As global examples from Germany to Japan reaffirm the value of native-language education, it is time India embraced its own plurality — not as a barrier, but as the very foundation of holistic learning and national identity
The linguistic and cultural diversity of any country must be celebrated with great attention and in its true spirit. India’s multilingual phenomenon has always been an integral part of society, but the nature of plurality of languages differs greatly. India, as one of the richest linguistic nations in the world, represents the plurality and diversity in its society, which has been seen as its biggest strength.
The dominance of English as a global language of education has derecognised the linguistic, cultural and epistemic identities of multilingual people. During the colonial days, English was taught for vested interests. It was believed to have the quality of broadening the horizons of knowledge, and because of the variety of texts, it was thought to promote critical thinking and analytical skills, which was ably supported by the learning of rhetoric.
Even after independence, we fail to appreciate the mother tongue as a cognitive and pedagogical resource and find absolutism in the dogma of monolingualism as a language-teaching resource. English has been, for most people, a skill to master, not just a language to learn to express. English is, for the most part, a foreign language, but treated as a second language in India.
The immense damage done by communicative English language courses — by shifting the onus of communication to the receiver of the communication rather than the creator — has led to a peculiar situation of incomplete cognitive processing, or at best, partial understanding. If we look at the globe, we can see that some leading countries like Germany, China, and Japan, with the highest technological expertise, are offering primary education in their mother tongue.
The push for teaching in a universal language such as English has been shown to hinder children’s educational progress in such countries. The key to human resources development is education, and the English-only policy fails to appreciate the mother tongue as a cognitive and pedagogic resource.
As a hapless victim of linguistic robbery, the schoolchild is terminally disabled from utilising the immense linguistic arsenal offered by his mother tongue. This reveals the fact that primary education in the mother tongue is as effective and functioning as it could be in any other dominant language. The use of home language, local language, and mother tongue-based primary and secondary education also entails that each language can provide cognitive and educational resources to its learners.The historic and transformative National Education Policy (NEP 2020), in its section dedicated to language education called “Multilingualism and the
Power of Languageâ€, endeavours to foster and accept linguistic diversity within the realm of education.
The policy recognises the significance of language as a potent instrument for fostering effective communication, advancing students’ cognitive abilities, and cultivating cultural awareness. It further states that, wherever possible, the medium of instruction should be the mother tongue or the local or regional language. Thereafter, the home or local language shall continue to be taught as a language wherever possible.
It further emphasises that all efforts should be made to ensure that any gaps that exist between the language spoken by the child and the medium of teaching are bridged. NEP 2020 also provides fluidity to the three-language formula, as there is no specific language that shall be imposed on any State. The States, regions, and the students as well, are free to choose the three languages which the students want to learn, whereas at least two of them are to be native to India — one of which is most likely to be the home, local, or regional language. The objective of the NEP 2020 is to make India a knowledge superpower by equipping its students with the necessary skills and knowledge, and to eliminate the shortage of manpower in academia, science, technology, and industry. In recent years, education in mother tongue, regional, local, or home languages has attracted serious attention worldwide. Mother tongue plays a critical role in the cognitive and intellectual development of a learner. Studies have shown that individuals fluent in their mother tongue tend to have higher educational success rates than those who are not.
Languages are instrumental in preserving cultural values and traditions, and having a strong foundation in one’s mother tongue can aid in learning new languages. Unfortunately, many countries — particularly those that were colonised — continue to use the language of their colonisers as the medium of instruction in higher education. This is often done under the pretext of the unavailability of books and journals in local languages.
However, this practice puts students who come from schools that use local languages at a disadvantage, particularly in specialised fields such as medicine, science, literature, technology, and law. It is essential to recognise the importance of the mother tongue and to encourage its continued use in education and wider society to develop the foundational skills of a society — such as literacy and critical thinking. The initial investment in multilingual programmes seems to be high because of the additional cost of developing new learning material, especially for languages that have not been standardised or do not have a script. It would also require teachers trained to teach in a multilingual classroom.
This requires renewed resource allocation and a clear policy to enrich the local languages to achieve the ultimate end of an effective mother tongue-based education system. It has now become essential to promote home, local, and regional languages to ensure the continuation and transmission of culture, customs, and history. UNESCO, too, is taking urgent action to encourage broad and international commitment to promoting multilingualism and linguistic diversity, including the safeguarding of endangered languages.
Mother-tongue education needs to be prioritised in policy development to ensure more responsive and nuanced approaches that take into account the unique linguistic and cultural needs of learners. Unfortunately, as everyone is a language user, they think they can comment on language — as it is everybody’s business and nobody’s business.
(The writer is an eminent linguist and author, currently serving as the President of the Linguistic Society of India. He is a former faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. Views are personal)
