The language conundrum
PAKISTAN has failed to educate its children. This is shameful and now we have the proverbial insult added to injury.
It is in the form of the numerous myths and misconceptions about language circulating on the Internet and in conferences on education that have caught the public imagination. This creates pressure for education in English.
An article by Gwynne Dyer, a Canadian syndicated columnist, in this paper spoke of ‘The triumph of English’. It was a clever piece of writing in that it dwelt very convincingly on the importance of the English language in the globalised world of today. It also said, “The amount of effort that is being invested in learning English is so great that it virtually guarantees that this reality will persist for generations to come.”
Dyer refrains from highlighting the negative aspects of this triumph of English which a blogger suggested should have been headlined ‘the triumph of colonialism’. The fact is that an indiscriminate and wholesale adoption of English or its pseudo version as the language of education is undermining our education system. The focus is so much on English that knowledge, information and critical thinking are being sidelined by the effort to teach English.
I am all in favour of our children learning English in school, albeit as a second language. I also wish that more effective methodologies were adopted so that the child actually learns the language. That, however, does not mean that the medium of instruction should be English. Teaching English is different from teaching in English.
Quick to jump on the English bandwagon are a number of people who have little understanding of education and even less of language acquisition. They also fail to look at the ground realities in Pakistan. There is no attempt at any self-analysis. This is what one of them wrote, “Anyone who is opposing the English language and its value in Pakistan must read this eye-opener (Gwynne Dyer’s article). Our ideologues will still not want to buy it but that is precisely why in Pakistan we have pressed the reverse gear of history on all counts.”
I am not very clear who he is referring to when he speaks of ideologues. I know this much that those championing the use of English as the language of education are the ones pressing “the reverse gear of history”.
To help readers recall what Thomas Babington Macaulay, a member of the governing council of the East India Company, had to say about education, I cite from his famous Minutes on Education (1835), “…it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of people Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect”.
Nearly 176 years after these words were written, it seems our makers and shakers have reverted to what our colonial rulers were saying. The articulation is different. A bureaucrat-educationist told me that the language myths are now promoted by the power wielders who don’t want the masses to be educated. Gone are the days when a wadera could stand up and refuse to allow a school to be opened in the area under his control. Now he allows a school to be set up but ensures that the children learn nothing.
What about the children themselves? I conducted a small survey in which about 85 children from four schools participated. All the children came from the low-income classes (their family income was said to be about Rs10,000-15,000 per month). Apart from one school which claimed a literacy of 50 per cent among parents thanks to its community programme, the others said barely two per cent of the parents are literate. Run by various organisations which raise funds and are trying to improve the lives of the deprived children, the efforts of the schools are to be commended. While two are using English as the medium — the Pakistani way — the other two have opted for Urdu.
Some initial observations are instructive. The grade 5 children tested were of ages ranging from 11 to 13 years. They were given a simple paper of grade 4 level with questions in English on one side and Urdu on the other.
They were offered a choice of language in which they wanted to write. While all 10 of the children from an ‘English-medium’ school opted for Urdu, two out of 17 from the better ‘English-medium’ school did the entire paper in Urdu. Six were bilingual — doing one question in English and the other in Urdu. Nine wrote their answers entirely in English. This indicates the comfort level of the children in language. Forty-one of the 85 children tested did not speak Urdu at home. Yet all of them found it easier to communicate in Urdu than in English since Urdu is the language of the environment in Karachi.
Broadly speaking, the children from the Urdu-medium schools could articulate their ideas better and showed better critical thinking. Of course we still have to go a long way to reach satisfactory standards in Urdu too.
A beginning has to be made but first we must sort out the issue of which language should be the language of education. The children’s concerns must be kept in view.
i think Urdu be given it's due importance as a national language.that's all.
http://khaliquesblog.blogspot.in/search?q=Teachin…
Read my blog.
I don't agree with writer. My mother language is Punjabi. If I have given an option from Urdu & English for my education, I would definitely prefer English as a second language.Urdu is underdeveloped and does not guarantee career success as compared to English language. The other reason is acute shortage of Urdu content on internet. I agree with writer that we should encourage critical thinking in our education.
If all children born in Sindh after 1947 had been instructed in the use of Sindhi properly and scientifically in their
primary and secondary schools and authentic Sindhi History, Geography, Social Studies, Literature
had informed their curricula at least 13 people of Mohabbat e Sindh Rally would not have been killed in Karachi
We would have had a stable prosperous and educated Sindh ;
65 years of arrogant policy have destroyed Sindh
General Secretary
World Sindhi Institute
USA-Canada
This article is biased towards Urdu. All the criticism you wrote of English equally holds good for Urdu also. Urdu actually subjugating provincial languages. I agree that primary education should be taught in mother tongue and then English. Does it mean no place for Urdu? yes.
In Sweden children begin to learn English in the fourth grade. Before fourth grade (9 years old) students should not be taught English. At the university level engineering text books are in English. In the 1950s many texts were in German.
It is possible to study for a double major in English and an engineering discipline.
We know how many languages have contributed to make English a rich international language. No language can be rich without borrowing vocabulary from other languages. Even Arabic has words from Sanskrit.
Keeping emotions side, at present the English is only language near us that can help us to communicate with the world because it is understood by most people. Arabic or Sanskrit wont help you in Japan or in Norway or in Italy on in any far Eastern country, but with English you can get by anywhere, easily. If Indians can do it, Pakistanis can do it , too!
There is no doubt that English is now a universal language but I think there can be other ways to combat this. I think the education should be imparted in national language as it is done in China, Germany, Italy, Iran etc, and later on every graduate should be given a 6 month course in English to translate all his knowledge in English. Having a rural background i know 95 percent of my friends who leave studies up to intermediate level, due to the difficulty they feel while studying in English. It looks quite boring when in daily life you speak in another language and when you turn to books for some time then you have to re orientate your feelings in some other language.
Lets stop teaching Urdu too because Urdu is also a colonial language and came from Iran, the original colonisers of Indian subcontinent. Lets promote Sanskrit in Pakistan, the original language of the land.
Sanskrit and Farsi are both Indo-Aryan languages, are closely related and have a lot in common vocabulary. So what is the problem in using Farsi?
Also it so happens that Aryans invaded and colonized India before the arrival of the Farsi speakers. So if we follow the logic given in this comment then we should really revert to Dravidian languages as they were the commonly spoken languages in India. In Pakistan Brahvi is considered to be related to Dravidian languages and so let us use Brahvi as the official language of Pakistan
Why not go back even further, as Sanskrit was the language of Aryans, who were the invaders, the local Dravidian's, must have been speaking something, they were not all deaf and dumb, and without any language. Sinhalese might be a good example.
So the writer begins with her assumption that those who support the cause of English as a means of education 'have little understanding of education'. How does she say that is beyond comprehension. Time and time again these writers demonsie Macaulay and his language and education policies but every time forget that they are themselves are writing in the same 'colonial' language: English!
Ms Mustafa comes up with her 'research' as a counter argument against English. Interestingly her 'research' is done on a very small-scale in KARACHI! And then she is generalising her 'findings' to the whole of Pakistan!. These scholars forget that if English is an alien language for a majority of our students, then so is Urdu!
A while ago I wrote a blog against such 'backward' ideas. I am pasting that here for further elaboration of the issue: http://leicester.academia.edu/MuhammadIlyasKhan/B…
Well said, my thoughts exactly. The article is a good piece of literature, written in a good colonial English. I have yet to read an article by the author in a local language of Pakistan. A good example of the preacher who says "Do what I say, don't do what I do".
no urdu, no progress in education. keep on waiting….