No missive from Centre mandating Hindi in state: Minister
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, August 03 2022: Education minister Th Basantakumar Singh on Wednesday informed the State Assembly that the state government has initiated Star education programme based on latest technology at government schools.

Highlighting achievements of education department before making his clarification on the policy cut motions raised by Opposition members during discussion on demand for grants of the education department in the ongoing assembly session on Wednesday, Th Basantakumar said that the Star education programme is a technology-based teaching-learning system and classrooms under this programme will be digitised so that students could have more interest in learning.

Refresher course on the programme had already begun by calling up teachers from districts.

Altogether 253 schools have been enrolled under the programme and 1518 tablets have been distributed to teachers under the programme, he informed the House, adding that the programme is being taken up under the keen initiative of chief minister N Biren Singh.

He further said that the programme aims to bring effective education management and management training for teachers under the programme has already begun.

According to Basantakumar, people of the state will soon witness benefits of Star education programme and the system will have facility to monitor students and identify infrastructural and other lacunae in schools in a very easy way.

Under the project, tablets have been distributed to 4783 students in 310 schools, he said, adding that BSNL has started the process for providing optical fibre linked internet connection to 540 schools under the project.

Basantakumar further informed the House that the state government has initiated scholarship scheme named Rani Gaidinliu for class XI girl students studying in government and aided schools.

In his response to the policy cut motion raised by Opposition member K Ranjit, Th Basantakumar said that there has been no directive from the Centre on making Hindi compulsory till class X standard in the state.

He also clarified that there is no mention of making Hindi a compulsory subject in three language formula of National Education Policy (NEP), 2020.Under 4.13 para of NEP, students are allowed to choose any language of their choice from among the three languages and two of the languages must be native languages.

This means that there will be no Hindi imposition and the Central government wants to promote both Hindi and local languages, he said, adding that it is fortunate for people of the state that Manipuri is one of the optional subjects in UPSC exams.

According to Basantakumar, the Centre wants to promote Manipuri language and efforts are on to include Manipuri among the classical languages of the country and a committee constituted for the same is studying the matter closely.

In his further clarification to the policy cut motions raised by other Opposition members, Basantakumar said that the government is trying to fill up vacant posts of teachers in primary schools and colleges and recruitment of 502 lecturers for colleges will be taken up soon through MPSC.

He also assured of bringing out a seniority list for teachers of higher secondary schools.

Earlier, raising the policy cut motion to the demand, MLA K Ranjit demanded to know the steps taken by the state government after Union home minister Amit Shah made a remark about making Hindi compulsory up to class X.He said that the decision taken by Parliamentary Language Committee on April 7, 2022 to make Hindi compulsory up to class X in the North East region threatens local languages includ ing Manipuri.

He also demanded to know from the government the number of Hindi teachers from the state among 25,000 Hindi teachers said to have been recruited in the region and what step the state government has taken to protect Manipuri from Hindi imposition.

While informing the House that south Indian states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka as well as some NE states like Mizoram and Nagaland had their firm stand against making Hindi compulsory up to class X, K Ranjit demanded a clear cut decision of Manipur government on the matter.

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