Emphasis on mother tongue in new education policy

Emphasis on mother tongue in new education policy

Prem Prakash Upadhyay

Bageshwar, March 19

In the wake of National Education Policy 2020, a two-day national seminar was organized on the subject,” Mother tongue in education- opportunities and challenges” at Bageshwar recently.

More than 48 research papers, articles, were presented by scholars, professors, linguists, intellectuals and teachers from various provinces, universities, educational institutions and research institutes, state educational and research councils of the country. The National Education Policy 2020 has recommended to impart instructions from nursery, kindergarten to class 4th in mother tongue, local dialect or regional language or dialect only. Around 1300 million people in the whole world know, understand and speak Hindi and it  is spoken or understood in 150 countries in the world. This is the reason that Hindi is the largest language in the world today. The demand for Indian language Hindi is being seen in many universities and institutes in the world..

In his address chief guest on the occasion, Professor J.S. Bisht, Vice-Chancellor of Soban Singh Jeena University, Almora, underlined the importance of reading and teaching mother tongue at the primary level.  He said mother tongue has come from  our tradition so one should  get it since the childhood. Professor Ashutosh Kumar, who delivered the keynote address who came from Delhi University, talked about the preservation of culture by propagating the mother tongue. He said that the mother tongue also has its own culture, if the language survives, Sanskrit/culture will also survive. Additional Director from State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) Dehradun said that mother tongue should be the medium of instruction till primary level. He further said that Uttarakhand is the first state in the country which has implemented NEP 2020. The state government has named this campaign as ‘Bal Vatika’, on which SCERT is continuously working. The government has also increased the budget of education to 6 percent of the gross domestic product, so that the lack of funds does not come in the way of achieving the goal of cent per cent literacy.

Dr. Hayat Singh Rawat, editor of ‘Paheru’, magzine talked about including the mother tongue, Dudhboli, Kumaoni, Garhwali, Jaunsari in the eighth schedule of the constitution and giving them language status. Dr. Anil Karki, Assistant Professor, Uttarakhand Open University, emphasized that at the primary level, children are most influenced by their environment and family  anthat’s why teachers in schools should also communicate with children with these local dialect, mother tongue, regional languages. Dr. K. S. Rawat of District Education and Training Institute, a coordinator  pointed out that new NEP 2020 aims to provide more employment oppurtunities in the mother language. Chief Education Officer Chakshupati Awasthi, Principal, Research scholars, teachers, students were  present during the seminar. A book exhibition was also organized by Pithoragarh Aarambh Study Circle Sansthan to develop reading habits among children on the occasion.