Gandhara Hinko Board (GHB) has urged the government for taking steps for preservation and promotion of all the 30 languages of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).
The demand to this effect was made by the office-bearers of Gandhara Hindko Board (GHB), a literary, cultural and social welfare organisation, and Frontier Languages Institute (FLI), a private sector body that conducts research on NWFP languages, while addressing a joint press conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Sunday.
Referring to the International Mother Language Day that is observed on February 21, Assistant Professor Dr Adnan Gul and Khawaja Yawer Naseer of the GHB, Muhammad Zaman and Asmatullah of the FLI said that NWFP was a multiethnic and multicultural province which was home to 30 languages and several cultures, but the government was not paying any attention to the unprivileged languages and cultures.
"It is a source of concern for all of us and we want an end to this discriminatory policy," added the representatives of the languages hailing from various areas. They called for setting up a government-run institute that should carry out organised research on the native languages and work for their preservation and promotion.
Pointing to the low literacy rate in the rural areas of the province, the speakers said lack of arrangements to impart education at the primary level in mother languages was a major reason for that. The language activists said that the NWFP government should take steps for introducing the regional languages teaching at the elementary schooling as research had proved that children picked up things easily in if taught in their mother languages.
Expressing dissatisfaction with the present cultural policy, the language representatives said that it was not contributing to flourishing of all languages and cultures of the country. "We demand an effective cultural policy that should ensure unbiased promotion of all the languages and cultures of the country," they stressed.-PR