NEP 2020: The 5+ Language Policy

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisamy issued a press release yesterday (03-08-2020) stating that Hon'ble Amma's government will never permit the three-language policy in Tamil Nadu; only the two-language policy will be followed. He has also requested the Prime Minister of India to review the three-language policy, such that each State implements it in concordance with its own State policy.

If Tamil Nadu is firm on its two-language formula, it would not only miss out a third language but would also have to omit few other items in the National Education Policy 2020. Before going further, I'd suggest you to first read my post on the three-language policy, so as to follow better.

According to NEP 2020, the students "will have the option of learning at least two years of a classical language of India and its associated literature, ... in Grades 6-12, with the option to continue from the middle stage through the secondary stage and beyond." For those who don't know, the classical languages of India—as declared by the central government—are Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia. The government may accord "classical" status to more languages in future.

Further, NEP 2020 states that "foreign languages, such as Korean, Japanese, Thai, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian, will also be offered at the secondary level, for students to learn ... according to their own interests and aspirations."

The list doesn't end there.

"Every student in the country will participate in a fun project/activity on ‘The Languages of India’, sometime in Grades 6-8, such as, under the ‘Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat’ initiative. In this project/activity, students will learn about the remarkable unity of most of the major Indian languages, starting with their common phonetic and scientifically-arranged alphabets and scripts, their common grammatical structures, their origins and sources of vocabularies from Sanskrit and other classical languages, as well as their rich inter-influences and differences. They will also learn what geographical areas speak which languages, get a sense of the nature and structure of tribal languages, and learn to say commonly spoken phrases and sentences in every major language of India and also learn a bit about the rich and uplifting literature of each (through suitable translations as necessary)."

The above mentioned "project/activity" would be a "joyful activity" and "would not involve any form of assessment." 

Thus, NEP 2020 provides for options to learn a classical Indian language and a foreign language besides the three-language formula. The students would also have to "learn to say commonly spoken phrases and sentences in every major language of India."

Image source: Information and Public Relations Department, Government of Tamil Nadu.