For the last few days I have been listening (and reading) about the need to introduce English language in primary school (that is from first standard). The debate seems to be quite intense particularly in Karnataka state. As one goes through it one realizes that the issue is very serious and need to be taken in all its gravity. However at the outset let me make one thing very clear I am participating into this on the assumption of a standardized education system and not confined to government or municipality schools only otherwise I will be falling into the elitist discussion that is doing the round.
So lets start with the basics!!. As basic as trying to understand what is Language since I gather an overall understanding of the issue is very important. A general definition characterizes language as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which members of a society interact with one another. Language is not a cultural artifact that we learn the way we learn to tell time or how the Government works. Instead, it is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains. Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction, is deployed without awareness of its underlying logic. According to the Behaviorist view, most clearly articulated by B. F. Skinner in Verbal Behavior, language learning is mainly a question of imitation, reward and habit formation. Children repeat the sounds they hear around them and are encouraged to do so by positive reinforcement. However, the work of Noam Chomsky in the late 1950s and early 1960s caused a reappraisal. Chomsky called attention to two fundamental facts about language. First, virtually every sentence that a person utters or understands is a brand-new combination of words, appearing for the first time in the history of the universe. Therefore a language cannot be a repertoire of responses; the brain must contain a recipe or program that can build an unlimited set of sentences out of a finite list of words. That program may be called a mental grammar (not to be confused with pedagogical or stylistic "grammars," which are just guides to the etiquette of written prose). Chomsky takes an innatist view of language acquisition, which maintains that we are biologically programmed to acquire a language, by means of some sort of language processing mechanism in the brain, variously referred to as the language acquisition device (LAD) or black box. All that is necessary is exposure to language. This in itself is sufficient to trigger the process of language acquisition through the generation of a set of rules for the production of acceptable sentences. So, rather than copying and memorising the speech of its parents and siblings, the child uses this input to develop rules for the generation of an infinite number of grammatically acceptable sentences. Chomsky and other linguists developed theories of the mental grammars underlying people's knowledge of particular languages and of the Universal Grammar underlying the particular grammars. So a distinction is made between Behaviourist learning and Chomsky’s innate acquisition of language. In a simple sense Learning is defined as a deliberate, conscious attempt to master a language. Acquisition is defined as a less deliberate, subconscious process of mastering a language, and is often associated with the manner in which children acquire their native or first language. In babies' brains, the experience of language itself actually molds the brain into what it will become. Otherwise further development of the necessary neural networks for linguistic competence is seriously impeded.
Having understood the significance of laguage in early development of brain lets now understand the significance of Mother tongue in learning. Mother tongue is a language shaped by shared genetic inheritance. A mother tongue is a language learnt before any other language has been learnt and is a person’s early language experience. The mother-tongue is the language that is naturally learnt by members of a community and employed by them as the first medium of vocalized communication. It could be seen as the language of a native community or group of people with common ancestory. Studies have shown beyond doubt that the experiences in the mother-tongue promote the cognitive abilities of the children. As the child interacts with his parents and immediate relations, he comes into proper understanding and grasping of his mother-tongue. He also learns through the naming of various objects around him and the immediate environment because he has acquired a proficiency in his mother-tongue, built up a vocabulary covering a lot of the objects of sense expression and his daily activities (Adetunberu and Oluwafoise 1992). According to Abiri (1976), native language plays a significant role in the psychosocial development of the individuals. By implication, the mother-tongue provides a more rewarding learning environment, as school learning and experience become a continuation of home experience, a condition that guarantees cognitive equilibrium. So it is quite clear that education in mother tongue is quite a significant understanding. Mohanlal (2001) is of the view that an important goal of education is to impart the universally recognized moral values to the individual and integrate these with the ethnic specific eco-centric values, cultural norms, and worldview. There is nothing as dangerous and damaging as giving people education that is