Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday said that India’s fascination with the English language had prevented 95 % of the country’s talent from contributing to its progress. He was speaking at a programme on the New Education Policy 2020 in Bhopal.
“How do you fault someone who did not have access to an English medium school in childhood? Due to our fascination with English, we are only using 5 % of our talent in developing the country because even today, 95% of the children study in their mother tongue. Are they not talented? We have limited the scope of our development,” said Mr. Shah.
Discussing some of the changes that had been brought by the Narendra Modi government to address the issue, Mr. Shah said that today, the JEE and NEET exams were being conducted in 12 Indian languages, the Common University Entrance Test in 13 languages and 20 colleges in 10 States were ready with curriculum for Engineering (up to M. Tech) in languages such as Hindi, Kannada, Bangla and Gujarati.
“The day those studying in local languages get their due, the country will shine like the sun on the world’s horizon because even using 5% of the country’s talent, the country, under [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi, is a leader in every field,” he added.
Mr. Shah claimed that there was absolutely no opposition to NEP 2020 from any quarter, a departure from the trend seen during the announcement of education policies in the past. This, he said, was because intense consultation that preceded the drafting and “everyone finds their views echoed in the policy”.
“The NEP is India’s soul and a declaration of Bharatiyata (Indianness)… The seed that Mr. Modi has sown in the form of this policy, will grow into a huge tree and give shade the whole world in the next few years,” said the Home Minister
Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who also addressed the gathering, shared similar views on the need for teaching in local languages and said that Madhya Pradesh was the first State in the country that would start teaching medical courses in Hindi from the upcoming academic session in one of the medical colleges and even the textbooks for that had been printed.
