Tapping technology for multilingual learning

News: Mother tongue represents an individual or a community’s cultural identity. Thousands of different languages are spoken in India, making India’s cultural diversity unique in the world. But this uniqueness is vanishing in present times.

What is the reason behind declaration of International Mother Language Day?

Languages are the key bridges that ensure cultural and civilizational continuity, Globalisation and Westernisation have impacted the growth and survival of many of these languages. According to the UN agency, at least 43% of the estimated 6,000 languages spoken in the world are endangered. To preserve the decline of many languages, UNESCO demarcated February 21 as International Mother Language Day in 1999.

How International Mother Language Day 2022 theme is of great significance?

The theme of 2022 is “Using Technology for Multilingual Learning: Challenges and Opportunities”. The central idea of the theme is to discuss the role of technology to support and enrich the teaching-learning experience on a multi-lingual level. It also aims at achieving a qualitative, equitable, and inclusive educational experience. Director-General of UNESCO also highlights the importance of technology as it can provide new tools for protecting linguistic diversity.

Importance of technology also came to light during the pandemic times when the education system switched its mode from physical to online.

Why multi-lingual approach is required in Indian classrooms?

The use of mother tongue in teaching is bound to create a positive impact on learning outcomes, and the development of the cognitive faculties of students. There is an urgent need to create and improve scientific and technical terminology in Indian languages. It would help transform the educational experience by making existing knowledge systems accessible to learners.

Renowned physicist, Sir C.V. Raman, also observed the need for teaching in our mother tongue. He observed that India has been able to create a large English-based education system in fields like medicine and engineering but excludes a vast majority of learners from accessing higher education.

In the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) survey 2020 which involves over 83,000 students, nearly 44% of students voted in favor of studying engineering in their mother tongue, highlighting a critical need in technical education. So, National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, is a step in this direction

What steps did the government introduce in promoting regional languages? 

– AICTE and IIT Madras collaborated in translating some courses on the central government’s e-learning platform SWAYAM into eight regional languages such as Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, and Gujarati.

– AICTE also permitted B. Tech programmes in 11 native languages, in tune with the NEP.

What is the way forward?

India is home to 19,500 languages or dialects, of which 121 languages are spoken by 10,000 or more people in our country. Indians should collectively take the responsibility to revive and revitalize the 196 Indian languages which fall under the “endangered” category.

Government should also learn from EU countries and Asian powers and adopt policies to promote education in mother tongue and local languages.

Source: This post s based on the article “Tapping technology for multilingual learning” published in The Hindu on 21st February 2022.