Computer Engineering Course In Marathi, A Success

Four years just flew away in a flash after the historic decision of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to permit engineering degree programmes in Indian languages in 2021 based on the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. This was adopted by 24 colleges from 10 states in six Indian languages.

One fundamental question raised then was will these students get jobs; will they be successful in life? English is an international language, science and technology is practiced through only English etc, was another argument. We had to do a lot of advocacy, stating that if science and engineering is done in Deutsch in Germany, French in France, Japanese in Japan, Korean in Korea, Mandarin in China and still these countries are world leaders, why can’t this be done in Indian languages?

Today, after the first batch completed their degrees in engineering in Indian languages, it’s time to introspect, study the success and challenges and forge ahead. The NEP had clearly stated that learning in one’s mother tongue is effective and efficient in terms of understanding, developing analytical and critical skills, and creativity. Hence early childhood education was strongly recommended to be only in mother tongue with additional two languages to be learnt phasewise subsequently.

Today even medical and law education is being imparted in Indian languages in different states. Pimpri Chinchwad College of Engineering is one such college which had taken a bold decision of starting one full division in computer engineering in Marathi. The first batch of 67 students (including supernumerary seats) completed their degree just the daybefore yesterday and I had an opportunity to attend the graduation certificate award ceremony ‘Ashwamedh’.

The name is also symbolic; the 67 warriors are going to conquer the world through their technology prowess. Let me illustrate what transpired in this college in these four years. The students from remote rural areas and towns from districts of Gadchiroli, Dhule, Beed, Jalgaon, Jalna, Latur, Amravati, Nanded, Solapur, Kolhapur, and also from Pune formed the first batch of cohorts. Two students with their mother tongue being Tamil and Gujarati, whose parents are living in Maharashtra, were also part of the first batch of students studying computer engineering in Marathi.

No one dropped out of the programme and seats for all years were full. A few passionate torchbearers were Dr Govind Kulkarni, Director PCCOE, Dr Rachana Patil HoD computer engineering (Marathi), and Dr Rahul Kulkarni chief technologist DoNew as mentor. All the teachers had themselves come through the hard way from remote districts of Maharashtra with their education being in Marathi till 12th.

(The author is chairman, NETF, NBA, and EC-NAAC and former chairman AICTE. The views are personal)