In order to encourage national “unity,” all the Central and CBSE schools across the country will have to celebrate “Matribhasa Diwas” on February 21. The idea behind celebrating such a day is to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue, said a top official of the HRD Ministry School Education department.
To make people understand the importance of using mother tongue for the development and progress of Indian languages, CBSE has issued circular to all its affiliated schools to celebrate ‘Matribhasha Diwas’ (Mother Tongue Day). The date has been selected since the UNESCO too has declared February 21 of every year as ‘International Mother Tongue Day’ to promote, disseminate and create full awareness about linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world,
Elaborating on the language festival Dr Sadhana Parashar, Director (Academics, Research, Training and Innovation), CBSE said, “India is a country of diverse languages and before endorsing them around the world, it becomes important to uphold these languages within the country. Celebrating the language festival in schools will encourage unity and broad-mindedness amongst students. This will make them a better person not only personally but professionally as well.”
The ‘Matribhasha Diwas’ will celebrated with day-long competitions which will include Song Recitation, Elocution, Debate, Creative Writing etc. in various Indian languages. Schools can also organise General Knowledge competitions or passage translations of any literary passage into their Mother Tongue. To create awareness among students and teachers, schools can also plan an exhibition on the theme of ‘language diversity in India’, where they can put posters, charts and teach few spoken sentences of different languages.
Also to implement the objectives of knowing and learning your Mother Tongue schools can organise year long activities. “Thus, imparting communication skills and proficiency in Indian languages among all English-medium schools. The Board also aims to improve ‘Knowledge Creation’ in Indian languages. This initiative will not only encourage people to learn another Indian language but will also help popularise adaptation of latest technologies in the language, further making translations easy,” said the official.