Edu Minister Pradhan pushes for Indian languages in higher education

Efforts to make Indian languages a central part of higher education received a strong endorsement from Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan during a consultative committee meeting held in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, on June 6.

Chairing the session focused on “Promotion of Education in Bharatiya Bhasha in Higher Education,” Pradhan said that Indian and local languages would become the primary medium of instruction in the coming years.

He emphasized the government’s commitment to expanding the use of mother tongues in both school and higher education systems.

“The priority remains to provide books in Indian languages,” he said, while lauding institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) for offering technical courses in regional languages.

Highlighting the role of emerging technologies, the minister pointed out how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to translate academic content, thereby assisting students from rural and underprivileged backgrounds in accessing study material in their native languages.

He also referred to the ministry’s Bhasha Sangam initiative, which allows students to learn 100 sentences in 22 languages.

School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar informed the committee that India is home to 1,369 mother tongues, which are classified into 121 languages.

Out of these, 22 are listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, while 99 are spoken by more than 10,000 people but remain unrecognized.

Kumar also underlined the importance placed on multilingual education under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, saying that the newly drafted National Curriculum Framework for School Education has multilingualism as a foundational principle.

University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman Dr Vineet Joshi updated the panel on policy developments and tools designed to promote Indian languages.

He highlighted AI-based translation platforms such as Anuvadini and UDAAN and shared details on the formation of the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti and the Bharatiya Bhasha Pustak Pariyojna, both part of initiatives outlined in the Union Budget 2025.