Country needs a pragmatic language policy

Bengaluru: Amid the three-language norm row, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday opined that the country needs a "pragmatic language policy". "There is a need to aim for excellence and equity and strikes a balance between the national needs and ethos and the need to prepare our students to be among the best in the global context.

A pragmatic language policy in which mother tongue and other languages are given due importance in order to help our youth excel in a multilingual world," he said. The vice president remarks come amid controversy over the three-language formula proposed in the draft of Centre's new National Educational Policy (NEP).

After protest by various political parties, Centre dropped the provision of compulsory teaching of Hindi in the schools of non-Hindi speaking states due to protests in Tamil Nadu and other states of the country. Asserting that the country's education system needs re-engineering, Naidu also said NEP will help India to develop.

"Our higher education system needs to be re-engineered to bring in a greater emphasis on excellence in research and teaching. The draft National Education Policy 2019 contains a number of recommendations that will potentially advance the education agenda of the country and help India move towards a higher growth trajectory, "the vice president said.