not relevant to their lives or functional in their understanding and domination of their environment. While Fafunwa (1976) sees this as educating people out of their environment, Rodney (1972) views it as education for underdevelopment. Now these are quite strong views that one tends to agree in all its totality. This understanding is indisputable. However there is a problem and that is the theory has to face the fast changing contemporary reality. The reality of technological advancement, its advantages and means to acquire it needs to be taken into consideration. Denying such opportunities could itself be “education for underdevelopment” at least in its modernistic sense. “Development” I use here as opportunities to access technology for personal and societal sustainable benefit. English is now widely accepted as language of technology and commerce. And in the globalised world its significance cannot be denied. But before that we need to put certain things in perspective. It is important to understand why (and how) did English become an international language? English people colonized and exploited part of the world and its people (so did French). Not because “English” was smart. Any language is as beautiful as other. The Renaissance (essentially against the tyranny of church) fuelling industrial revolution was product of Age of Reason. Science then gave the advantage but the benefits were accrued by barbarians in majority who used religion to organize and discipline (moral). Nazis were the zenith. These barbarians are still very active whether its attack on Iraq or as recent as yesterdays attack in London. They use modern gadgets but are still in that pre-reason archaic mindset. They brutalized the world then, they brutalize it now, with the same impunity. This historical perspective is important to show that English speaking as it spread in this part of the world had a brutal past. Mother tongues were derogatorily referred to as(and still is in mainstream media-talk of self respect!!) Vernacular, apparently to show that indigenous languages did not have the attributes of modern languages. The local languages were in fact regarded as inferior to that of the colonial rulers. The emphasis on English Language in the school system did not only serve the needs of the colonial administrators, foreign traders, and missionaries, it projected the assumed superiority of the culture of the colonial masters. On the other hand, the lack of attention paid to indigenous languages in the curriculum did not only undermine the socio-cultural context of curriculum, it was a deliberate attempt to dismantle the existing socio-cultural infrastructure and heritage which are fundamental to human existence. This is an important benchmark for any discussion on English language. However as we move on we will make an effort to forget this past. Not denying that this is one major reason for resentment against English language and is being capitalized by the revivalists. Having understood and accepted the significance of English in “development” we now need to focus our attention to the political motive of Government in determining their linguist policies. As French author Louis-Jean Calvet puts it bluntly in his book La Guerre des langues et les politiques linguistiques (Hachette, 1999). “The war of languages is always part of a wider war,”. Governments are not always motivated by an impartial hope for empowerment for all. For example, if the ruling party wishes to ensure that a particular ethnic group does not get access to the power structure, it may wish to privilege a particular language and then deny access to that language through the schools(the reason for ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka, in particular). An apparently sound focus on the mother tongue as medium of education does not in itself provide a guarantee of enlightened education’. Because provision of mother-tongue education has been linked with denial of access to the privileged English. There is an overwhelming feeling that this is intended to keep the underprivileged at an inferior position. Many Dalit leaders have compared this denial of English language in government primary school, which is frequented by underprivileged that is generally dalits and other weaker sections, as reminiscent of denial of Sanskrit in ancient times. One cannot deny that whatever development we have achieved the situation is erringly similar. One aim of education is to empower all ethno-linguistic groups equally, but the empowerment of individuals should have primacy over the development of an individual’s mother tongue, and even over the preservation of a language (Antheas Fraser Gupta, 1985) . If language maintenance gets in the way of empowerment, then the individual’s language rights may be being maintained but the educational and social rights are not. An emphasis on the preservation of ancestral languages may be linked to a wish to give freedom to groups to express themselves, but also is linked (Crowley, 1996) to ideologies of purity, which need to be engaged with. Mother tongue education could further diminish access to power structures by underprivileged groups. If the privileged language is the language of the dominant group, then the skills of members of other groups in that language may suffer if they have mother-tongue primary education only, and they will also suffer from diminished personal contact with members of the privileged group.
