One of the many curiosities of life in this benighted republic transformed into a society of open, continuous and uninterrupted injustice by the self-serving socialism of the Congress party and the political class as a whole, is the high anxiety parents suffer for many months starting from as early as November every year. That’s the time they begin the rounds of English-medium preschools, primary-secondary and higher secondary schools, begging for admission of their children.
Contrary to received and especially Left opinion, this ever ballooning mass of anxious parents isn’t entirely made up of urban middle class citizens. Even the subaltern classes at the bottom of the social pyramid have cottoned on that English language learning enables youth to access the national — and increasingly international — market for jobs. Curiously, despite a mountain of in-your-face evidence, this elementary wisdom doesn’t seem to have penetrated the minds of the political class in India’s 28 states and seven Union territories. While the public demand is for English medium — or at least English as a subject — education, for suspicious reasons (textbooks writing and printing rackets) state governments are hell-bent on making their dominant languages or the mother tongue, but not English, as the medium of primary education. By way of justification for this undemocratic compulsion, they cite the opinion of sundry Left intellectuals who believe that cognitive development in early years is optimal in native languages.
Obviously sub-nationalist politicians and fellow-travelling intellectuals are unaware of a wealth of recent research proving that 93 percent of children’s cognitive faculties are developed by the time they attain 8-9 years of age, and that during early childhood children can learn several languages easily. Therefore children who aren’t taught English in primary school will inevitably experience problems in learning the language in secondary education.
With the country’s 1.20 million government schools indifferent to teaching English, and the fast-expanding middle and aspirational subaltern classes desperate for admission into 80,000 (or 200,000 according to the Union HRD ministry which counts primary, upper primary, high and higher secondary schools as separate entities) private English-medium schools, it’s hardly surprising that admissions have become a nightmare for parents aspiring to do the best for their children. Moreover, the stress parents suffer is rising year on year because instead of improving rock-bottom teaching-learning standards and introducing English in public/government schools, venal and bloody-minded politicians and bureaucrats in the states are doing their best to discourage the promotion of private English-medium schools, by tying up edupreneurs in red tape and/or litigation. Against the backdrop of the Supreme Court about to finally adjudicate whether governments or parents have the right to choose the medium of instruction of children, our cover story explains why the situation has come to this sorry pass.
Nor is our cover story the sole example of faulty policies creating confusion and consternation at ground zero level. Read our special report feature to appreciate the chaos and confusion created by the CCE (continuous and comprehensive evaluation) student assessment system hastily adopted by schools affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education — the largest pan-India school-leaving examinations board — in 2009. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
