Mumbai:Opposition to Hindi continues in Maharashtra, with the State Government’s appointed language advisory committee raised concerns that make Hindi a mandatory third language for students in Marathi and the state’s British secondary schools.
Laxmikant Deshmukh, chairman of the Language Advisory Committee appointed by the Maharashtra government, has written to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, urging the government to cancel the move.
“Primary students should be taught in their native language and trilingual policies should be implemented only at the higher level. Forced decisions on Hindi languages ​​are unnecessary,” Deshmukh said in the letter.
It added: “Currently, Marathi and English are of poor quality in school education, as most schools have one or two teachers. The introduction of a third language will increase the burden on teachers, and in the process the possibility of correctly learning one language will be reduced.”
On April 17, the Maharashtra government led by the BJP announced plans to implement the 2020 national education policy starting from the 2025-26 school year. As part of the policy, Hindi will become a mandatory third language in categories 1 to 5.
Deshmukh said in his letter that if Hindi lecturers were selected based on their spoken skills, then the employment of Marathi teachers could be taken away. “This will lead to a cognitive burden on the brain of children. Because English is spoken in Maharashtra since 2001 and is required for parental approval and higher education, the state government has adopted a “better English and better English” policy, according to a report from the Language Advisory Committee.
The national education policy in 2020 proposes major changes to the curriculum structure of school education. It claims to promote flexibility in selecting academic flows and emphasizes the use of the native language as a key teaching medium for primary schools, among other measures.
The three-language formula refers to teaching students English, Hindi and the native language of the country. It was introduced in the first national education policy in 1968 and remained in the new policy introduced in 2020.
