- No one in his/her right senses would question nor dispute the imperativeness of encouraging mother tongue in a diverse and varied cultural cauldron of a country like India. Divergent traditions, dialects, and ingenious ecosystem marks the entire habitational landscape of the country leaving scores of people to wonder how the nation has adapted to live with such peace and harmony despite glaring differences. Of late, if one language that has gained prominence and traction largely succeeding to bridge the gap is not anyone of our rich regional languages we are blessed with, but a foreign language amazingly essaying the role with wider acceptance. Yes, English fits the bill perfectly.
PC: MAANVI
- Advantage the Indian scientific community gained and enjoys to this day on the back of the information technology revolution enormously helping position us as a preeminent force to reckon with in the Software domain of the world’s technology platform. Guess what is the catalyst that propelled our modern technological leap in the hallowed portals of the IT revolution? Nothing but natural proficiency and command over the English language contributing exponentially to carve out an enviable niche for the software professionals that continues to this day. Such is the impact of the English language propelling us to don a certain leadership role on all matters concerning IT.
- In a measure akin to disrupting the smooth sailing of an apple cart, the National Education Policy’s recommendations for greater use of the local language as a medium of instructions would be churning out in the coming days having specific ramifications on the technological institutions. An announcement made offering technical education in regional languages in the next academic session would see selected engineering institutions including prestigious IITs and NITs adopting local lingua, albeit with a surfeit of challenges staring.
PC: India Education Diary Bureau Admin
- Union Education Minister’s widespread outreach emphasizing the need to strengthen and save the 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule of our Constitution by pursuing through re-engineering elite engineering institutions raises pertinent questions about its real worth deserving no less than a thorough relook on the move. Note that the government informed Parliament last year about a shortage of 3, 709 faculty members against a sanctioned strength of 9,718 across the 23 IITs.
- Come to think of it, where almost all the top engineering education has adopted English as the medium of teaching and with a huge shortage of sanctioned strength to boot, where will the faculty be found for delivering technical lectures in regional languages? Taking umbrage by stressing how excellent technical education is offered in Chinese and German in those countries conveniently misses the key point. The ecosystem prevalent there as well as history is geared in the same direction, whereas here, we are trying to buck that well-established trend.
PC: MIT
- Come to think of it, local language textbooks and translations are not even available for traditional engineering courses, forget about the most happening subject like Artificial Intelligence. Hence, any moves to disturb time tested mechanism in elite engineering institutions should be dropped. It is also advised to not tamper with the autonomous nature of the IITs, a prerequisite for excellence. Allow these institutions to choose in their preferred language, English.
