Govt for making mother tongue medium of instruction in schools

Hyderabad, Apr 21: Government today favoured making mother tongue Medium of Instruction (MoI) up to high school even as it underlined the need for promotion of Hindi.

"Medium of instruction should be the mother tongue up to a particular class. The country has to evolve a consensus and all the state governments should work in that direction of making it mandatory to have mother tongue up to at least high school," Union Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said here.

Reviewing the progress made in the use of Hindi in official work at the meeting of the Hindi Advisory Committee (Hindi Salahkar Samiti) of the Ministry of Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation here today, Naidu emphasised the need for encouraging Hindi because "Hindi is our 'rajbhasha'."

The Minister stressed the need for promotion of Hindi language in official work. "Hindi Ko Protsahan Dena Chahiye kyonki woh Rajbhasha hain. (Hindi should be promoted because it is our national language).

Though, there is no question of imposing or forcing it (Hindi) on anyone," he told reporters after the meeting.

At the same time, every state government should encourage mother tongue as well and local jobs should be linked to the (local) language.

"Then only the language will get encouraged or else it will not". Language is related to culture and protection of language is protection of culture, he observed.

At national level Hindi has been given the status of official Language and that's why it also has to be promoted.

There is no objection in learning English but there should not be "English mentality", he said. "It is a serious matter that mother tongue is being forgotten. The new generation is getting attracted towards English. We are not against English.

Children should also be encouraged to learn Hindi as without Hindi you cannot excel at national level. Learning Hindi is very necessary," he said.

"While learning English, people should also be proficient in their mother tongue," Naidu said. "We have a three-language formula and Government is committed to that and there is no question of thrusting any language on anybody.

At the same time we should see to it that our national and native languages are encouraged and protected."

PTI