Dissecting the language policy
Pranjali Kulkarni and Shivakumar Jolad
Introduction
Being an inherently multilingual society, India has varied combination language and medium of Instruction in schools across the country. The most well-known area of the debate in language policy has been the rift between center and the southern states regarding Hindi imposition. The recent draft of the National Education Policy (NEP) -2019 by Kasturirangan committee triggered controversy and attracted much public attention for its recommendation on continuing three language policy with Hindi as one of the languages to be taught in schools. Although NEP draft strongly recommended mother tongue Instruction and inclusion of local languages including tribal languages, the public discourse shifted towards removing the “Hindi imperialism” in schools, especially in south Indian states. Larger issue of language and cognitive development, language acquisition process, pedagogy, and multicultural education has largely been ignored by the public debate.
Being a polyglot for an Indian child is as natural as playing in the muds and rains. There is no awe if two to three languages are juxtaposed to tie an engrossing conversation between two kindergarten children in any place across India. With the gift of multiculturalism and India’s evolution from feudal land to a British colony and now the world’s biggest democracy, multilingualism has become a default identity tag of Indians. But this tag has evolved through the debates of adapting the official language for the nation as well as turf of sustaining linguistic identities regionally.
Languages used in India are an eclectic mixture of modern Indian languages, their dialects, classical languages, and English. There is a debate over the total number of spoken languages in India. Estimates vary by the type of survey and year, The Grierson- linguistic survey of India (2nd edition, 1966) has listed 179 languages and 544 dialects, and the most recent People’s linguistic survey of India list 780 living languages in India. Indian constitution lists 22 official languages in the 8th schedule (Sanskrit and Urdu are also included), with Hindi playing dominant role in Indian political and social discourse in many parts of the country. Articles (29), (29–2) and (30) of Indian constitution provide an opportunity of linguistic representation for the minorities. Yet the challenge is to accommodate approximately 800 other languages along with their dialects and the baggage of English education from over a century long British rule.
Development of Language Policy in Education
The roots of the current language policy in Indian education can be traced to debates over choosing the official language in the constituent assembly. With multiple arguments ranging from discriminations to inclusion of religions and regions, the debates finally mellowed over accepting Hindi as the official language and English as the co-official language for next fifteen years since the independence. With officially sustaining its usage in Non-Hindi speaking states and educational setups, English continued as associate official language with the Official Languages Act in 1967. Articles 350A provides a directive for state and local governments to provide facilities mother-tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups.
Be it the decisions of the coexistence of Hindi and English as the official languages or the inclusion of minority and mother tongues in Education, every act aimed to cool down the debates on linguistic identity. The States Reorganisation Act 1956 was devised to define regional provinces for languages across the country. With it, the state and the centre came into a fix on which language to be adopted for binding the education across the multilingual stretch of the country. To solve this problem and have a representative policy across the country, in 1956 the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) gave three language formula (TLF) which was accepted by conference of chief ministers in 1961.
Three Language Formula
The three language formula included: mother tongue, union language, one modern Indian or foreign language. Endorsed by the Kothari commission report (1964–66), this policy was brought in practice with NPE 1968 and was based on the idea that learning of languages should not be forced, it should be given as an option. As per TLF, the students have to study the three languages in a set of either 3 or 6 years. The mother tongue is used as the medium of instruction (MOI) for primary stages and higher primary stage introduces the union language (Hindi) as the second language (For Hindi speaking students it will be English). Also, an optional third language apart from these should be provided. At lower secondary stage all of them should be made compulsory. At higher secondary classes only two languages should be made compulsory as students are more engaged in preparation of their higher education.
TLF has been a controversial policy ever since its introduction more than fifty years ago. The contest over TLF has deeper roots in politics revolving over Identity rather than education. States have never fully accepted TLF. There is stiff opposition for the use of Hindi as second or third language in some southern states. South Indian languages have never penetrated the Hindi belt. Foreign languages are rarely taught in state schools.
But when the government is still struggling to provide resources for current nature of TLF, this added mission of minority inclusion has a long way to go. Instead, for starters minor changes can be done on the level of policy implementation and pedagogy.
Rebooting TLF
After devising the TLF, debates over vernacular representation, identity and accommodation were mellowed on a few levels, but it sidelined the inclusion of critical developmental aspects which are necessary in the pedagogy. The Subramanian committee (set up to prepare the draft of New Education Policy) report in 2016 steered clear of the controversy and emphasized only on ensuring using mother tongue as the MOI till fifth standard, leaving the individual states to decide on the choice of second and third language at upper primary and secondary level respectively.
