India: English is our only edge over the likes of China

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From IndiaTimes

An open letter to the Hon'ble PM V RAGHUNATHAN

[ SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2006 12:51:19 AM]

Dear Shri Manmohan Singh Ji,

In our country, we have more varieties of haves and have-nots than most.
We have the rich haves and the poor have-nots; the urban haves and the
rural have-nots; the higher-caste haves and the backward-caste have-nots;
the educated haves and the illiterate have-knots. Much wasted effort of
the government since Independence has been aimed at bridging the gaps
between these haves and have-nots. Grants, subsidies, controlled prices,
free electricity, education and loans, reservations, quotas and what have
you have all been targeted, at least in stated intent, if not in effect,
at reducing this gaping divide. And now, an eminent meritocrat like you,
of all people, has gone and set the cat among the pigeons, by exhorting
the private sector (putting the very definition of private sector upside
down on the head; and to think you were the one who redefined private
sector in India in the early 90s!)  to adopt quotas, as if the move for
quotas in higher academia wasnt the limit.

Of course, these have and have-not parameters are highly correlated. For
example, a greater proportion of the rural population is likely to be
poor, of which a greater proportion is likely to be illiterate of which a
greater proportion is likely to be of backward caste and so forth. Is it
that because we could not bridge this divide even after six decades of
Independence and the only thing we left untried was the reservation in the
private sector, you have concluded that reservation in the private sector
must be the answer? Well, thats like concluding that cockroaches hear
through their legs;  since when you cut off all the six legs of one, and
ask it to walk, it does not apparently having lost its hearing power.

Sir, I have heard many of your Cabinet colleagues give a spiel on
India-Bharat divide. But to me, India-Bharat divide is not so much about
the urban-rural divide as the English non-English speaking divide. At a
time when, a Class X dropout fluent in English is more likely to find
employment and earn more than an engineer who has studied throughout in
the vernacular, the vernacular language policy in government schools comes
not as governments short-sightedness; but as its blindness to see the
reality. Of course, your Cabinet colleagues know all that; or else their
own children would not be in the swankiest of schools in India and abroad
(Gandhiji was the only exception and history has pilloried him as a bad
father!). It obviously serves their selfish vote-bank politics to maintain
the duality and keep the masses mired in linguistic parochialism.

Our politicians make passionate calls for Hindi as the national language.
But why should the politicians in the southern states root for Hindi among
their vote banks any more than their northern brethren root for madrasi
among theirs? And for all that, it is not Hindi-speaking India that is at
the forefront of our IT, BPO or even industrial revolution. And even in
the South, it is not the hinterland but only a handful of cities like
Bangalore, Hyderabad or Chennai or Thiruvananthapuram that have really
capitalise on English. We have thousands of engineering and management
institutions in the country, a large bulk of which are in smaller towns. A
majority of youngsters from such schools are handicapped for serious
careers, thanks to their poor proficiency in English.

When these students, who were throughout schooled in vernacular move to
English medium in their technical education and subsequently to their work
life; they are severely inhibited in their interactions and consequently
lose out. Nobody can dispute the benefits a young child derives from
learning in its mother tongue in its formative years. Perhaps, we would do
better by ensuring that all government schools (which is where most of the
have-nots go to) teach in the vernacular up to class V, with English as
the second language; but from Class VI onwards switch to English as the
first language and the vernacular as the second. Give this policy seven
years (class V to class XII), and this policy is likely to do more for the
development of our socio-economically backward than all the reservations
and quotas combined. And sir, I should know; I studied in Jammu and
Ambala.

Bringing English to the remotest schools is the only way we will be able
to ensure that call centres, BPOs and many other service industries become
an available option for our vernacular have-knots. English is our only
edge over the likes of China, Taiwan or even the Far-Eastern tigers; and
the more of us that speak it, the sharper that edge. Sir I should know. I
was a teacher for 20 years.

Thank you.

(The author is the CEO, GMR Varalakshmi Foundation. Views are personal.)

 http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1509764.cms