Mandarin language dropped by National Education Policy (NEP) 2020

Recently under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the government has dropped Mandarin or ‘Chinese’ from its list of examples of foreign languages that can be taught in schools. In the new National Education Policy, the Indian government has included the Korean language at the secondary level among the foreign languages to be offered to Indian students. Apart from Korean, other foreign languages that will be offered are Japanese, Thai, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian.

Mandarin

• Mandarin is a group of Sinitic (Chinese) languages spoken across most of northern and southwestern China.

Background

• The language was included in the draft version of the Policy released in 2019 but was not included in the recent NEP 2020 document.
• According to the official, there have been security concerns involving Mandarin language instruction in Indian institutions, which are under the scanner as well.
• The plan for teaching Mandarin in Indian schools and Hindi language instruction in Chinese schools as part of an Education Exchange Programme signed by both countries in 2006.
• In 2014, the CBSE then introduced Mandarin in some schools, but the plan floundered due to unavailability of Chinese language teachers.
• The S., Australia, Japan and South Korea are offering Chinese at the school level.

UPSC