Technical qualifications were solely offered and recognised in English until the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 framework was implemented.
This isn’t to say that technically trained educators who are fluent in a language other than English can’t teach or explain in that language.
In fact, students have often felt more at ease when they have a teacher who can explain subjects in their own tongue and use local examples.
Remember that there are no textbooks, examples, procedures, or jargon that can be used to transmit technical knowledge.
English concepts and terms
The fear of translating course material should not be exaggerated. We can look at English schooling as an example. Even all that is taught in elementary or high school is sometimes unfamiliar to students, let alone the words and jargon used in technical education. Integration and differentiation, which are used in Calculus, are popular English phrases that have little sense when presenting Math principles. As a result, students learn these as technical phrases and concepts rather than just English words. In reality, students are expected to know what these terms signify outside of the context of the subject.
Standardise technical words
NEP proposes the construction of a multilingual digital knowledge library that students can access remotely via digital devices. This will lead to online repository searching, accessing, and reading. ‘Search’ becomes a crucial tool, and course translations must take this into account. Technical terms will be represented, searched, and discovered efficiently as long as they are used and understood consistently.
