Multi-lingual Dictionary Being Prepared for Schools in Bihar | 28 Oct 2022

Why in News?

• On October 27, 2022, Bihar SCERT Director Sajjan Raj Shekhar said that the State Education Department has prepared a roadmap to save tribal languages as well as regional languages/dialects in Bihar to teach in regional languages under the new education policy. It is preparing a multi-lingual dictionary for classes 1 to plus two in dialects.

Key Points

• Bihar SCERT Director said that under the new education policy, the strategy for teaching classes from class one to plus two in regional languages/dialects in Bihar will be that the school child, who is used to the mother tongue, should be taught all subjects in his mother tongue, so that he can understand what the words or related concept of the related subjects are called in his mother tongue.
• He said that the purpose behind preparing a multi-lingual dictionary for classes 1 to plus two is to bring students into the mainstream by teaching and explaining in regional dialects, so that they do not fall prey to language-based backwardness in higher education and especially its pronunciation will also be improved. In this context, the Education Department has also given guidelines especially to SCERT.
• Under this, a dictionary of local dialects and languages of Bihar will be prepared, in which words pronounced in the mother tongue of any subject material and related English-Hindi words will be included.
• Apart from the dictionary, a special resource material will also be made and this material will be given to the teachers, so that the teachers can be trained in it. Here the teacher will teach the subject to the children in the mother tongue and in this way the exercise of teaching mainstream subjects in regional languages like Angika, Bajjika, Bhojpuri, Magahi, Maithili etc. will be done and this exercise will be possible only till the next session.
• It should be noted that scheduled tribes constitute a little over one per cent of the total population of Bihar and the main languages of scheduled castes (forest dweller community) such as Mundari, Sadani, Santhali, Mungri, Garait, Chero etc. are languages are extremely endangered for various reasons.
• It is noteworthy that in Bihar, the forest dwellers like Khund, Bedia, Santhal, Khairwar, Gorait, Korwa, Munda etc. live in the districts of Champaran, Rohtas, Shahabad, Purnia, Bhagalpur, Saharsa, Bhojpur, Munger, Jamui, Katihar and Buxar etc.