IIT Jodhpur’s move to introduce Hindi as a medium of instruction for first-year engineering students is showing promising results, according to the institute’s director, professor Avinash Kumar Agarwal.

Launched last year, the initiative saw 116 students opt for Hindi-medium classes, with a further 96 joining this year. While textbooks and examinations remain in English, lectures are delivered in Hindi, allowing students to grasp concepts more easily before gradually transitioning to English from the second year.

Professor Agarwal said students who had entered with weaker academic records are now performing significantly better, with average grades rising from around 5.5 to nearly 8. “We kill innovation early by forcing English as the only medium. In Hindi, students not only understand but also ask questions. This makes them better engineers,” he told The Indian Express.

He emphasised that the shift is not merely emotional but backed by evidence, noting that major economies such as Japan, Germany and France rely on their native languages without compromising global competitiveness. The director added that thinking in one’s own language promotes deeper innovation, which ultimately enhances employability.

The programme, which aligns with the National Education Policy 2020, is not without challenges. Scaling it beyond the first year will require additional faculty, classrooms and resources, and Agarwal acknowledged ongoing social resistance to professional education in Indian languages.

Nevertheless, he argued that the benefits extend beyond academics, reducing the psychological pressures that language barriers often impose on students. “This is more than pedagogy. It is about mental well-being. We don’t want language to be the reason someone fails or loses confidence,” he said.

For now, IIT Jodhpur’s experiment is proving its worth, with students once held back by English thriving in an environment where their focus is firmly on engineering, not translation.

Inputs from The Indian Express

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