National Education Policy 2020: Language Perspective

Education is one that can bring national unity in a multilingual nation, as well as it is a good means of maintaining multilingualism and national unity. Linguistic discourse somewhere connects us with our language and speech. Education policy is the basic requirement of any nation, which includes the analysis of the past, the need of the present and the possibilities of the future. Education policy is an important initiative towards ensuring the all-round development of Indian society. It aims to promote the preservation and development of all Indian languages. The main problem in a multilingual and multicultural country like India is to decide which language to use as a medium of instruction. It was for the first time that the mother tongue was made the medium of education at the primary level keeping in mind the interests of the Indian people in education policy. The language issues from paragraphs 4.11 to 4.22 have been presented very carefully under the heading ‘Multilingualism and the power of language of this document. The inclusion of vernacular in education will give new life to the endangered languages and will help to keep children connected to their culture. Of course, this will lead to a qualitative increase in the creative ability of the students. India's cultural and social splendour lies in education in the native language i.e. mother tongue. The new education policy lays emphasis on the use of mother tongue or vernacular for the medium of primary education, which aims to advance children in the field of education by keeping children connected to their mother tongue and culture. In order to preserve this multilingual society it is necessary that children have the opportunity to learn multilingual proficiency from school education to college and university education. The National Education Policy 2020 proposes early implementation of a three-language formula to promote multilingualism from the school level. This education policy is a vibrant document to empower the mother tongue and Indian languages. New education policy 2020 has been announced in line with public aspirations and according to national needs and challenges. For the first time in the country, the use of technology in machine learning, artificial intelligence and translation has been emphasised in a policy document. Emphasis has been laid on the study of Indian languages, classical languages, and Sanskrit. The education system has four major dimensions – students, teachers, curriculum and infrastructural facilities. Keeping these four in mind, the new education policy appears with wide potential. If we try to understand in totality, at the policy level, special emphasis has been laid on language-multilingualism, language-education-teaching etc. The new education policy will help in contributing to the development of self-reliant India. If it is implemented well with better coordination with other policies then it will be a far-reaching policy. The objectives of the present study are to find out why and how far the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP2020) was necessary to prepare. How the education policy is an important initiative towards ensuring the all-round development of Indian society. The language issues in the document and how Multilingualism and the power of language of the NEP document can play a vital role for holistic development of the students from primary to higher education.