Hundreds of thousands of students all over the country are getting their higher education in one of the Indian languages. Even in the Hindi-speaking states the number of those who have adopted Hindi as their medium of instruction and examination has reached almost 2 million, about 30 per cent of the total student population of this group.Obviously, the standard of education of the millions of students who opt for an Indian language depends on the quality of teaching and study material in it. It is no exaggeration to state that the quality of college and university-level textbooks, particularly in Hindi, is dismally low. The publishers have conducted themselves in the most irresponsible and reprehensible manner. It is extremely difficult to find an authoritative textbook in Hindi even on a subject like Indian economics.
Most college texts in Hindi are substandard and unauthentic. The academic and editorial inputs which go into the preparation of English textbooks are totally missing from languagetextbooks. The net result is that the quality of college teaching in Hindi and that of the books available to Hindi-medium students is low. The situation is ruining the future of a generation.
Coordination and the determination of standards in higher education is a subject in the Union List and is the responsibility of the Central Government. It would be naive to suggest that the University Grants Commission is ignorant of the existence of millions who prefer the Indian languages. But has the UGC set standards for them? Why not, when these students form a major chunk of the student community? Is there a deliberate conspiracy to undermine the interests of this less fortunate section? Has the UGC framed policy for terminology, textbooks and question papers? Has it set any norms during the last 30 years for the appointment of lecturers in an Indian language?
Every year, the UGC conducts a farcical qualifying test for lecturers. But how does it make sure that they are capable of teaching in an Indianlanguage? Perhaps this all-important requirement is not its concern. Yet this matter has a great bearing on the quality of teaching and textbooks.
There are about 40 universities which use Hindi as the medium of instruction and examination. How many of them have developed syllabi for undergraduate and postgraduate students? Even the University of Delhi, which is located under the very nose of the UGC, has not done so. One wonders at the educationists at the UGC and these universities, who have not been able to provide even authentic and standard Hindi versions of the syllabi.
For a language to be an effective and meaningful medium of instruction, it must have exhaustive standard technical terminologies which should be used uniformly. It was for this purpose that the government established the Scientific and Technical Terminology Commission (STTC), which prepared a large number of glossaries in Hindi some three decades ago. So no one can claim that no authentic and standard technical terminology isavailable in Hindi. Again, according to government policy, it is expected that all departments of the government, autonomous bodies and institutions, councils and commissions shall use the terminology. This policy holds good for all apex institutions like the NCERT, CBSE, UGC, universities and school boards. Even these organisations, which function under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, do not use this terminology, violating official language policy.
The quality and standard of textbooks in Indian languages and hence the quality of teaching in schools and colleges cannot improve unless standard terminology as determined by the STTC is uniformly and strictly used.
Taking a cue from the above authorities, even the Hindi Granth Academies, which were established with the use of the above terminology as an essential condition, have also fallen to the temptation of disobeying the official language policy. The result is that crores spent on the development of glossaries of technical terms have gonedown the drain.
What is urgently needed is to frame definite guidelines for authors on the use of authentic and standard Hindi terminology. Publishers should ensure use of the same terminology in their publications so as to end an age of anarchy.
The writer's latest book is `Dictionary of Economics'
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
