Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday said that India’s fascination with the English language had prevented 95 % of the country’s talent from contributing to its progress. He was speaking at a programme on the New Education Policy 2020 in Bhopal.
“How do you fault someone who did not have access to an English medium school in childhood? Due to our fascination with English, we are only using 5 % of our talent in developing the country because even today, 95% of the children study in their mother tongue. Are they not talented? We have limited the scope of our development,” said Mr. Shah.
Discussing some of the changes that had been brought by the Narendra Modi government to address the issue, Mr. Shah said that today, the JEE and NEET exams were being conducted in 12 Indian languages, the Common University Entrance Test in 13 languages and 20 colleges in 10 States were ready with curriculum for Engineering (up to M. Tech) in languages such as Hindi, Kannada, Bangla and Gujarati.
