No subject

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Date:20/02/2008 URL:
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/20/stories/2008022060500300.htm
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Karnataka - Bangalore

Mother tongue as the medium of instruction

Chitra V. Ramani

Bangalore: The issue of what should be the medium of instruction in
schools remains unresolved. Should the schools have the mother tongue or
the local language as the medium of instruction? The issue, however, is
not new. The Gokak agitation was launched in 1982-83 to demand primacy for
Kannada in schools as a medium of instruction and its introduction in the
administration. The litigation over the States Language Policy that came
into force in 1994 is still pending in the High Court of Karnataka. In
this day and age, most parents prefer to send their children to English
medium schools. Parents seem to prefer English, as they feel that the
universal language will ensure that their children have a better future.

G.S. Sharma, President of Karnataka (Recognised) Unaided Schools
Managements Association, is of the opinion that it is next to impossible
to implement mother tongue as the medium of instruction in schools. For
example, if a Malayali marries a Telugu-speaking person, what is their
childs mother tongue Malayalam or Telugu? Mr. Sharma said that it would be
impractical to implement mother tongue as a medium of instruction in
schools, especially in a cosmopolitan city like Bangalore.

Common schools


U.R. Ananthamurthy, litterateur, has been promoting common schools for a
long time. He told The Hindu that the medium of instruction, up to class
10, should be in Kannada. He said that children should be taught mane
bhashe (mother tongue), beedi bhashe (local language) and attada bhashe
(English). However, English should be taught as a non-examination subject
in schools. In fact, teachers should be encouraged to discuss the game of
cricket for at least half-an-hour with the students, so that they can hone
their conversational English.

T.M. Vijay Bhaskar, Secretary, Department of Education (Primary and
Secondary Education), said that 99 per cent of the respondents (parents)
in a survey conducted by the department supported the introduction of
English in class one in all government schools. There has been a good
response all over the State. The Government took the decision in view of
the larger public opinion. The Government did not want the children from
rural areas to suffer due to lack of knowledge of English, he said.

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