There is an agreement in the country over the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recommendation of teaching in mother tongue in preparatory and foundational stages, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said Tuesday. “Some friends criticise us. that some states may not like the NEP. I say that maybe there aren’t any states that are not implementing the NEP because today, in the country there is agreement. In the preparatory and foundational stage, NEP recommends teaching in the mother tongue. Today, all states, all administrative units are making their own plans to take this forward. In the coming days, the country’s foundational education will be mother-tongue based,” Pradhan said at an Education Ministry event to mark five years of NEP 2020. Pointing to NEP recommendations, Pradhan referred to early childhood education in pre-primary classes (‘balvatikas’) as a “paradigm shift”. “Another example of a paradigm shift is the new-age textbooks brought to us by NCERT. With new approaches, and in new ways, the NEP has started taking shape in textbooks,” he said. On Tuesday, four foreign universities were given letters of intent from the UGC to set up their campuses in India. The total number of foreign universities with approval under UGC regulations to set up campuses in India stands at 11.
