Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday announced that engineering courses will now be taught in five Indian languages in 14 colleges across the country. Modi was speaking at an event to mark the completion of one year of the government’s New Education Policy.

It was approved by the government last year and replaced the National Policy on Education framed in 1986. A panel headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation chief K Kasturirangan submitted a draft in December 2018, which was then made public and opened for feedback after the Lok Sabha election in May 2019.

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On Thursday, Modi said that the policy will be one of the major factors in nation building in the coming years.

Here are some of the announcements he made:

  • Fourteen colleges in eight states will teach engineering courses in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Bangla. The prime minister also said that a tool has been developed to translate engineering courses in 11 Indian languages.
  • Modi said that Indian sign language has been given the status of a language subject under the New Education Policy. The decision means that sign language will now be taught like other spoken languages in schools, the prime minister said.
  • Modi launched Vidya Pravesh, a three-month pre-school module developed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training. The curriculum has been designed to provide students numerical and alphabetic literacy.
  • The prime minister also launched “AI for all”, an online course aimed at offering a basic understanding of artificial intelligence. The government aims to train 10 lakh citizens under the course within a year.
  • The prime minister also launched the National Educational Technology Forum. According to the New Education Policy, the NETF is aimed at exchange of ideas on use of technology to enhance learning, assessment, planning, administration in schools and in institutions of higher education.