Another problem in mother tongue education is the question of what is being referred to as mother tongue?. It is interesting to note here that there are around 1,650 mother tongues in India (1961 census) this is not including what is referred to as “unclassifiable” by linguists!!!. This raises the questions about the status of standardised languages. If the standard language (or dialect, if you prefer) is rarely spoken at home, can anyone really be said to be a native speaker of it? This still leaves a relatively small proportion of the population having the standard version as their "mother-tongue", and once the dialect has been standardised, the local dialect may drift away from the standard version. Linguistic varieties having different status. In some cases the written high status language is partly archaic and based on features, which are considered part of an ancient cultural heritage. Most people usually regard spoken languages as worth less, as being less correct and less efficient than written language. What is characteristic of spoken language is often regarded as deviations from "proper language", and proper usage is again that which is prescribed by written standards. Very strong "accents" (highly "deviant" geographical and/or social dialects. (e.g. Bereiter & Engelmann 1966), argued quite strongly that many colloquial dialects, e.g. Black English, were somehow deficient and lacking in grammatical structure, and that they reflected an unsystematic thinking, thus impeding further cognitive and cultural development on the part of the "linguistically deprived" children and youths. Of course, these preconceptions should by now be disproved (e.g. Labov's (1969) forceful arguments), but they provided yet another example of the common attitudes towards colloquial dialects as compared with standard (written) languages. The belief that formal elaboration, which is the ideal of certain written genres, would in itself lead to a more correct and communicatively more forceful language is of course a myth, but it is a myth which is very deeply rooted in our entire culture. That everyday spoken language is plain and poor, deficient, illogical, incoherent and ungrammatical is something, which has been part and parcel of school education for millennia. Children should for this reason receive a correct and decent language at school. For many centuries it was thought that this activity of cultivating and refining the pupil's language was naturally related to the civilizing correction of his crude and evil morals. School education served to emphasize the social barriers between the very few, who had access to the written language, and the vast majority of the people, those who were living in their everyday oral culture. A fact that spoken language belongs to cultural contexts of use, which are different from those of written language. The also brings us to the issue of insistence on “correct english” by the elite in our society(very much reflected in some of the Entrance Exams for best colleges). Lets make very clear we are NOT here to help English grow but to use English to serve our purpose. This with due apologies to colonial leftovers. Language for literary purpose is a different understanding and need be dealt separately. It is however not practical to expect that every language group, however small, can be provided for. Further in cosmopolitan cities (where product of a mixed marriages are high), most residents expect to speak several languages in the course of daily life. So in such scenario when a child is first admitted to school, who decides what that child’s mother tongue is? It is common to find mother tongue determined for a child by patrilineal ancestry. There doesn’t seem to be any educational justification for educating children in an ancestral language which they do not speak. If education in the mother tongue is promoted, there will be extensive separation of ethnic groups in the education system. . If a country wishes to promote social cohesiveness, it may be felt that this is best achieved by giving a common education to the children, which facilitates mixing of ethnic groups. This however may not be entirely true in our country since we are not in a strict sense “cosmopolitan”, except maybe few elites in cities. And our ethnic difference is not as divergent as that is seen in say London or New York. However one is very concerned about certain samaj schools and madrasas, which could be sectarian and pose a danger in future. Further should (expected) social cohesion have precedence over initial mental and emotional development of child(as we see in the example of studies in Nigeria, later on)?. There are also other reasons why mother tongue education is frowned upon. The most convincing of these is that there is a danger that students will come to rely on translation and mother tongue explanation when trying to acquire new language when they need to be more actively involved in working things out for themselves. This is certainly a real danger, but it isn’t sufficient in itself to ban all use of the mother tongue. There are two compelling reasons for making judicious use of the students’ own language. First, students (particularly adult students) bring with them to the classroom a lot of knowledge about (their own) language, and it would be foolish not to use this at times to make direct comparisons between what they already know and what they are learning. The second reason is affective. Especially with low-level students, exclusive use of English can be both tiring and alienating. While students may not be physically punished for speaking their mother tongue in the school (as they previously were in many countries), a strong message is communicated to them that if they want to be accepted by the teacher and the society, they have to renounce any allegiance to their home language and culture. The challenge for educators and policy-makers is to shape the evolution of national identity in such a way that the rights of all citizens (including school children) are respected, and the cultural, linguistic, and economic resources of the nation are maximized. To squander the linguistic resources of the nation