Education in Regional Language
The education in regional languages is a right decision to implement. The language is the treasure and learning in ones mother tongue adds exponential acceleration to the whole learning process. — Alok Singh
Language has evolved since thousands of years and is still evolving. The language of humans, the language of birds and animals and it do not stop there only. Today we are in the civilization of machine level language. The technology is innovating machine level language which two or more different machines can communicate and understand. The Internet of things, automation and robotics has to work hard to innovate and customised languages to make machines work. The language is still evolving for machines. There is a strong need to preserve languages. It has been proved that the best machine level language can be written in Sanskrit. Sanskrit is such a beautiful language that if the positions of the words in a sentence are changed the meaning of the sentence do not changes.
The education in regional languages is a right decision to implement. The language is the treasure and learning in ones mother tongue adds exponential acceleration to the whole learning process. The government has introduced education of medical, engineering, legal and other faculties in regional languages. The most talked about faculty is of medical science where the students of medical science have to study the course only in English language and doctors prescribe in English language while the majority of the patients as high as ninety percent do not understand English.
The translation technology is handy today. The tools of Google translate is widely used by many people in day to day life. The engagement of this technology in translating the knowledge of foreign language in the regional language is effortless today. The translation of knowledge and information has been happening since ages before the birth of Google translate like tools.
Many politics has happened over language. The reorganisation of the states on the basis of language and the formation of separate country of Bangladesh are strong arguments that the language dominates over all the other factors of politics. The politics is usually carried on the basis of caste, class, region, religion, race, gender and language. The language has emerged as the most uniting and the most dividing force. It was the language which divided the East Pakistan from the West Pakistan, which are current day Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively. It is the language which among other reasons has provoked Russia to claim the territories of Ukraine. It is the common language culture of Kashmir which is motivating the people of Pakistan occupied Kashmir to look with hope to the people of the Kashmir of our side. It is the Tamil language which is an important reason for the unresolved issue of Sri Lanka with LTTE and our role is expected because we have more Tamil speaking people than those in Sri Lanka.
The motivation to our students to study in regional languages is many. Since decades the education in school are conducted in the regional languages. The students who study in their regional language medium school learn more than those who study in foreign language medium schools. Despite that the success in terms of job and securing admission in colleges of those students who go to English medium school are higher. This problem needs to be resolved.
The students educated in the regional language medium schools face huge challenge to compete with students who are educated in the English medium schools in those examinations which are conducted in English Language. Though the question papers for competitive examinations are offered in regional languages also but once the admission is taken the course is conducted in the English Language. It is good to see that the things are changing. The success of any school is measured in terms of how good English the students speak. The poor students are at disadvantage as majority of the government schools conduct education in regional language. From admission process to Education process, the regional languages are getting their due credit. The rural youth are delighted with this policy of the union government.
The union government has done a lot to promote the regional language. In the year 2021 the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti was constituted to promote regional languages in the education sector. It’s not about promoting Hindi as the official language of the union of India but to promote all the regional languages of the country. Padmashree Chamu Krishna Shastry has devoted his life to the cause of Sanskrit and he is currently the chairman of Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti. According to Shastri Ji : There is need to create ‘language harmony’, to develop a conducive environment for learning more and more Indian languages apart from mastering one’s own mother tongue, and an attitude and aptitude to love and enjoy the ‘neighbouring language’.
The regional language educated students had received a big impetus to excel in the government jobs and in the competitive examinations which were earlier conducted in English language only. The government has announced that the all India competitive examinations for admission to various courses like engineering, medical science, and Law at undergraduate level or at postgraduate level will be conducted in the twelve regional languages apart from the English language.
The National testing Agency which conducts National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test for admission in medical colleges has offered the students to choose any language among English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu to compete at the all India level.
The Union Home Minister said that the government’s commitment to promote regional language in education is a big gift to youth in the years of celebrating Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsava. The medical education of MBBS in Hindi has already been started in one medical college in the state of Madhya Pradesh. These commitments of the union government are not just theoretical speeches but the practical implementation, and it has also been executed. Once successful and accepted the replication is easier to spread. The scale will be natural to achieve. There are so many courses and so many languages. The poor students won’t be deprived of their time. They will spend time to learn knowledge rather than spend time to struggle to learn translation to get a job.
(Alok Singh is a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Management Indore, a freelancer academician, and associated with AGET Business School, Jhajjar.)
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