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<h1 itemprop="name headline ">Pakistan ruined by language myth</h1>
<div itemprop="description" id="stand-first" class="stand-first-alone" data-component="Article:standfirst_cta">Effective
teaching of English is the preserve of an elite, leaving the rest of
the country to linguistic confusion and educational failure</div><span class="facebook-share"><a class="facebook-share-btn" href="http://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?app_id=180444840287&link=http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jan/10/pakistan-language-crisis&display=popup&redirect_uri=http://static-serve.appspot.com/static/facebook-share/callback.html&show_error=false&ref=desktop" data-href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jan/10/pakistan-language-crisis" data-link-name="Facebook Share"><span class="facebook-share-icon"></span><span class="facebook-share-label"></span></a><span class="facebook-share-count"></span></span><span class="IN-widget" style="line-height: 1; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-align: center;"><span style="padding: 0px ! important; margin: 0px ! important; text-indent: 0px ! important; display: inline-block ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important; font-size: 1px !
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</div><div id="content"><span itemscope="" itemprop="author" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span itemprop="name"><a class="contributor" rel="author" itemprop="url" href="http://www.theguardian.com/profile/zubeida-mustafa">Zubeida Mustafa</a></span></span><br><br><a itemprop="publisher" href="http://www.theguardian.com/">theguardian.com</a>,
<time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2012-01-10T14:00GMT" pubdate="">Tuesday 10 January 2012 14.00 GMT</time><a style="display: inline;" href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jan/10/pakistan-language-crisis#start-of-comments" class="content-comment-count" data-link-name="comment-count"><span class="comment-count-text"></span><span class="comment-count-val"></span></a>
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<img src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/12/20/1324382890951/pakistan-language-crisis-007.jpg" alt="pakistan language crisis" itemprop="contentUrl representativeOfPage" data-pin-description="Step in the wrong direction ... home languages have low status in Pakistan’s classrooms. Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters" height="276" width="460">
<div class="caption" itemprop="caption">Step in the wrong direction ... home languages have low status in Pakistan’s classrooms. Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters</div>
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<h2>Opinion<br></h2><div>Last year I wrote a book highlighting the crisis in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/pakistan" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Pakistan">Pakistan</a>'s
education system caused by the way languages are used and taught. Its
publication prompted one critic to remark that I was trying to
"backwardise" the children of Pakistan. Another said that language was
not the problem; it was what we taught that needed to be addressed.</div><div><br></div><div>These
were typical responses from highly educated, fluent English speakers.
They have glorified the English language in Pakistan to the extent that
all logic has been put aside. But they wield great influence over public
opinion and have even persuaded policymakers that the country's
education system can be fixed by hiring teachers competent in English.
Such teachers are hired by exclusive private schools, which are beyond
the reach of the majority. So proficiency in English automatically
becomes the preserve of the affluent.</div><div><br></div><div>Since I have been more
concerned about the majority's problems, I have pleaded the case of the
underprivileged by stating that children must initially begin their
schooling in their own tongue, with which they are familiar. This will
help their cognitive development and inculcate critical thinking. It
will also enable them to be articulate participants in the construction
of knowledge in the classroom and discourage the culture of rote
learning. English should be introduced at a later stage and taught as a
second language.</div><div><br></div><div>With the exception of a small minority of
children who are bilingual even before they begin school, teaching
children in a language other than their mother tongue in the early years
does them harm, no matter how good their teachers may be. This approach
robs the child of the natural advantage she has in her home language.</div><div><br></div><div>A
child begins "acquiring" language from her environment soon after she
is born. Children have already gained three or four years of language
experience in their mother tongue when they start school. If English is
to be the school language, these children lose this advantage. The
benefit goes to a small minority that is bilingual from the start by
virtue of their parents being the products of exclusive English-medium
education.</div><div><br></div><div>Such is the power of myths about language in Pakistan
that a public demand has been created for English. People believe that
English is the magic wand that can open the door to prosperity.
Policymakers, the wielders of economic power and the social elites have
also perpetuated this myth to their own advantage. The door of
prosperity has been opened but only for a small elite.</div><div><br></div><div>In a
multilingual country such as Pakistan where at least eight major
languages compete for supremacy, English occupies a special position by
virtue of its "neutrality". But the status of English as the language of
international communication exerts additional pressure. This importance
is reinforced by Pakistan's employment market, which discriminates in
favour of the fluent English speaker even though not every job requires
an English language expert.</div><div>This language paradox has undermined
our education standards. With no well-defined language as a medium of
instruction policy, we have a fractured system that divides society.</div><div><br></div><div>There
is an excellent English-based system in the private sector that is
expensive and caters for a small wealthy elite. Children from the middle
and lower-middle classes go to second-tier private schools charging
relatively modest fees. They adopt a strange mix of languages while
pretending to be English-medium. Why else would you see schools in the
shantytowns of Karachi announce their Anglicised names and the fact that
they are "English-medium" in Urdu script? The teachers explain in their
mother tongue while teaching from English language textbooks from which
the students plagiarise and memorise passages.</div><div><br></div><div>It is left to
public-sector schools, patronised by the children of the poor, to adopt
indigenous languages as the medium of instruction – rather
apologetically. With the government rapidly disengaging itself from the
education sector, these institutions perform dismally.</div><div><br></div><div>As a
result, the country is in a state of linguistic confusion. On the one
hand people are desperate to be seen as being proficient in English when
they are actually not. At the same time they are ashamed of their own
language though that is the only language they can communicate in. The
ambiguity of the language of instruction policy allows schools to make
their own choices, which has contributed to the present crisis in
education in Pakistan. The demand for English – a trend set by the
privileged elite – has put schools under pressure. Not many teachers who
can teach English or teach in English are available.</div><div>That is why
it would be feasible to get all schools to teach initially in the
child's mother tongue while concentrating on improving standards. This
would require the production of good textbooks and the training of
teachers. Both of these can be done effectively in our own languages.
The main challenge would be to decide judiciously which language is to
be used as the medium in which region and at what stage other languages,
including English, should be introduced.</div><div><br></div><div>Training
English-as-a-second-language teachers should pose no difficulty. Such
teachers can impart basic communication skills in English to their
students who would be learning other subjects in their own language.
Those going on to higher studies or needing greater competency in
English could take up language courses that should be made widely
available.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.zubeidamustafa.com/" title=""><em>Zubeida Mustafa</em></a><em>
is an independent journalist based in Karachi. Her book Tyranny of
Language in Education: The Problem and its Solution is published by </em><a href="http://www.ushbabooks.com/" title=""><em>Ushba</em></a></div>
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