UGC's push for university textbooks in Indian languages

UGC chairman M Jagadesh Kumar met several publishing houses on Wednesday to explore the feasibility of translating textbooks for UG programmes in higher education institutions across the country in Indian languages such as Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Odia, Bengali, Assamese, Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu.

Kumar met representatives from publishing houses such as Wiley India, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Cambridge University Press India, Cengage India, and McGraw-Hill India, and told them that higher education body would assist the publishers with the identification of textbooks, with translation tools, and experts for editing the material.

He further told them that UGC had formed an apex committee to prepare a roadmap to bring out textbooks in Indian languages used in undergraduate programmes such as BA, BCom, and BSc.

In November this year, the Centre asked universities to work on translating all study material into regional languages. The UGC plans to introduce undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in regional languages, and the apex committee, Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti, is working on these efforts.

Kumar also emphasised that a model could be worked out with publishers to provide textbooks at affordable prices in a digital format. While the initial focus is on translating existing textbooks in BA, BSc, and BCom programmes, the UGC will expand this to postgraduate programmes, he said.

“The UGC is also working on encouraging Indian authors and academicians to write textbooks in various Indian languages and involve publishers in bringing those out. The UGC intends to translate many textbooks into Indian languages in six to twelve months. The publishers’ representatives have expressed their willingness to partner in this national mission,” a senior official from the UGC said.