Sentiment and Thematic Analysis of Stakeholder Perspectives on Technical Education in the Mother Tongue: Evidence from Gujarat Vidyapith

This study investigates stakeholder perceptions of technical education delivered in the mother tongue through a qualitative and sentiment analysis of 149 open-ended survey responses collected at Gujarat Vidyapith. Using computational text pre-processing, thematic classification, and polarity-based sentiment analysis, the research identifies dominant discourse patterns concerning conceptual clarity, employability, linguistic identity, and global competitiveness. Results indicate predominantly positive (40.9%) and neutral (54.4%) sentiments, with minimal negative responses (4.7%). The findings suggest that while mother tongue instruction significantly enhances conceptual understanding and learner confidence, a structured bilingual approach integrating English communication skills is necessary for global workforce alignment. The study contributes empirical evidence to contemporary debates on medium-of-instruction policy in technical higher education, particularly in the context of the National Education Policy 2020.