THIS is apropos of Zubeida Mustafa's article 'Language in education' (Oct 13) in which the learned writer has garnered the views on language in education with special reference to the use of mother tongue in educational field.

Mother tongue is the language spoken in the family and in the environment around the child. This language can be any one of the provincial/regional languages or it can be even English depending on the expressions/humming a child is hearing all the time.

This is called acquisition learning when a child learns very easily and quickly, and the age of acquisition learning is up to 10 years. During this age period, the child can learn the mother tongue and subjects like Islamiat and arithmetic can be taught in the mother tongue for effective learning.

After Class III, Urdu, our national language, can be introduced in all the provinces. Since Urdu is spoken in all the provinces in most of the homes, in the streets, on TV, radio, etc, so a child will easily be able to acquire the language. This process should continue till Class V. Now the child has acquired know-how of initial learning skills of the languages, and the subject of English can be formed as part of the syllabus.

There is much hype that teaching is to be done in the mother tongue, but the fact is that the mother tongue, depending on the teacher, is invariably used during teaching of science and arts subjects in most of the educational institutions.

The teacher cannot escape the use of mother tongue because it facilitates in assimilation of lessons. Direct method of teaching forbids the use of mother tongue during teaching. B. Skinner and his colleagues called behavourists, on the other hand, advocate that learning (after acquisition stage of learning, i.e. 10 years or so) can be bolstered by the use of mother tongue in the course of teaching.

Countries in the Asian region, especially China, are developing because their cottage industry uses native language to produce skilled labour. There is an urgent need to address the language issue squarely in the light of country requirements.

M. SALEEM ANSARI

Karachi