Analysing why Maharashtra's Hindi u-turn exposes NEP's language paradox
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
42 minutes ago
- Time of India
Teacher shortage looms as 96 schools upgraded to senior secondary level
Jaipur: School education department has upgraded 96 upper primary schools to senior secondary level without provisoning for additional number of teachers required to teach the higher grades. School education minister Madan Dilawar also said Wednesday that orders have been issued to introduce Humanities, Science and Commerce for Class 11 in 99 Hindi medium schools. "This is the first time orders have been issued to upgrade schools and add subjects at the start of the session," Dilawar said. Govt school teachers pointed out the difficulty in implementing the govt order considering that govt schools are sitting on 1.25 lakh teacher vacancies. As per an earlier order regarding the upgrade of schools, this year new admissions will be taken for class 9 and 10 and classes 11 and 12 will be started respectively in the coming sessions. Teachers said that new admissions will start but approved teaching posts will remain the same, leading to a shortage. President of Rajasthan Primary and Secondary Teachers Association, Vipin Prakash Sharma, said, "If schools are upgraded, then it should be done with advance planning regarding the posting of teachers, because new admissions will start, and without teachers, students are the ones who will suffer." Meanwhile, officials from the education directorate said that orders will be issued for the posting of teachers in these upgraded schools within a week. Director of secondary education Sitaram Jat, said that after the posting of teachers in Mahatma Gandhi Govt English medium schools, many teachers from Hindi medium schools who were posted in English medium schools have now become surplus and will be redirected to these upgraded schools.
New Indian Express
an hour ago
- New Indian Express
Accord mother tongue prominence, but embrace languages sans borders
The 2020 National Education Policy's insistence on teaching at least two languages in school is based on sound science. Research shows that learning multiple languages before adulthood improves crucial skills such as cognition, hand-eye coordination and memory. However, it's the BJP-Sena government's bid to introduce it in primary schools that drew the ire of parents, teachers, language activists and opposition politicians. To Fadnavis's attempts of propping the Union government's policy in his defence, Marathi language activists posit the NEP's advice for instruction only in the local or home language till class 8. The boon and bane of having the same script, Devanagari, is back in intellectual discourse. Such a tangle of livewires has tripped the ambitious chief minister's stride towards Hindi. It's indeed a sensitive issue in a state where people still honour the '106 martyrs' who died in the late 1950s agitating for a separate Marathi speakers' province. Yet ironically, like dominant tongues in several other states, Marathi too flexes muscle for what scholar Prachi Deshpande calls the 'bear hug' of language. Konkani speakers on the state's southern borders have resisted Marathi's sway for decades, while Dangi speakers on its northern fringes are still contending with its peremptory ways. The abiding paradox is that though most Indian states were demarcated linguistically, language itself brooks no border. In a country with 22 constitutionally scheduled languages and hundreds of others thriving, we have to accept lingual influences across and within state lines. Despite the heat of politics, culture shrivels in the cold confines of hard borders.
The Hindu
3 hours ago
- The Hindu
To fill ‘obvious gap' ahead of Bihar polls, Chirag and party attempt Bahujan makeover
In a bid to cast its net wider in the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections scheduled later this year, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) is attempting to rebrand itself as a 'Bahujan' outfit. In an interview to The Hindu,theparty's Lok Sabha MP and strategist Arun Bharti said that 'Chirag Paswan is a Bahujan leader and LJP (RV) is a Bahujan party'. On June 29, the LJP (RV) hosted a Bahujan Bhim Sankalp Samagam in Nalanda, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's constituency. This was the first time that the party, formed three-and-a-half years ago after a split in the Lok Janshakti Party founded by the late Dalit leader Ram Vilas Paswan, organised a political programme under the banner of Bahujan, an overarching term often used for a coalition of Dalit, Other Backward Classes, Tribes and minorities. Justifying the switch from being known as a Dalit to a Bahujan party, Mr. Bharti said, 'There is an obvious gap in Bahujan leadership in the Hindi belt. The leaders who had led the Bahujan movement either are not there or have become weak. There is no leader qualified to represent this group. Chirag Paswan, even while being in government, offers the only voice who takes up the concerns of this group.' Mr. Paswan recently announced that he will contest the Assembly elections and specified that he will pick a non-reserved seat. Explaining the reason, Mr. Bharti said, 'Chirag Paswan or LJP (RV) is not a political outfit of one caste, creed or community. We speak for one and all.' Barring two Assembly polls in 2005 (February and October), the erstwhile LJP, led by Ram Vilas, never got a double-digit vote share in Bihar since its formation in 2000. Its vote share has ranged from five to close to seven per cent, which also coincides with the Paswan population in the State. It reflects the LJP's failure to hold any influence over other Dalit caste groups. According to the 2022 caste survey in the State, Dalits comprise an estimated 19.65% of the State's population. To a question on whether repeated remarks by Mr. Paswan and the party on the need to rise above the caste divide ignored the State's reality, Mr. Bharti said that fragmentation in the electorate into various groups suits certain parties but it does not necessarily help the voter. 'Yes, caste is a truth of the society. But we must also remember that poverty or illness does not differentiate between various castes or religions,' he added. On whether Mr. Paswan is a Dalit leader and his party a Dalit outfit, Mr. Bharti said, 'We would have been in the past... Right now, Chirag Paswan is a Bahujan leader and LJP (RV) is a Bahujan party and going ahead it is going to be our endeavour to make this party a national party so that we can raise the voice for caste or class.' LJP (RV) will hold another round of rallies in south Bihar. The focus on the region is deliberate, said Mr. Bharti. 'There are certain regions in Bihar — Shahbad and Magadh – where the NDA did not perform well. For example, in Shahbad, out of 22 seats, the NDA got only two seats (in the last Assembly election). If you are a responsible ally, you have to show strength in the areas where you can make the NDA stronger. We have seen that Chirag Paswan's presence here brings in greater turn out in favour of the NDA,' he added.
