National Education Policy 2020 Champions Linguistic Diversity and Technology Integration
National Education Policy 2020 places a strong emphasis on integrating technology with education, particularly in preserving and promoting India's diverse linguistic heritage. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is running the Bhasha Sangam programme and a Machine Translation cell, translating various books into scheduled languages. Additionally, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and University Grants Commission (UGC) have utilized the Anuvadini App to translate undergraduate and postgraduate course books, including technical books, into multiple Indian languages. These translated books are available on the e-KUMBH portal.
National entrance exams like NEET, JEE, and CUET have been conducted in 13 languages. Furthermore, engineering education is being imparted in eight regional languages at certain AICTE-approved institutions. Course materials, including textbooks and teaching resources, are accessible on the Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) portal in 33 Indian languages. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has also launched the ASMITA initiative (Augmenting Study Materials in Indian Languages through Translation and Academic Writing) to promote Indian languages in education.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) launched Mission Digital India Bhashini in 2022, developing core language technologies for speech and text translation in 22 Scheduled Indian languages in open source. The Bhashini open Application Programming Interface (APIs) for language translation in text and voice are available on API Setu, enabling integration with any application.
This information was provided by the Minister of State for Education, Dr. Sukanta Majumdar, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.