PM Modi to launch sign language dictionary on Tuesday

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the Indian Sign Language (ISL) dictionary comprising 10,000 words and talking books for the visually-challenged on Tuesday as part of the 'Shikshak Parv'.

The fortnight-long 'Shikshak Parv' will commence on Teacher's Day on Sunday, September 5, when President Ram Nath Kovind would honour 44 teachers with the National Awards for their excellence and commitment in shaping the minds of the youth.

The basic aim of the ISL dictionary is to remove communication barriers between the deaf and hearing communities. The dictionary contains signs of everyday use and their corresponding English and Hindi words.

Specialised terms from legal, academic, medical, and technical fields too are explained in ISL dictionary.

The Prime Minister, who will also address a conclave, will launch School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Framework (SQAAF) of CBSE, NISTHA teachers' training programme for NIPUN Bharat, and Vidyanjali Portal for facilitating education volunteers, donors and CSR contributors for school development.

The conclave will also be attended by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Ministers of State for Education Annpurna Devi, Subhas Sarkar and Rajkumar Ranjan Singh.

“The inaugural conclave will be followed by webinars, discussions and presentations up to September 17 in which the educational practitioners from various schools of the country have been invited to share their experience, learnings and the roadmap ahead,” an education ministry official said.

“The SCERT and DIETs in respective states will also be deliberating further on each of the webinars and suggesting the roadmap which will be consolidated by state SCERT. These will be shared with NCERT and provide inputs for curricular framework and teacher training modules,” he added.

The theme of webinars has been further segregated into nine sub-themes in the subsequent webinars such as Technology in Education: NDEAR, Foundational Literacy and Numeracy: A Prerequisite to Learning and ECCE, Nurturing Inclusive Classrooms, among others, to highlight the best practices and initiatives which can be adopted by schools of India.