Shiksha Opinion: Should English be banned in primary schools?

Recently we came across a headline stating that an IIT Roorkee alumnus is spearheading an anti-English UPSC agitation. Our curiosity got the better of us and we got reading about the man and found that he is the same person who as a student convinced his alma mater – IIT Roorkee to give him his application form in Hindi and thereafter even fought to take his tests in Hindi. Well, it is a great thing to be connected to your mother tongue but our question is – will such a step prove fruitful for a person in the long run when he/she has to pursue a course whose standard medium of instruction is English.

And mind you! This is not an aspect which has caught the fancy of people just now. I remember going through similar agitations as far back as in 2006 when Financial Times reported that many primary schools in Bangalore were banning English. A huge hue and cry was made about this but in the end a mid path was achieved by educational institutes and the government. However, the aspect of banning English in schools again gained steamed in 2011 when Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (BBSM) called for this step to be taken in Goa schools.

So, time and again this issue is being picked up as a political agenda and the fuss around is an aspect which unnerves us.

It is perfectly right to feel that students should stay connected to their roots and be well-acquainted with their mother tongue. What I do not understand is why “knowing your mother tongue” is directly related to “not studying English”.

Is there no other way a child can be acquainted with the language their parents and grandparents spoke?

Also, isn’t it a cause of worry that students, who have studied in schools which teach all subjects in regional languages, are at a disadvantage when they later go to study at college. After all, most prestigious colleges in India have their entrance exams in English and that’s also the medium of teaching.

And when these students head out to give interviews at big corporate houses, how will they fare? After all, the entire work at offices these days occurs in English, right from presentations to typing out emails, all processes require a good knowledge of the English language. Also, these days most companies send their employees abroad for either a 2-3 month training/transition programme or on projects. My concern is how will students who have studied subjects in regional languages be able to come at par with their peers when they have to face such a situation?

Yes, it is not an ideal situation but we do not live in an ideal world and amidst all this confusion, all the onus is on schools.

One of the solutions to this problem lies in the fact that children as young as 4-5 years of age develop their motor skills and have more grasping power which helps them to learn faster. The same has been reflected in various research studies as well. Also, children at a younger age do not have any hesitation and are open as well as willing to learn. It is at this juncture that parents as well as schools should instill language skills in them. The earlier children are introduced to languages the better they become at it. And if children are taught languages at an early stage in life, you would be surprised to find that by the time they turn 15 (years) they can easily become trilingual and in some cases even quadrilingual, which can benefit them in the long run.

Children are better are receiving and learning languages at an early stage at life and they should be the ones taking the decision of whether they want to or don’t want to learn a specific language rather than adults who themselves do not possess these fast grasping skills.

Putting a ban on English in primary schools is not the solution. If you want children to learn a language, give them the freedom, choice and open opportunity to learn it. It is often quite rightly said that – what can be achieved by free will cannot be done by force.

So, students should be allowed to make this decision. They should be given a choice to select the language they actually have interest in and want to study rather than just be given an opportunity to select from Hindi, Sanskrit, French and German as a language at school level.

So, ideally speaking the language choice should be optional in schools as per preference. Also, schools should have good teachers who can teach the subject well and languages should not be offered for the heck of it. On the other hand, students should be diligent and interested enough to learn and shouldn’t just select any language as a subject primarily because it is more scoring.

India has a fabulous literary history and we have so many languages which we should propagate but this should not be done with an agenda. Here, we are not saying that students shouldn’t know their regional languages. We feel that knowing your mother tongue is a must and parents should take that onus upon themselves rather than being dependent on schools.

So, as per my opinion, the right kind of exposure from the right people at the right time is what will shape the future of a child. And these political agendas of banning languages at school level should not be taken so seriously.