Schools told to familiarise students with 22 languages

Sanjeev Singh Bariana
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, November 23

Students of all schools are now expected to recite five sentences of a new Indian language each day in their morning assembly and remember them.

A circular in this regard has made mention of familiarising students with words of very basic use in all 22 languages listed in the Schedule VIII of the Constitution of India.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), in a letter to the Education Secretaries of all states, the chairperson of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Commissioner of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghathan, has asked them to teach five sentences of Assamese on day 1, five of Bengali on day 2 and similarly five each of the remaining Indian languages on the following days.

The initiative, aimed at extending basic courtesy and communication, has also been forwarded by the ministry as part of the ‘Bharat Sangam’ drive, celebrating linguistic diversity of the country.

For the drive, schools will be expected to ask a teacher, parent, government servant or a person from the general public, who is familiar with the specific language, to come to the morning assembly and recite the lines. The programme is scheduled to be carried out from November 20 till December 21.

Confirming the development, Krishan Kumar, Secretary (School Education), said “We have directed the schools to carry out the exercise. In a slight difference from the date-bound order, we are asking the schools to schedule their exercise according to their convenience. They can take two months or even more to implement the intended message in the exercise.”

The MHRD communication said it will recognise and award the best schools, blocks, districts and states on basis of the uploaded or submitted photographs and videos for promotion of the linguistic exercise.

Schools are expected to encourage senior students to make posters on the sentences they are taught and try to use them publically. The exercise has made a special mention of the participation from teachers in conversing with students using the language chosen for the day. Schools have been asked to plan out special activities to promote as many languages as possible.