Universities in Maharashtra have been told to bring out Marathi translation of textbooks used in Science and Commerce streams by the end of September, abiding by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 that recommends higher education in Indian regional languages.
Director of higher education Dr Shailendra Deolankar issued an order last week, reprimanding all non-agricultural universities in the state for not working on translation of textbooks.
While the state’s plan is to provide university education in Marathi, translated textbooks are going to be used as reference books this year to help students understand the concepts better.
The higher and technical education department entered into an agreement with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay in January this year to develop a technology for translating English textbooks into Indian regional languages.
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The order stated, “Universities were informed to collaborate with IIT Bombay to translate their textbooks into Marathi. But there is no development by universities on it. Hence, even as the academic year 2023-’24 has begun students do not have textbooks in Marathi.”
As the order instructs the university to complete the translation work by the end of September, it has also asked to submit a report to the office of the director of higher education.
Dr Deolankar said, “The technology-driven service for translation by IIT Bombay is available to universities for free. Universities only have to provide the team with textbooks and then have a subject expert edit the translation for factual errors. Due to delay in this work, the new academic year has already begun without textbooks in Marathi.”
Explaining the insistence on Science and Commerce stream, Dr Deolankar said, “In most cases, some of the subjects in Arts are already available in Marathi. To begin with, we are insisting more on the other two streams and Arts will follow.”
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