to rule out imposition of languages and
medium of instructions in schools; and
(d) the details of steps undertaken/to be undertaken to facilitate the challenges
faced by migrant children due to the said policy?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
(DR. SUBHAS SARKAR)
(a) to (d) : Yes Sir. The policy of the Government of India is to promote all
Indian Languages and several steps taken in this regard. There are separate
organisations for development and promotion of Hindi, Urdu, Sindhi and Sanskrit
languages. Sanskrit Language is promoted through three Central Universities
viz, Central Sanskrit University, New Delhi, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri National
Sanskrit University, New Delhi and National Sanskrit University, Tirupati. Hindi is
promoted by Kendriya Hindi Sansthan (KHS) Agra, Central Hindi Directorate
(CHD), New Delhi and Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology
(CSTT), New Delhi. Sindhi is promoted through National Council for Promotion of
Sindhi Language (NCPSL),
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New Delhi and Urdu is promoted through National Council for Promotion of Urdu
Language (NCPUL), New Delhi. Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL),
Mysore works for the promotion of all Indian languages including
Scheduled/Non-Scheduled and Classical languages namely Kannada, Telugu,
Malayalam and Odia. Development and promotion of Classical Tamil is done by
Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT), Chennai.
National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 provides, wherever possible, for
medium of instruction to be in the home language/ mother tongue/ local
language upto at least class 5 and preferably upto class 8. The policy also
provides for making available high quality text books in home language/ mother
tongue and encouraging teachers to use bilingual approach while teaching. In
addition to this, it provides for more Higher Educational Institutions (HEI) and
more programmes in Higher Education to use the mother tongue/local language
as a medium of instruction and/or offer programmes bilingually. All India
Council for Technical education (AICTE) has issued guidelines permitting
technical education institutions to offer their courses in local languages also. So
far 19 institutions from 10 states have started offering such courses. AICTE has
developed a tool called AICTE Automation Artificial Intelligence Tool to translate
English language online courses into 11 Indian languages. Translation of
reference material for Engineering courses are made available in Regional
languages on SWAYAM MOOCS portal. Course material including text books and
teaching resources for Grades 1-12 are available on DIKSHA portal of the
Government in 33 Indian languages and Indian Sign language. JEE and NEET
exams are conducted in 13 Indian languages.
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