The Union Education Ministry has emphasised the need to promote technology in Bharatiya bhasha (regional languages), including in their teaching, training, examination and translating educational materials.
On the first day of a two-day summit on Indian languages in New Delhi on Saturday, organised by the Ministry, directions were given to facilitate a “seamless transition” from the present education ecosystem to one rooted in the country’s languages.
The National Education Policy (NEP) of the Centre envisages to promote education in regional languages. Addressing the summit, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said scholars from across the globe have come to India for centuries to understand the Indian knowledge. He said the fusion of Indian languages and technology will open doors to limitless possibilities for the talent pool of the country. “Through technology, contextualisation of the Indian knowledge system will be possible,” he said.
Union School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar said the NEP has formally included foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) for the first time. “Refinement of thought comes from the development of language, and the NEP has recognised it and included it in its policies that must be taken to the students,” he said, and urged the students to use technologies, such as regenerative AI, to surpass the language barriers.
The summit, Bharatiya Bhasha Utsav, will discuss themes such as technology for Bharatiya languages, technology in Bharatiya languages, and technology through Bharatiya languages. “The role of technology in the teaching-learning process of Bharatiya languages, the use of machine learning, language modelling for speech recognition, unicode standardisation for Bharatiya language scripts, and other important aspects were also discussed in detail during these sessions,” a government release said.
