Bangla medium versus English medium

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From the Financial Express

Opinion
Bangla medium versus English medium
Nahid Kaisar Toma
4/9/2006

SO many hymns have been dedicated to the cause of the 'necessity of
learning English' that to say more will be a waste of time on my part. Nor
can I afford to dismiss the 'grand' role the language plays in our public,
social, economic, national and the most influential international sphere.
My concern is to discuss how successful English medium education is for
Bangladeshi students and what does an English medium education offer which
Bangla medium students miss. Is English, as a medium, stronger than Bangla
for Bangladeshi students? I don't think so. For a Bangladeshi student (I
mean born and bred in Bangladesh) no language, I emphasise, no language
but Bangla can be the most successful media for education.

Why put so much importance on this? Of course there are reasons, a decade
ago, only upper and upper-middle class people monopolised the English
medium schools. But now middle class people are running at the same pace
to put their children in these schools. Recently, it has become so much
'popular' that everywhere you'll come across a poster or banner of some
international school or English/semi-English medium school. Surely a
country's tendency to establish schools is warthwhile, but why so rush?
What guardians expect of these schools to provide their children with? Why
turn away from Bangla mediums? Surely, these questions are disturbing.
I've tried to find out some of the probable answers for them.

The present situation reminds me of Thomas B. Macaulay's 'Minute on
Education': "All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects
commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India contain neither
literary nor scientific information -- a single shelf of a good European
library is worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia -- We
must at present do our best to form a class of interpreters between us and
the millions whom we govern; a class of persons Indian in blood and
colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect."
The result is so called 'elite' which produces 'Babus' among whom Michael
Madhusudan Datta is the worst example. Here there are three points to
notice:

India, here, stands for the Indian subcontinent including present
Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Therefore,'natives' include Bangalee and
'dialects' include Bangla.  Moreover, the assault on the literature of
India include the vast treasures of Bangla literature unknown, unread but
dismissed blindly by the 'prudent' minute-maker.

The purpose is not only creating communicative competence but to rob the
Indians of their own taste, opinion, moral and intellect.
In spite of knowing all these, no sensible man can ignore learning English
since in this 'global' society it is the best medium for communication.
But why to put so much emphasis on it as a medium of education? Isn't
Bangla medium sufficient to perform the job? Definitely it is. What makes
people so fond of English medium education system is its ability to make
Babus who claim to be elite. I asked several parents the reason behind
their obsession with English medium. The answers are interesting: to
enable their children to speak and understand English as well as make them
civilized, sophisticated, refined, polished, etcetera etcetera. I don't
understand their prejudice against Bangla medium. Haven't our forefathers
acquired name and fame, knowledge and enlightenment, sophistication and
decorum despite being Bangla medium students?

We mustn't forget that family is still the most important social
institution. It is a good family atmosphere were the child can have its
first lesson of those moral virtues. Unless you ensure the best family
atmosphere to your children you can never expect them to grow up well.
What's wrong with Bangla medium? I got no specific answers from any
parent. If the goal is education is knowledge, does medium matters so
much? I really don't understand what made the parent so neglectful of
Bangla medium.

A very near cousin of mine has completed her 'A' level from a very
well-known school. However, she always shows a contempt for religious
rituals, traditional beliefs, even for the social norms and values like
saying 'salam' to anyone. Besides, she never hesitates to call us 'khat'
(rustic) for being so attached to Bangla custom and ways. She is, to me,
the utter failure in this case. She has spent her days and years in vain;
her education is no education at all. The process which does not enlighten
the individual and fails to broaden our outlook cannot be called education
at all. It is a mere waste of time, energy and money.

Let us remember what Newman opined about education: it gives a man a clear
conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing
them, an eloquence in expressing them and a force in using them. Can't
Bangla as a medium educate us this way? Of course, it can. What I mean to
hold up that is medium does not secure ultimate success. Instead, it may
go wrong and things may go worse. Some students of English medium schools
become so snobbish that they can't stand people talking to them in Bangla
on the ground that they are not 'comfortable' with Bangla. We know, how
often education is compared to light which removes the darkness of
ignorance. If one cannot distinguish between her/ his own and foreign,
personal and professional, of what use is her/his education then?
The extent to which we need English can be achieved by a sound Bangla
medium educational process which has always 200 marks course (English
first and second paper) in it. If necessary, we may add another one
hundred marks which particularly will put stress on four skills without
which no sound job can be secured. Therefore, the attemps parents make
today to admit the children in English medium schools are futile and
funny.

Actually, both medium of educational systems need some basic reformations
and the first thing to be reformed is the prejudiced mind-set of our
people who like to be colonized even after half-century of our being
decolonised. Why emphasis it so much? I would like to expand my discussion
which will provide answers to some of the question raised in this article
in the next week issue.

http://www.financialexpress-bd.com/index3.asp?cnd=4/9/2006&section_id=10&newsid=21269&spcl=yes
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To be continued