Multilingual education is based on the increasing use of one’s mother tongue, a key component of inclusion in education. Analyse (200 Words)
Refer - The Hindu
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 2 years
KEY POINTS
· For centuries, India has been home to hundreds of languages and thousands of dialects, making its linguistic and cultural diversity the most unique in the world.
· According to the UN agency, at least 43% of the estimated 6,000 languages spoken in the world are endangered an alarming figure indeed.
· It would be pertinent to note that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is a visionary document which encourages the use of mother tongue as the medium of instruction till at least Class five but preferably till Class eight and beyond.
· The collaboration between the AICTE and IIT Madras to translate some courses on the central government’s e-learning platform, Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) into eight regional languages such as Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam and Gujarati, is commendable.
· According to the Language Census, whose findings were widely reported in 2018, India is home to 19,500 languages or dialects, of which 121 languages are spoken by 10,000 or more people in our country.
· It is our collective responsibility to revive and revitalise the 196 Indian languages which fall under the “endangered” category.
