Textbooks in Telangana govt schools to go bilingual
Hyderabad: Starting next academic year, students in government schools can read and learn from bilingual textbooks. The School Education department is planning to provide bilingual textbooks for non-language subjects, which means textbooks will be available in two languages. For example, each page of a lesson in Telugu medium will have an English version on the […]
Hyderabad: Starting next academic year, students in government schools can read and learn from bilingual textbooks.
The School Education department is planning to provide bilingual textbooks for non-language subjects, which means textbooks will be available in two languages. For example, each page of a lesson in Telugu medium will have an English version on the adjacent page as well. Likewise, for Hindi and Urdu medium students, the same topic will be available in both Hindi and English languages, and Urdu and English languages respectively.
The move to introduce bilingual textbooks comes in wake of the State government deciding to introduce English medium of education in government schools. These bilingual textbooks, according to officials, will help non-English medium students transition to English medium besides helping them better understand and learn topics with ease.
In this connection, the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT), a wing of the School Education department, has been working on bilingual content.
“Presently, non-language subjects textbooks for the classes up to VII are being made into bilingual. Content preparation has almost completed. We are waiting for orders from the government to release content for printing,” an official said.
With content available in Telugu and English languages, the number of pages increases, thereby increasing the weight of the textbook. To ensure school bags are not overweight, the department is exploring the option of providing two textbooks for non-language subjects, one each for the Summative Assessment-I and II.
For the next academic year, the School Education department is expected to print 1.70 crore free component textbooks to be distributed among students in government-run institutions. This number will go up if the government decides to provide two bilingual textbooks for non-language subjects. Last year, a total of 1.46 crore free component textbooks were printed and distributed to students.
“Presently, the tender process for paper is under way. We will start printing free component textbooks on receiving content from the SCERT. The plan is to distribute textbooks to students in May,” an official said.
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