Lauding the move of 14 engineering colleges across eight States to offer courses in regional languages, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu has urged more educational institutions, particularly those imparting technical and professional studies to follow suit.

He affirmed that providing courses in the regional languages will serve as a boon to the students. Expressing his fervent desire, Naidu said, “It is my desire to see the day when all vocational and professional courses like engineering, medicine and law are taught in mother languages.”

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In a Facebook post titled ‘Engineering courses in mother language—A step in the right direction’, posted in 11 Indian languages today, the Vice President expressed his happiness over the decision of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to permit B. Tech programmes in 11 native languages—Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Malayalam, Bengali, Assamese, Punjabi and Odia. He also welcomed the decision of 14 engineering colleges across eight states for offering regional languages in select branches from the new academic year. He said, “I strongly believe that it is a step in the right direction.”

Referring to the benefits of learning in the mother tongue, the Vice President said it enhances one’s grasping and comprehension levels. “To understand a subject in another language, one has to first learn and master that language, which needs a lot of effort. However, this is not the case while learning in one’s mother tongue,” he added.

Citing a UN report that one language in the world becomes extinct every two weeks, Naidu expressed his concern that 196 Indian languages in India are endangered. He said, “There is a need for adopting a multipronged approach to protect our native languages and promote learning in the mother tongue.”

Naidu also appreciated the Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages (SPPEL) under the Ministry of Education for documenting and archiving languages that have become endangered or are likely to be endangered in the near future.