Bengali Language Learning

[P. Kerim Friedman]

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031230/asp/frontpage/story_2733427.asp

English return with Bengali dose

MITA MUKHERJEE

Calcutta, Dec. 29: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s government is expected to
announce in January the teaching of English from Class I along with
compulsory learning of Bengali for children of all linguistic groups up
to Class VIII.

Education officials said the new language policy, greenlighted two
weeks ago by the Left Front in tune with the government’s
recommendation, would come into effect from the 2004 academic session
in nearly 65,000 primary and secondary schools affiliated to school
boards of Bengal.

Compulsory learning of Bengali will touch a vast number of children
whose mother tongues are Hindi, Oriya, Gujarati and other languages.
This is the first time since the introduction of the Madhyamik course
in 1974 that the learning of Bengali has been made compulsory for
children of non-Bengali linguistic groups.

Till last year, a non-Bengali speaking child studying in a school
affiliated to the state secondary board could choose a third language
from a group of 16 languages.

“We intend to ensure that every child in any of the 12,000 institutions
affiliated to our board gets to learn Bengali at least till Class
VIII,” said S. Sahana, deputy secretary, academic, West Bengal Board of
Secondary Education.

Apparently, the decision making Bengali a must for every schoolgoing
child — an issue that finds a favourable mention in the voluminous
report of the Ranjugopal Mukherjee committee on revamp of school
education — has been taken to allow the anti-English lobby in the CPM
and the Front a sense of victory.

“We have completed several rounds of discussion on introduction of a
balanced language policy. We should be in a position to unveil the
policy within the first week of January,” Kanti Biswas, the state
school education minister, said.

By a reliable estimate, once the policy gets under way, English will
have begun to be taught from June in Class I of about 52,000 primary
schools, affiliated to the primary board. Similarly, Bengali will now
become the obligatory third language for about 100,000 children of
other linguistic groups.

With the two major issues relating to the language policy, the
government is also expected to announce how many of the recommendations
of the Mukherjee committee it is going to accept.

The announcement on English assumes urgency as the recommendation of
the Pabitra Sarkar committee on the basis of which the existing system
is practised will expire in May 2004.