Interaction in local dialect on bag-free days

The Directorate of School Education has issued directions that teachers will interact with students in a local dialect for half an hour on bag-free days. “The directions have been issued to promote and preserve our local dialects. I’ve been observing that the use of local dialect is gradually declining, especially among schoolchildren. So, it’s an attempt to keep children rooted to their local language and culture,” said Education Minister Rohit Thakur.

The students have a bag-free day on the last Saturday of the month. On this day, students were engaged in various activities for their holistic development, he said.

The minister said that the direction were in sync with the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which lays a lot of stress on the use of local and regional languages as the medium of instruction, especially in early education. “Interaction in local dialect will also enhance communication and understanding between teachers and students, especially in the case of those students who primarily speak local dialect at home,” he added.

The minister said that many surveys had pointed out that local dialects and languages were disappearing rapidly, and hence there was a need for conscious efforts to preserve these. “Our problem is that we don’t have a script for 'pahari' unlike many other regional languages. Nevertheless, the dialects are used widely. We just need to preserve and popularise these among children. That’s what we are trying to do through this initiative,” added Rohit.