NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday announced that in a first, 14 engineering colleges in India, have started the technical course in five regional languages, which will particularly help the marginalised sections of the society.
"We have also developed a tool to translate engineering courses in 11 regional languages. I congratulate students starting their education in regional languages,” he said at an event to mark one year of the National Education Policy. “This will especially help the poor, needy, dalits and other backward classes.
Authorities in the technical education regulator, All India Council for Technical Education, explained that while 60 additional seats have been approved in 14 institutions for starting the B Tech programme in five languages, the plan was to introduce the course in 12 regional languages in a phase-wise manner.
The languages in which the B Tech course is being launched now include Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil and Bengali and the institutions are spread across eight states.
"The engineering institutions which are interested in starting engineering courses in other regional languages within the existing seats are also being allowed to do that from the current academic session," MP Poonia, vice chairman of the AICTE told The New Indian Express.
Meanwhile, at the event organised by the Union education ministry, the PM also launched Vidya Pravesh, a three-month play-based school preparation module for grade 1 students, apart from SAFAL (Structured Assessment For Analyzing Learning Levels), a competency-based assessment framework for grades 3, 5 and 8 in CBSE schools.
He also launched the academic bank of credit that will provide multiple entry and exit options for students in higher education and guidelines for internationalization of higher education.
The other initiatives that were launched as part of the NEP also included Indian sign language as a subject at secondary level; NISHTHA 2.0, an integrated programme of teacher training designed by NCERT and a website dedicated to artificial intelligence.
The event also witnessed the launch of National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR) and National Education Technology Forum (NETF).