Reader Edit: No, our education cannot be language neutral​

On November 5, 2016 the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has said (http://www.hindustantimes.com/education/students-should-be-taught-in-their-mother-tongues-till-class-8-suggests-ncert/story-Nr9iTMo0AHW9J7hcI05YkM.html) in its inputs for the draft national education policy of the Indian Government that students should be taught in their mother tongue till class VIII. A case for more emphasis on Indian languages in our education system cannot be expressed in any lesser manner.

It cannot be denied that in today’s global village, we need English more than any time before but that should not necessarily imply English as medium of instruction from the pre-primary level.

A social experiment (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33060450) establishes that cultural rootlessness creates lifelong misery for the uprooted: The children who had been provided finest education but been taken away from their cultural background, ended up in a wretched life as opposed to the expected outcome of their being highly productive. Our culture is intertwined with our mother tongue. Ignorance about own mother tongue or forced acceptance of English as a virtual mother tongue implies blindness to our ancestors’ thoughts, which is rootlessness.

Some are quite skeptical about the above idea of linguistic essentialism. They argue that the ideas are important not the language of our usage. Studies —for example Keith Chen’s work (https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_affect_your_ability_to_save_money?language=en)—have demonstrated that use of a particular language creates a particular behavioural pattern among the users of the language. Therefore, our behaviours cannot be language-neutral. Our culture which guides our social and individual behavioural codes, need the matrix of our mother tongue for survival.

What are the ground realities today? The middle class in India are sending their wards to almost exclusively English medium schools, largely affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). In the non-Hindi speaking regions, the children are foisted upon to learn two alien languages, English and Hindi, from their pre-primary level. We are raising our children who are often taught their mother tongue as a rather neglected third language!

Indian languages that have a rich history, are struggling to remain relevant as our educated class is increasingly becoming ignorant about own languages. The elites define the direction of any society—the other sections of the society are likely to follow suit in this move away from mother tongue. Chances are high that most of the Indian languages will become irrelevant as vehicles of education in another generation or two. Our education system is slowly but surely facilitating language-cide of all Indian languages.

What is the benefit of our English medium education to our children? “Welfare of students should be the ultimate aim of education and they should not be used for any other purpose,” Bertrand Russel, the renowned educationist, noted. Is our English medium education being true to that objective?

As a matter of fact, Sankrant Sanu, an entrepreneur holding six technology patents, describes (http://www.amazon.in/English-Medium-Myth-Dismantling-barriers/dp/9384129194/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478428677&sr=1-1&keywords=The+english+medium+myth) his experiment he conducted in Indian villages. He found that rural Indian children who study in the Hindi medium outperform their English-medium trained urban counterparts in language-neutral IQ tests. The English medium education seems no welfare-augmenting for Indian urban children. The importance of this evidence is mind-blowing if we consider that the children taught in the English medium education often enjoy the best teachers, the best infrastructure and the best parental support for education.

It is, therefore, a foregone conclusion when Sankrant Sanu shows the macro picture is consistent with his micro experiment: twenty richest countries—countries like Japan, Denmark, France and Korea— all educate their children in their own mother tongue; most of the twenty poorest countries use a foreign language for teaching their children.

Our education has been reduced to making a simple thing complex through being taught in an alien language. We have reduced the scope of education from development of human capabilities to learning of a foreign language.

Let us practise equality in sending our wards to schools. We must abolish the dichotomous system of schooling for the affluence and not-so-affluent. Let all our children be taught in the mother tongue (at a minimum) up to the primary level. English must be taught only as a second language at least till the primary level. We must not restrict the third language to Hindi but open it to other Indian languages. Let a north Indian child learn a south Indian language in the school and vice versa.

5 per cent​ of India population live in a different state than the one they were born into. Often the wards of this migrant population grow up without deeper knowledge about their own mother tongue. For these Children, schools can encourage teaching of their own mother-tongue as a second language rather than Hindi.

The economy of tomorrow will be a knowledge economy. And, knowledge is not about cramming plethora of information but facilitating manifestation of our inner potential. Education through mother tongue works best in enshaping​ the​ child’s inner potential.

The author is Associate Prof, Economics at IIM-Kozhikode. Read the unabridged edit on dnaindia.com