Textbooks in regional languages in next 3 years: Centre

In the next three years, all major higher educational institutes and schools will have to make available learning material in Indian languages, the Centre announced on Friday.

As per the government’s direction, schools and higher education regulators like UGC, AICTE, NCERT, NIOS, IGNOU and heads of major educational institutions like IITs, central universities, and NITs will have to make study material available in Indian languages for all courses in the next three years.

As per the Centre’s direction, school and higher education textbooks will be printed in all regional languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. The decision is in line with National Education Policy 2020’s major recommendation that envisions all educational institutions to provide learning opportunities in vernacular languages. The NEP 2020 states that studying in mother tongue can provide students “natural space to think innovatively without any language barrier”.

“The



NEP-2020 strongly conveys the idea that multilingual nature of Bharat 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 way for its better contribution to ‘Viksit Bharat’ to make our country as developed nation by 2047,” a statement from the education ministry said.

To facilitate regional language learning, the government has been translating and uploading course books on the eKumbh portal.

The official statement further stated that books in the discipline of law, medicine, engineering, skill-related course material and other undergraduate and postgraduate books have also been uploaded. For school students, learning material has been provided on DIKSHA portal in more than 30 regional languages.

Major entrance exams such as JEE, NEET and CUET are also being conducted in 13 different regional languages.