Education ministry launches primers on 52 languages, initiatives to boost teacher training, mentoring

NEW DELHI: Now students will be able to learn languages apart from the 22 scheduled languages, as the Central Institute of Indian languages (CIIL) Mysuru, in collaboration with National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), has developed primers for 52 Indian languages of 17 states.

On Saturday, the ministry of education launched the primers with NCERT and made a host of other announcements related to teacher training, mentoring, and teaching professional standards.

To strengthen teacher training, the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET) will be developed into centres of excellence. The National Council for Teachers Education (NCTE), the apex body for regulating teacher education, also launched the National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) and the National Mission for Mentoring (NMM).

The education ministry also announced that the union government is working on providing 200 channels on OTT platforms and YouTube as part of the PM e-Vidya initiative. Right now, it is being provided via DTH services and in different languages.

Primers in 52 Indian languages

Shailendra Mohan, chairperson of CIIL, said, “ Under the guidance of the central government, CIIL in collaboration with NCERT has developed 'Bhasha Praveshika' (primer) in 52 languages.”

The CIIL, an Indian research and teaching institute, is part of the language bureau of the education ministry.

“The digital and physical editions of the books which are designed are in line with NEP-2020 provisions of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE). These books are bilingual. Now students will not only be able to get knowledge about their mother tongue language but also get to learn about the state’s languages,” added Mohan.

According to the 2011 Census, there are about 121 dialects. A language that has at least 10,000 people speaking it qualifies as a mother tongue.

A senior official at NCERT, explained, “Development of primer will be the first printed book for the learner of the language. It is a step for children to notice language in a formal manner.”

He added, “It was much required for the documentation, preservation and conservation for languages to survive so that the language is transmitted to the next generation.”

Mohan also added that the centre will be working on developing such content for dialects for languages of other states as well.

Anandrao Vishnu Patil joint secretary, school education and literacy said that this project was the, “first in the world”. “No one in the world has ever done it,” he said.

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Teacher training, DIET upgrade

Prachi Pandey, joint secretary of institutions and training, school education and literacy, said, “The project is to strengthen the school education. As part of the budgetary announcement last year the DIETs will have to be developed as centres with state-of-the-art infrastructure following the green norms that are sustainable. We have benchmarked each of the DIETs and identified the infrastructure gaps.”

Allocation will be done in a phased manner up to Rs.15 crore for each DIET to states and UT’s under Samagra Siksha. In the first phase, Rs 923.20 lakhs have been allocated to 125 DIETs in the first phase.

While launching the two documents on mentoring and professional standards (NMM, NPST), NCTE member secretary, Kesang Yangzom Sherpa said, “These documents are in line with the National Education Policy 2020. It will help the in-service and pre-service teachers upgrade themselves,” said Sherpa.

Also read 'Treated as losers’: Teacher recruitment delays make youths wait years for jobs, marriage, independence

PM e-Vidya, Vidya Samiksha Kendra (VSK)

Patil said that the national Vidya Samiksha Kendra is ensuring equitable education for all. “PM eVidya is one of the largest platforms in the world. States have MOU with NCERT and through SCERT it is being run in several languages,” he said. The VSK is aimed at using data to improve learning outcomes. 13 states have already launched VSK.

“Gujarat has taken the lead and they have developed a state-of-the-art VSK. These centres will help to collect micro level data to facilitate scheme implementation. The data collected from 11 schemes such as Diksha, Nipun Bharat, U-Dise Plus, PM Poshan, PM Shri is being analysed with the help of AI,” said Patil.