New Delhi: To make studying science and technology more accessible across the country, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is proposing a Rs 450-crore plan to translate more material into Indian languages over three years.
Natural Language Translation was one of the key areas identified by the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council, The Hindu reported, and the proposal in a part of the ministry’s 100-day action plan.
The proposal aims to make teaching and learning material available bilingually – in English and the local language – in parts of India, so that science and technology learning is not accessible only to those fluent in English.
“We will be looking at speech-to-speech machine translation as well as text-to-text machine translation for this. Additionally, human translation will be used,” The Hindu quoted a government official as saying. The official said that this translation plan may also create employment for the educated unemployed.
While the IT ministry is taking the lead on this project, the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Department of Science and Technology are also involved, the newspaper reported.
This isn’t the first time government agencies have tried to make studying science and technology more accessible to those who don’t speak English. As Slator has pointed out, the All India Council for Technical Education decided to draft textbook for courses in engineering and other technical degrees in local languages. However, the focus was on writing new textbooks rather than on translation.
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While several college entrance exams are available in multiple languages – the Joint Entrance Examinations for engineering courses, for instance, is available in five Indian language – the teaching in the colleges happens in English. Because of that, very few people end up giving the exam in another language.
The focus on English education also may end up hurting people’s chances after their degrees. Since students have been taught in English, it is expected that they will also work in English. This means that those who have been unable to perfect their English skills (97% of engineering graduates, according to a 2015 survey) find themselves losing out on job opportunities.
While teaching and learning continues to be English-focused, other initiatives including scholarly articles and podcasts have attempted to make the science and technology space more accessible. Maggie Inbamuthiah, the Chennai-based founder of an organisation, Mandram, that is attempting to make science communication multilingual, told Nature that “Speaking and writing in regional languages makes science more inclusive.” The article notes that several people in the government – including principal scientific adviser for the government K. VijayRaghavan – have been vocal proponents of such projects.
Given that, the government’s proposal is unsurprising – it is part of the larger Indian landscape where more and more people have seen value in making science learning multilingual. Industry is also stepping up to play a role in this change, according to Slator. A collaboration between the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Indian Language Internet Alliance will be the Centre’s go-to organisation in implementing all language initiatives, the report said.