The NEP 2019 draft is unequivocal in its emphasis on using home language or mother tongue as MOI till fifth grade, but its version of three language differs from the previous drafts in which it emphasizes learning three languages form the foundational stage, instead of gradual addition of languages at primary, upper primary and secondary school in earlier TLF. It recommends that “all students from pre-school and Grade 1 onwards will be exposed to three or more languages with the aim of developing speaking proficiency and interaction, and the ability to recognise scripts and read basic text in all three languages by Grade 3.” For students whose home language may be different from the medium of instruction, NEP 2019 recommends Teachers to use a bilingual approach, including bilingual teaching-learning materials.
Literature in child pedagogy such as those by Patricia Kuhl (2016)[1] and Krashen (1982)[2], suggest that children at early ages are better at grasping multiple languages. But language acquisition is different from language learning. Younger children can acquire multiple language through adequate exposure and meaningful communication, and very little evidence to show young children learn additional languages through formal means in classrooms. At primary stage, the language education, apart from mother tongue/regional language, should focus only on attaining mainly oral proficiency. The NEP 2019 proposal suggesting recognition of scripts and reading basic text in all three languages by Grade 3 is ill conceived.
Even though these theories afloat, Government do not have enough trained multilingual teachers to cater millions of primary students. Digitisation of curriculum and learning resources in multiple languages, and its adoption of child friendly pedagogic practices can help in making learning languages effective the primary schools. At secondary level, making three languages compulsory will only lead to extra cognitive load. Unless there is enough aptitude and interest, a forced compulsory language at this stage can adversely affect the overall performance of students.
Inclusiveness
To increase the inclusion and efficiency of the current policy it is important to involve dialectical representation in the pedagogy. Even if the instruction of the languages are in one form, there should be acknowledgement and representation of others forms of the same language. The nature of the language changes in India. According to our constitution the states have full rights for linguistic freedom (Article 345): the state can choose any language(s) as official language(s). Along with this, the linguistic minority groups have a provision (Article 30) to receive education in their mother tongue. The TLF should strive to benefit through this.
Like Vivian Cook[3] suggests, students should be introduced the languages through interlanguage i.e. combination of first and second language to form a better understanding of the second language. Subramanian committee had recommended creation of bilingual textbooks and training teachers in local languages. Validation of local languages in classroom pedagogy can significantly improve the students’ performance. As Krashen (1982) [2] had argued, the inclusion of first language is the gateway of learning the second language.
Linking language education with economy
TLF is not building enough interest in students because the ladder of job sectors collapses without efficiency in English. Instead of spending the cognitive resources over a new Indian regional/oriental language, students prefer to tame their subject matter and presentation skills through the current educational lingua franca of India i.e. English. Along with the vision of setting up educational institutions for all the Indian languages, creating an environment of linguistically inclusive job sector is also a challenge.
But the positive steps are being taken to build a multilingually inclusive job sector. For instance, the Subramanian committee report has stated Gujarat’s example where students receive vocational skills qualifications through ITIs (NCVT courses) provided in their own language. Such courses bridge education and the employment sector. Freedom of implementation of the language policy and bridging it with the job sectors should be a liberal right of state governments.
Changes on a minor scale will go a long way. Unless the Central Government jobs make a provision of officially including the regional languages, the gap between education and job markets will always persist. Along with the jobs in media, state government affairs and education, regional languages should also be encouraged in more vocational courses and technical fields based in India.
Kulkarni Pranjali Shrikant and Shivakumar Jolad
Pranjali is a doctoral student in the Cognitive science discipline at IIT Gandhinagar. She studies aspects of Language acquisition through the perspectives of social sciences, philosophy of language and cognitive science.
Shivakumar is an Associate professor, FLAME University, Pune. He teaches courses on public policy, history of education, education policy. His primary research interests are Data analytics, Education policy, and Human development. He studies the structural challenges faced by the government schools and examines ways to reorganize school system for better functionality. In recent years, he has worked on drain of enrollment in government schools in Karnataka, school consolidation,Right to Education, and learning level crisis. He received his PhD in theoretical condensed matter Physics and doctoral minor in Demography from Pennsylvania State University, PA, USA.
[1]Kuhl, P. K. (2016). Bilingual Language Learning in Children. http://ilabs.uw.edu/Bilingual_Language_Learning_in_Children.pdf
[2] Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language learning. NY: Pergamon. http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/principles_and_practice.pdf
[3] Cook, V. (1995). Multi‐competence and the learning of many languages. Language, Culture and curriculum, 8(2), 93–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/07908319509525193
