Dehradun: Months after Uttarakhand announced that it would change the medium of instruction from Hindi to English in over 18,000 government schools, vice-president Venkaiah Naidu said on Tuesday that primary education in India should be imparted in regional languages or in our mother tongue Hindi to “get over colonial hangover”.

Speaking at the convocation ceremony of Swami Rama Himalayan University in Dehradun, Naidu said, “We should learn to speak in Hindi as well as our regional languages. It would be a good idea to have primary education in schools imparted in respective states’ regional languages.”

A day earlier, addressing the convocation of a university in Kanpur, Naidu had said that topics like agriculture and Indian culture should be included in the syllabus in schools and colleges.

On Tuesday, Naidu said, “Students should get over the colonial hangover of English and try to adapt a more Indian way of life.” He said, “We have been independent for decades but are still following the ways of the British. We need to take pride in our culture but we prefer speaking in English language and even our education system follows that pattern. This needs to be changed. In my opinion, primary education must be imparted in a regional language and after that the students should be taught in Hindi. It is important that all of us speak Hindi and take pride in our mother tongue as is the case in other countries.”

The vice-president added, “I’m not saying one shouldn’t learn English but knowing one’s native language has to be encouraged. And not just language, we also need to respect our motherland and all aspects of it.”

In June this year, Uttarakhand education minister Arvind Pandey had said that the medium of instruction would be shifted from Hindi to English in government schools. The project would be carried out in a phased manner and English language would be introduced as the medium of instruction in Class 1 from the 2018 academic session. Eventually, students in other classes would also be taught in English language, the minister had told TOI.

Talking to TOI, Madan Kaushik, state government’s spokesperson, said, “There are plans to change medium of instruction from Hindi to English but Hindi is very important and it will continue to get priority in schools.”

In 2016, the human resource development ministry (HRD) in an answer to a Lok Sabha question had revealed that Hindi continued to be the primary medium of instruction in schools across India with around 49% students studying in Hindi-medium schools.