Efforts to promote regional languages
Recently, efforts are being made to promote regional languages in education.
The Hindi version of the MBBS book has been published in Madhya Pradesh.
- With this, Madhya Pradesh has become the first state in the country to provide medical education in Hindi language.
- Earlier, ten states had accepted regional languages as the medium of instruction for engineering courses.
- National Education Policy 2020 emphasizes on promotion of regional languages in education.
Other initiatives taken to promote regional languages
- All India Council of Technical Education is translating 22 books of Diploma and Under Graduate level into 9 scheduled Indian languages.
- The Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology gives grants for publication of university level books in regional languages.
- ‘Multilingual’ is a software tool. It does real-time translation of lectures in different languages with the help of artificial intelligence etc.
- It has been developed by IIT Bombay. It is funded by the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under the National Language Translation Mission.
Benefits of education in regional languages
- Enrollment in schools improves. Furthermore, improving learning leads to better learning outcomes.
- Cultural roots can be strengthened by increasing proficiency in regional languages. This can also reduce the brain drain.
- This may discourage the use of language in assessing a person’s ability and potential.
- In this way language will be considered only as a medium of expression.
Obstacles in the spread of regional languages
- Indian society is multilingual in nature. On the other hand, the resources required for their promotion will have to be increased. At the same time, the fear of language imposition remains.
- A major problem is the lack of quality teachers to teach professional courses in regional languages.
- There are also placement concerns, as regional languages limit employment opportunities.
Source – The Hindu
