While the A.P Government has decided that English is the way to go for all schools, we have people like Dr. J Abdul Kalam the former President of India, who seem to think just the other way round. On his recent trip to
Aligarh Muslim University, he
said that mother tongue languages should be used in schools for learning. In his words:
"Education should be imparted in mother tongue up to 10th standard as it promotes creativity and sharpens intellect immensely”.
He says English should instead be used for Higher and Technical education. While I’m tempted to agree when I see it coming from something like him—who started life like any other typical village boy, studied in a village School, in mother tongue and so on---but went on to become a great scientist and the President of India. But when I think of the larger picture, I’m not so sure. It is definitely a given that no matter where you study, in what medium, as long as you have the zest to excel, you can succeed. We have heard many stories about similar people achieving great heights in life out of scratch.
But leaving all that aside, if we consider the scenario today where there are over 3.1 million graduates stepping fresh out of college every year, there isn’t much choice but to be the very best. And I believe apart from being an expert in your subject matter, knowing English (the language used for communication around the world) and being able to carry yourself with confidence will take you a long way.
I wouldn’t say the A.P government made a great move, (they
could have managed it far better) but at the same time I do think that it is crucial for students to learn to speak English in school. We’ve tried to achieve this for decades, unsuccessfully. Maybe English as the medium of instruction will help. It’s worth a try, anyway.
1 comment:
Thank you for this lively and timely blog! Apologies in advance for this long response.
The "mighty fiasco" of the implementation of shifting students to English-medium CBSE education is one problem. A quite separate question is the introduction of non-mother-tongue medium education itself.
The evidence in favour of mother-tongue medium education is all there.
See, for instance, these excerpts from the "Mother tongue first" issue of the magazine _id21 insights_ http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-ed05/index.html):
1. "It is now well established that when a child begins learning in his or her first language that child is more likely to succeed academically and is better able to learn additional languages."
2. "The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, states that all children have the right to education (Article 28), and the right to learn and use the language of their family (Article 30)." (The 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples further supports this.)
3. "A recent review of cost-benefit analyses for the 2006 African Education Ministers' Meeting shows that education programmes starting with the mother tongue and gradually moving into other languages lead to cost savings compared to monolingual programmes. If they are more expensive at the beginning, costs decrease over time and savings (not paying for children to repeat years, for example) far exceed initial investment."
Thus, educational theory, a rights-based approach, and returns on investment all indicate the desirability of a mother-tongue medium based multilingual education.
It may seem counterintuitive, but the research is unequivocal. If you want widespread, high-level multilingualism (necessary in a globalizing world!) the best way is to provide 8-10 years of firm grounding in the mother tongue, while gradually introducing and increasing the share of the second and third languages.
A. Giridhar RAO
Hyderabad, India
World Esperanto Association
www.uea.org
Esperanto: The language of friendship
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