The education ministry has set up a task force on Wednesday for preparing a roadmap on imparting technical education, including engineering courses, in mother tongue, according to Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’.

The decision was taken by the minister at a high-level meeting chaired by him.

“The meeting today is a step in the direction towards achieving the prime minister’s vision that students may pursue professional courses such as medicine, engineering and law in their mother tongue. No language will be imposed on any student but enabling provisions should be made so that bright students are not deprived of technical education due to lack of knowledge of the English language,” Nishank said.

“A task force for preparing a roadmap on imparting technical education in mother tongue was formed today. The task force set up under the chairmanship of Secretary, Higher Education will take into consideration the suggestions made by various stakeholders and will submit a report in a month,” he said.

The meeting was graced by higher education secretary Amit Khare; IIT directors, academicians and senior officials of the ministry. The agenda was to discuss and deliberate on implementation of the new National Education Policy (NEP).

At a review meeting chaired by Nishank last week, it was decided the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) will start offering engineering courses in mother tongue from next academic year. 

“A seminal decision was made to start technical education, especially engineering courses, imparting education in mother tongue (and this) will be opened from next academic year. A few IITs and NITs are being shortlisted for the same,” a ministry spokesperson had said.

Source: PTI

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