Bhasha Sangam Program To Provide Multilingual Exposure To Students In Indian Languages

Source : www.pib.nic.in Date : 2018-12-17

OPINION Relevant for: Health, Education & Human Resources

Topic: Education and related issues

Ministry of Human Resource Development BHASHA SANGAM Program to provide multilingual exposure to students in Indian Languages

Posted On: 17 DEC 2018 5:41PM by PIB Delhi

The Department of School Education & Literacy has initiated Bhasha Sangam – A Celebration of Linguistic Diversity which marks the appreciation of the unique symphony of languages of our country, from 20th November to 21st December, 2018. In order to celebrate the unique characteristic of our country, Bhasha Sangam provides an opportunity to schools and educational institution (BIETS, DIETs, CTEs/IASEs, SCERTs, SIEs, School Boards, Directorates of School Education, etc.) to provide multilingual exposure to students in Indian Languages. The objective is to familiarize every child with simple dialogues in all the 22 languages under Schedule VIII of the Constitution of India, taking up one language on each working day, to enhance linguistic tolerance and promote national integration.

The initiative has been widely received and accepted by States and UTs in very positive manner and schools are introducing five simple and commonly used sentences as per their convenience without any additional load on school students. Also, more than 55,000 videos of such experiences have been shared by the schools. There are 77,510 views of these videos on YouTube and 97,83,762 impressions on Twitter.

Section 29(2)(F) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 states that “medium of instruction shall, as far as practicable, be in child’s mother tongue”. The National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2005 emphasises the importance of imparting primary education in the mother tongue of the child. Since education is in the Concurrent List, States have the liberty to decide the medium of instruction in schools. The NCF also states that the ‘Three Language Formula’ is an attempt to address the challenges and opportunities of the linguistic situation in India. As per the ‘Three Language Formula’ the first language to be studied, must be the mother tongue or the regional language. In non-Hindi – speaking States, children learn Hindi. In the case of Hindi speaking States, children learn a language not spoken in their area. Sanskrit may also be studied as a modern Indian language in addition to these languages.

The Bhasha Sangam initiative under the ‘Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat’ aims to make the students aware about the unique cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity of our country.

This information was given by the Minister of State (HRD), Dr. Satya Pal Singh today in a written reply to a Lok Sabha question.