by discouraging children from developing their mother tongues is quite simply unintelligent from the point of view of national self-interest and also represents a violation of the rights of the child (see Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000, for a comprehensive review of international policies and practices relating to linguistic human rights). By the time children become adolescents, the linguistic gap between parents and children has become an emotional chasm. Pupils frequently become alienated from the cultures of both home and school with predictable results. To reject a child's language in the school is to reject the child. When the message, implicit or explicit, communicated to children in the school is "Leave your language and culture at the schoolhouse door", children also leave a central part of who they are-their identities-at the schoolhouse door. When they feel this rejection, they are much less likely to participate actively and confidently in classroom instruction. In their contacts with the outside world, they recognize the implicit low status they and their parents are accorded, probably because of their low economic status. This sociolinguistic situation seems to contribute to a psychological setback for these children. This setback has certain consequences for their personality development. They become least interested in going to school. They develop non-cooperative behavior and attitude and become less communicative. Because there is no proper parental and social guidance to overcome such consequences, children often enrolled in the school system much after the normal age for school admission. Parents seem to wait until their children are capable of handling the school on their own in some sense. Dropout rate is much higher because of total incompatibility between the students and the use of language in the textbooks, language used by the teachers in the school, and the contents of the text that are often not eco-friendly. In other words, the contents of the textbooks do not have any relationship to the children. Child studies have shown that children's first experiences in school are traumatic largely because they do not see the school experiences as a continuation of home experiences (Iyamu and Omozuwa, 2004). The early introduction of foreign language contributes to learning difficulties and failure, which in turn could account for dropout as reported by Mohanlal (2001) in India and Abiri (1976) and Fafunwa (1975) in Nigeria. Early education in mother-tongue could help to mitigate these problems. The home support for the education of the child in the form of parents being able to supervise and direct their children's home study. Thus, they have alignment of perception on early education in mother-tongue as a way of making it possible for illiterate parents to be of educational assistance to the children at home. Their perceptions were also the same on mother-tongue education being effective in helping the child to understand his environment. To begin their school life in the mother tongue will make the break between home and school as small as possible. (UNESCO, 1951: 691). The ultimate rationale for the promotion of mother-tongue education is the empowerment of underprivileged groups
So what we gather from the study so far is
a) Learning in mother tongue has cognitive and emotional value.
b) English is an important language to access technology, information and employment opportunities.
So what is the way out from what seems to be mutually exclusive situations?
The answer is Bilingualism. Which is nothing new to Indians. Census studies have shown India to be vibrantly bilingual if not multilingual. Bilingualism is definitely one step forward. However the studies are categorical on the importance of bilingual children's mother tongue for their overall personal and educational development. The level of development of children's mother tongue is a strong predictor of their second language development. Children who come to school with a solid foundation in their mother tongue develop stronger literacy abilities in the school language. Also bilingualism has positive effects on children's linguistic and educational development. When children continue to develop their abilities in two or more languages throughout their primary school years, they gain a deeper understanding of language and how to use it effectively. They have more practice in processing language, especially when they develop literacy in both, and they are able to compare and contrast the ways in which their two languages organize reality. More than 150 research studies conducted during the past 35 years strongly support what Goethe, the German philosopher, once said: The person who knows only one language does not truly know that language. The research suggests that bilingual children may also develop more flexibility in their thinking as a result of processing information through two different languages. Transfer across languages can be two-way: when the mother tongue is promoted in school (e.g. in a bilingual education program), the concepts, language, and literacy skills that children are learning in the majority language can transfer to the home language. In short, both languages nurture each other when the educational environment permits children access to both languages. Bilingual children perform better in school when the school effectively teaches the mother tongue and, where appropriate, develops literacy in that language. By contrast, when children are encouraged to reject their mother tongue and, consequently, its development stagnates, their personal and conceptual foundation for learning is undermined. When this is not done, a gap between the education system and the society results, such as that which characterized colonial education in almost all the colonies in Africa. This gap is often a result of using a language other than the language of the society as the medium of instruction. The curriculum, syllabus, teaching methodology and content of the lessons not suited to the genius of the society contribute to this gap that could lead to learning difficulty and future poor performance/achievement.
