Be liberal with language: NCERT

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has appealed to primary school teachers to encourage students to express themselves in whichever language they were comfortable with.

Speaking on "kaksha ki bhasha" (language in the classroom), at Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education Ncert director Krishna Kumar said , NCERT's new curriculum framework has taken care of multi-language and multi-cultural aspects of the country.

This would improve their cognitive as well as comprehensive abilities. Therefore, the teachers chould allow students of the primary classes to express themselves in any language they are comfortable with, he said.

The new national framework was formulated in 2005 and the new textbooks would be made available in three phases from April 2006.

"The teachers should not curb or discourage the students by stressing on the purity of language," he said.

Kumar said it was the responsibility of all primary school teachers to implement the new curriulum framework and it will help in making students' thinking process smooth and also improve their comprehension.

Since the schools in different parts of the country get students from different language backgrounds, the teachers should encourage freedom of expression among students which would form a good basis for a rich human resource development, he said.

"This fact has been researched even by the institute of language research and the teachers need to undergo rigorous training to meet the challenge," added Kumar.