UGC keen to bring out books in Indian languages for UG courses

Hyderabad: Academicians serving in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) can now write books for various programmes in their mother tongues.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) is all set to encourage and support writers and publishers to bring out books currently in English in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali and other languages. The apex higher education regulator has decided to encourage translation and publication of books for various academic programmes.

UGC chairman Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, said, "Students' learning should happen through their mother tongue to understand the subject and improve their learning outcomes. At the same time, students should also become proficient in English as a tool of communication since they also need to connect with people across the globe."

An apex committee is to prepare a road map and work towards bringing out textbooks in Indian languages used in undergraduate programmes such as BA, BCom and BSc. A model will be worked out with publishers to provide textbooks at affordable prices in a digital format, he added.

Accordingly, the UGC has held an interaction with international book publishers recently to discuss the possibilities of "Bringing out Under-graduate English textbooks in Indian languages". Representatives from prominent publishing houses like Wiley India, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Cambridge University Press India, Cengage India and McGraw-Hill India attended. The focus of the interaction was mainly on bringing out translation of textbooks for undergraduate programmes in higher education institutions across the country in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Odiya, Bengali, Assamese, Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu. Prof. Kumar said the UGC will provide handholding to publishers regarding the identification of textbooks, translation tools and experts for editing.

The initial focus will be on translation of existing textbooks in UG programmes of BA, BSc and BCom which will be later expanded to PG study also.

That apart, Prof. Kumar said, "UGC will also encourage Indian authors/academicians to write textbooks in various languages and will involve publishers in bringing those out. The UGC intends to translate a large number of textbooks in Indian languages in the coming six to 12 months," he added. During the meeting representatives of the participating publishers expressed their willingness to be partners in this national mission. The UGC is also discussing with Indian publishers who publish books in English to explore the possibility of bringing out these books in Indian languages, said the UGC chairman.