Tamil Nadu’s refusal to adopt the three-language formula has irked the Centre. A two-language policy has been in place in Tamil Nadu for decades, and there is no ground to say that it is going to change any time soon. The three-language policy is also not new, and its own record is rather chequered, even in states where it has been in place for a long time. In the Hindi belt of the north, there is no instance of the use of this formula to introduce children to a contemporary language of another state. You can’t find even a private school in, say, Uttar or Madhya Pradesh where Punjabi or Tamil has the status of a third language under the haloed formula.
In the post-Independence history of our system of education, language has consistently remained a strangely controversial issue. One reason is that language has been perceived mainly as a medium of instruction, rather than as a means to think and express oneself during childhood. Not just the word “medium”, but the other word in that phrase, “instruction” is also interesting and loaded with history — that of colonial days when education was believed to consist of instruction alone. The idea that children learn better when they feel relaxed emerged well after the mid-20th century in educational theory. It influenced systems of education in European countries when serious attempts were made to improve teacher training and school curriculum to accommodate the new perspective on language teaching. In our country, however, the idea that children use language to explore the world around them was not recognised as an important factor of educational reform. The system remained tied to the old perception that teaching is essentially instruction, and its impact depends on the medium chosen for it.
Of course, this is not the whole story of the language “problem”. Until quite recently, policy circles in education were acutely aware of the history of this problem. After Independence, language was perceived as a key factor to be addressed for the goal of national integration. In fact, the history of this perception goes further back. As Independence came closer, the issue became charged with contestation and claims. If India is to have a “national” language, which one will it be? This question was debated in the Constituent Assembly. A related question was that of the official language of the Union government. Neither of the two questions proved simple or easy to resolve. There were no obvious answers, although many leaders of the freedom movement had thought there were. Their attempt to build a consensus was fraught with issues simmering within the language they had assumed to be the answer to India’s quest for a national language. Like any other language, Hindi had more than one variety, and the struggle within its politico-literary world was quite intense if not bitter.
No arena was more active than education for the debate over language. Debates in the early decades of Independence typically focused on national integration, pedagogic appropriateness, and the egalitarian goals of the Constitution. For this, the dominance of English-medium private schools was a considerable factor although their number was quite small at the time. Many eminent politicians of the north had anticipated a gradual decline of the status of English. All sides saw language as a medium, and so did policy makers and teacher trainers. This reality did not change even as the political struggle over language proved divisive and detrimental to children’s interests. By the 1980s, it had become clear that the wisest thing to do in politics was to leave language alone.
This equilibrium was rather tender and also ineffective. It was maintained under the “three-language formula” — an early invention that carried the approval of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE). This remarkable forum had served India since the 1920s to resolve many difficult debates concerning the practice of federal governance in education. This forum has been in disuse over the recent past, and the consequences are now surfacing. Let us remember that CABE was the only formal instrument available for building consensus and keeping everybody in touch with what was happening in education. Reading the archival record of CABE debates is like absorbing the history of our system of education. The solutions that CABE offered were not mandatory or final, but a rare awareness of what will work and what will not.
In the context of language education, the real impasse is not over this or that formula, but over standards. While science and mathematics have been encroached by coaching institutions, no one bothers about the standards of language teaching. Many states have now made the teaching of English compulsory from the beginning in government schools, but that has made little difference to the standard of teaching and children’s ability to use it. Teachers’ own command over English is often quite limited, even in Andhra Pradesh where a radical move has been made to make English the medium of instruction. In the old days, the Hyderabad-based institute for English had the resources to work with teachers of state schools all over the country. It is a pleasant memory now. What is flourishing everywhere is the business of low-budget private schools who impress poorer parents by claiming to be fully English-medium.
Not just English, the standards of teaching in Hindi are no better. Indeed, Hindi is a special victim of the convention that forces it to serve as a cultural preserver rather than as a means of learning different subjects with pleasure and satisfaction. Indeed, several other Indian languages share this fate in their respective states. The long-term benefits of learning a language well are also declining. One major indicator of this is the decline in reading habits. Reading is taught from the earliest grades, but schools fail to produce habitual readers.
The writer is former NCERT director
