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English flourishing in Pakistan at the expense of Urdu?
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<a itemprop="name" href="http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/NewsSource/by-arsalan-haider">
By Arsalan Haider </a>
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<span class="" itemprop="datePublished">March 27, 2014</span>
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LAHORE: The English language is flourishing in Pakistan,
breaking free from the shackles of its earlier perceived status of being
the language of the elite to become the commoners’ language.<br>A
one-day policy dialogue on English language in Pakistan, organised by
the British Council on Wednesday, agreed that Pakistan lacks a
formulated policy on its national language. The dialogue had a thrust on
bigger issues pertaining to English both as a medium of instruction and
as a common language at workplace, social settings and domestic
surroundings. Divergent viewpoints, local and global, were presented to
capture a broader perspective on English language’s present and future
in Pakistan. However, there was one common ground amongst the all the
discussants, participants and experts—English language and Pakistan were
no longer aliens to each other despite the existing anomalies while the
paradox of national language had become global in its nature with
Pakistan being no exception.<br>Does Pakistan really has a clearly spelt
out policy vis-a-vis its national language, was the question thrown by
Tony Jones, British Council Pakistan’s director programmes towards both
the audience and the participants of the inaugural panel discussion. Dr
Tariq Rehman, a veteran scholar on linguistics and a distinguished
English language teacher, revealed that there was no consistent policy
paper addressing this larger question yet there were certain documents
indicating that Urdu was supposed to be the national language of
Pakistan. “There is no uniform policy of national language for every
Pakistani child. Both the state and provinces have been pursuing
different goals at the same time,” he remarked.<br>Ghazi Salahuddin, a
journalist and a writer, was of the opinion that without imparting
education to the school beginners in their first language, proficiency
in English or any other second language couldn’t be ensured. “Your
genius can only flourish in the first language. As long as we don’t
recognize this fact, English will remain a barrier to progress in
Pakistan.” Prof Chris Kennedy, a research fellow at the University of
Birmingham, was in the same stride with Ghazi Salahuddin, stressing the
need for initial learning in the first language as suggested even by the
worldwide research. John McGovern, a freelance consultant and the
fourth panelist, pointed out that there was a great deal of confusion
between the national language policy and the actual practice in
Pakistan. He cautioned that without a sound policy, all the proposed
strategies would prove futile.<br>Earlier, Dr Shahid Siddiqui, a
linguistics scholar, in his welcome address highlighted the historical
perspective of language evolution in Pakistan. Stressing upon the
connection between the language and the society, he termed linguistic
capital as a pivotal force guiding economic, cultural and social capital
of any society. “At the time of independence, Urdu became a strong
language in Pakistan. And, now the same goes for English,” Dr Siddiqui
maintained saying he saw a disconnect between mandated language policy
and the ground realities. He revealed that 27 out of 67 languages
currently being spoken in Pakistan, were endangered.<br>Stephen Roman,
British Council’s regional director for South Asian region, said in his
address that English language had become a global phenomenon as the
United Kingdom no longer owned it as its sole property. Rather, it was
owned globally now, including Pakistan. He claimed that English
proficiency level amongst teachers in Pakistan was quite poor while 90
percent teachers in Punjab weren’t equipped to teach different subjects
in English medium. Roman disclosed British Council has been making
investment to promote English language through various programmes and
initiatives. “Education will be the biggest asset of Pakistan in days to
come. UK is fully committed to support Pakistan for all English
language initiatives.”<br>Richard Weyers, the area director for British
Council Punjab, stressed upon the need on part of all the stakeholders
to speak as one voice for promoting English language in Pakistan. He
informed that just three percent population of the Pakistani students at
the school and college level had access to private schools imparting
proper English language while the rest 97 percent were at the mercy of
the state-run schools with no paraphernalia to teach them in English.
The area director disclosed that British Council’s library in Lahore
will become fully functional again by the end of this year.<br>Mussarat
Shahid, British Council’s director English, shared the key findings of a
research conducted on behalf of her institution, informing the
participants that the percentage of English speakers in Pakistan had
risen to 49 percent of the total population by 2014. She pointed out
that the existence of pseudo English medium schools in Punjab was
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