BackGovernment to promote Indian languages in schools
Govt sees move aiding mobility of labour even asschoolsraiseconcerns on manpower needed to execute the initiative
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New Delhi: Moving beyond Hindi, the central government is planning to promote all 22 official Indian languages through schools and colleges across states to make the country mother tongue-friendly.
The human resources development (HRD) ministry says while some foreign languages have made their presence felt in schools and colleges, Indian languages have not been given a similar push on a pan-India basis. The move, which follows a controversy over an abortive bid to remove German language teaching in central government-run schools, will be a course correction, two ministry officials said.
The HRD ministry will inaugurate a national event on languages in Chennai on 21 February, which will launch year-long celebrations to promote and create awareness of the 22 so-called scheduled languages, as well as the mother tongues that do not figure in the Constitution.
“Along with Hindi, we as a central ministry would like other Indian languages to flourish. Inter-state exchange of languages is not happening and educational institutes somehow are not very keen to promote other states’ languages. This issue needs to be addressed quickly. Why can’t a school in a Hindi-belt state promote, for example, Tamil, Telugu or Odia?" asked the official.
The ministry believes learning and promoting inter-state languages will have a bigger role—facilitating mobility of labour. “India is a consumption story and companies, of late, have been making a rural push to improve revenue. Going forward, job creation will happen more in rural India, but the language of transaction or business communication there will remain the local language," said the first official.
Officials believe local language skills—rather than knowledge of English or a foreign language—are essential for sales and marketing roles in firms that want to benefit from the growth in rural consumption.
Consumption in rural India is growing at a faster pace than in cities and towns for the first time in two decades, according to an August 2012 report by credit rating agency Crisil Ltd. It attributed the growth to a rise in household incomes from more non-farm job opportunities as well as government-initiated employment generation schemes.
Between 2009-10 and 2011-12, the additional spending in rural India was ₹ 3.75 trillion, significantly higher than the ₹ 2.99 trillion in urban parts of the country, according to the report, Mint reported on 29 August 2012. Quoting data from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), Crisil said that between 2004-05 and 2009-10, rural construction jobs rose 88%, while the number of people employed in agriculture fell from 249 million to 229 million.
“If a youngster knows more than one Indian language, his job opportunities will be much better," said the first official.
The second official said that the ministry’s initiative is not to oppose foreign language teaching—aware that the move comes months after the HRD ministry told the Kendriya Vidyalayas or central schools, to teach Sanskrit as the third language instead of German.
Both officials said they are fine with the current practice of offering foreign language courses in schools.
The first official said that the University Grants Commission (UGC) and school boards will issue instructions on the matter. The official said that apart from mobility of labour, there are six other purposes behind the initiative to promote Indian languages—speaking, using it as a medium of administration, making Indian languages contemporary, continuous evolution of new words, adoption of technology and patronage.
The official said that on 21 February, the ministry will unveil 1,008 literature books in the 22 official languages in Chennai as part of the function, and that HRD minister Smriti Irani may address the gathering in as many as seven to eight languages to drive home the seriousness of the government plans.
Lalatendu M., a school teacher in Hyderabad, said many schools do not have the manpower needed to execute such an initiative.
“Without appointing teachers and providing other infrastructure-related facilities, if the government moves ahead with the scheme, then, like many other plans, it may stay only on paper," he said.
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