“English is a language; it is not a test of your intelligence”.
This was actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s astute remark in 2012 when asked about the difficulty of establishing himself as an actor who did not speak English. Now, almost a decade later, Indian policymakers seem to have finally taken these words to heart.
Politics aside, much research shows that it is actually harmful for children to be thrust into primary school with a language of instruction that is alien to them. Educationists and linguists worldwide maintain that children learn most effectively in their home language. The National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, is doing right by the people of India in mandating the medium of instruction in primary school be changed to the child’s home language.
It is unique to most previously colonised countries to confound an individual’s knowledge of English with her intelligence. Since English is favoured in the labour market, should parents not enrol their children in English medium schools?
This question leads us to the bind we find ourselves in.
We are all complicit in voluntarily killing off our mother tongues by our obsession with English. In 2004, the UN Human Development Report noted that, “There is no more powerful means of ‘encouraging’ individuals to assimilate to a dominant culture than having the economic, social and political returns stacked against their mother tongue. Such assimilation is not freely chosen if the choice is between one’s mother tongue and one’s future.”
Despite English being hugely beneficial in the labour market, let us examine why the NEP is doing right by changing the language of instruction to the learner’s home-language.
Teaching in a child’s language of familiarity leads to better understanding of what is taught. UNESCO notes that being educated in a familiar language “facilitates an understanding of sound-symbol or meaning-symbol correspondence.”
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Moreover, countless studies show that apart from helping learners make a better start, learners schooled in their home language continue to outperform their peers who have received submersion, that is, a ‘swim or sink’ education in an alien language. Although young children can be taught to decipher an alien language, it takes a while before they are able to ascribe meaning to what they have learnt.
Educationists recommend classrooms follow a learner-centred approach to teaching, which is tough to accomplish with a new language of instruction. This is most unlike Indian schools’ teacher-centred approach.
This approach results in student passivity and need for rote memorisation which leads to students’ inability to rearrange the information learnt into higher order thinking. There is also less opportunity for divergent thinking, and a higher likelihood of students switching off amidst one-way instruction. Moreover, home language instruction leads to children being more natural, developing their personalities and their intellects.
Many pedagogical studies, like Ramirez et al, 1991 and Thomas and Collier, 2002, etc., show that after acquiring basic literacy and communication skills in the home-language, it becomes much easier to transfer these skills to learn a new language. Thus, it is more efficient to learn English after developing comfort with reading, writing and communicating well in the home language. Once learners know how to form a sentence in one language, they simply have to apply the basic principles of grammar when doing so in English.
To illustrate, take the case of my Swedish roommate at the international high school I studied at. In Sweden, as in practically every European country, primary schooling is in the native language and English is taught as a separate subject. My roommate started learning English only in the seventh grade but was more than able to obtain her international baccalaureate diploma in English. If Europeans can thrive in today’s world giving preference to their native language, so can we Indians.
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With a total of 121 Indian languages, it must be acknowledged that English is the main lingua-franca binding the nation. It also allows for a continuity of education with inter-state migration. There is consistent evidence showing that many migrant children have lower levels of educational attainment than their peers. Yet, despite a significant increase in internal migration from 2001-2011 in India, a bulk of that movement (88%) was within the same district or state, and only 12% was inter-state. The new policy is therefore not likely to see a drastic shift on this front.
Children are better off at a young age being schooled in their home language. Once literacy skills in the familiar language have been developed after grade 2 or 3, The Central Square Foundation recommends a bridge course to promote learning a new language. Due to the demand for English in the labor market, such a bridge course, if implemented, would aid students as they transition to English medium instruction.
Thus, the NEP has set the stage for Indian students to henceforth, be both, bi/multilingual as well as bi/multiliterate.
Tarini Mohan is development professional who has worked with Harappa Education, Oxfam India, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, India, BRAC Uganda and BRAC USA. She is a recent graduate of Yale University’s School of Management.
