From the 2021-2022 academic session, IITs and NITs will begin offering engineering courses in mother tongues, said the Ministry of Education in a press release. The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by , Minister of Education, which is in line with the current National Education Policy that emphasizes education as much as possible in one's mother tongue. The landmark decision was taken to start technical education, in particular engineering courses, providing mother tongue education, which will be open from next academic year onwards. There are a few IITs and NITs shortlisted for the same,' said a senior ministry official.
The Ministry has also said that some IITs and NITs are being shortlisted for the decision to be adopted. Sources suggest that IIT-BHU is prepared to offer Hindi engineering courses, whereas other IITs and NITs located in different countries will be shortlisted to offer Hindi engineering programmes in the language of the country.
It was also decided in the meeting to revise the syllabus for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), Main, conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) post-NTA assessing the existing scenario in various secondary school examination boards. “The University Grants Commission (UGC) has also been directed to ensure all scholarships, fellowships are disbursed in time and to start a helpline for the same and address all grievances of the students immediately,” said the official.
The NTA declared its decision last month to conduct the JEE (Main) in nine regional languages except for Hindi and English from 2021. The IITs, however, have not yet discussed the issue of whether the JEE (Advanced) would also be provided in regional languages.
Before coming out with a syllabus, they need to analyze the school education scenario arises because several boards, including national boards such as CBSE and CISCE, have rationalized their examination syllabus due to the situation of COVID-19 and subsequent academic failure due to schools being closed since March.
