Listen to educationists

Discarding all the anti-English noise made by the RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, a group of educationists has recommended that at least one government-run English-medium school should be made available in each of the 6,612 blocks in the country. Their recommendations, formed after consultations with state governments, are in tune with the requirements of the changing times. Educationists across the world insist on imparting elementary education in the mother tongue in order to prepare a strong foundation for learning faculties. In the same vein, the Group on Education and Social Development has suggested English to be made a compulsory subject in all schools from Class 6 onwards and at least one English-medium school to be provided in each block.  

The government cannot ignore people’s aspirations when working on education policy. No political force should deny the people a promising future they want for their children, just to protect notions of nationalism associated with regional and national languages. Even in remote villages, the poor save money to send their children to an English-medium school because they believe education received in the English medium can open doors of new possibilities for their children. Since the HRD Ministry aspires to create 50 world-class universities, the ground needs to be prepared with world-class schooling, which cannot be achieved by ignoring international languages. 

The almost negligible participation of Indian students in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and their pathetic performance in tests should have woken up the policymakers to the need for providing quality education in English long time ago. By not promoting English, neither Hindi nor the regional languages have been enriched in our schools and universities. If India aspires to be a global player, it cannot do without English. The suggestion of making English compulsory is pragmatic; the educationists should also ensure that the quality of teaching is improved accordingly to match global standards.