At a time when YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has drawn up ambitious plan to introduce English medium in all the institutions from pre-primary level to under-graduation courses, Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have dampened his spirits.
In a video interaction with chief ministers on the completion of National Education Policy (NEP), the Prime Minister underlined the need to give importance to mother tongue and local languages in the educational institutions, including higher institutions.
He announced introduction of teaching in local languages in select engineering colleges from this year.
“As many as 14 engineering colleges in eight states are going to start studies in five Indian languages -- Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Bangla,” Modi said.
Stating that teaching higher education in regional languages will benefit those from economically disadvantaged families, Modi said there is a translation tool developed to translate technical education into 11 regional languages.
The Prime Minister said that mother tongue-based instruction n the area of school education is also being developed as part of the National Education Policy, on which teachers, principals and policymakers of the country have worked very hard.
Modi’s announcement is certainly a disappointment for Jagan, who is of firm view that the students would be able to compete globally only if they study in English medium.
He has already announced that all the undergraduate colleges should take up education only in English medium.
It would be interesting to see how Jagan will react to this decision of the Narendra Modi government.
