(a) the number of recognized schools in the country offering language education options besides Hindi, English, and the official State language(s), the details thereof, State-wise;
(b) the list of languages to be defined as Indian languages, as per the National Education Policy 2020; and
(c) the details of the criteria according to which languages are determined to be “Indian” in the NEP 2020?
MINISTER OF EDUCATION
(SHRI RAMESH POKHRIYAL ‘NISHANK’)
(a) Education is a subject in the Concurrent List of the Constitution of India and the majority of schools are under the jurisdiction of the State Governments, it is for the respective State Government to decide the languages to be taught in their schools.The requisite data is neither collected nor maintained centrally.
(b) & (c) National Education Policy (NEP),2020 addresses language holistically taking into consideration all the Indian languagesrecognisedin the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, namely, Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urduandalso other languages spoken by any group in the country. One of the principles of the NEP, 2020 is ‘promoting multilingualism and the power of language’ in teaching and learning. The Central and State Governments are to encourage all regional languages around the country, and, in particular, all the languages mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India.
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