Wherever bilingualism has evolved in India, because of given socio-political and demographic reasons, it always has remained vibrant. People acquire bilingualism in these contexts from their early childhood. They do not have to go to school to learn to use two or more languages. However, bilingualism relating to English is a different category altogether. It is a government-sponsored, institutional arrangement. It is driven by formal necessities, not an acquisition in early childhood. There is another problem that is very pertinent and need to be tackled and that is if the structural differences between the mother tongue and target language (that is English) were too great this would make learning more difficult, as there would be more linguistic habits to change or unlearn. However, while it seems reasonable to accept that a learner’s mother tongue will influence the learning of a second language, particularly when the language is as variant as kannada (tamil or sindhi) and english. It is unlikely that this is simply a matter of unlearning habits. As discussed earlier Chomsky’s notion of the language acquisition device has given way to the idea of a universal grammar. The claim is that all human beings are born with a universal grammar, which they use to process and analyse languages. A universal grammar consists of two parts: a set of principles and a number of parameters. The principles are said to be common to all languages. The parameters represent the different ways in which these common principles are expressed in different languages. It therefore follows that a learner’s interlanguage will be based on the general principles that apply to all languages. The degree of receptivity to comprehensible input will depend on the state of the affective filter. This refers to the emotional state of the learner at the time of exposure to comprehensible input. According to Affective filter hypothesis (Kristen), learners raise this imaginary protective filter when they are stressed, frustrated, embarrassed, anxious or bored. The reason why initiation in mother tongue is so very important is also to reiterate the fact that learning need be enjoyable and make child comfortable, stress free and not alienated. Further the syntax of a language is acquired rapidly and effortlessly by young children, but not by adults; hence there is a "critical period" for language acquisition. Children possess their greatest ability to absorb and retain languages until the ages of 12 to 13, when their brains start losing plasticity. Further during this critical period children are less self-conscious than adults and not as afraid of getting things wrong. This results in greater verbalisation, and thus children become fluent in a language much sooner than adults. A large body of research suggests that shortly after birth, infants can discriminate among a large number of sounds that occur in many languages, but they gradually develop a preference for the sounds of their mother tongue. Research have also shown that exposure to more than one language from very early childhood is definitely a benefit. It is best to start language training early. Research has shown that for children to learn how to use mathematics to organize, understand, compare, and interpret their experiences, Mathematics, Science and Technology (MST) must be connected to their lives. Such connections help students to make sense of mathematics and view it as relevant. This reiterates a very significant fact that if you want to learn a foreign language, you need to have good command of your mother tongue. A study also suggests that in order to bring about an improvement in the learning and teaching of mathematics and science, language learning should be investigated as a learning model...relationship between language and thought has to be explored. Language builds on a cognitive base, and concepts are regarded as prerequisites for subsequent language skills. The argument is that the way mother tongue is acquired provides a way to successful learning. Furthermore, language and MST share a number of common features amongst which is the complexity of their structures. These include features like the relationship between a) language and learning and b) language and thought. . The architecture of cognition, or at least that part of it that is peculiar to our species, lies within language, and human cognition has the properties it does have precisely because it came out of language, and not vice versa...language-thought relationship are important to the thesis in this work because it emphasizes the point that language is not to be seen only as a means of communication. There is more to it than that. It is a well-demonstrated fact that language is a tool for conveying knowledge and information... that language ‘is a mirror of the mind’ (Chomsky).... only through an understanding of language will we ever understand ourselves.... cognitive system is the basis for all mental behaviours. ...It becomes clear in this paradigm, that language is seen as part of what the mind has to work on, and not as constituting the mind. There exists a close relationship between language and learning in general. The relationship springs from the point that learning is closely tied to thought, thinking, the mind or cognition. This relationship goes deeper than the idea that language is used in learning. Brown (1994:84), reveals that what we do as we learn language is what we do and have to do when we learn other bodies of knowledge. It therefore becomes impossible to separate language from the process of learning. The connection between language and learning cannot be reduced to a functional level. Language is not a habit structure. It is innovative. This is one the many Chomskyan notions that have uncovered a lot of understanding in linguistics as a science...when a child learns a language he does not imitate, but create rules (formulas) which further structures .The child does not imitate what others produce, but generates own formations. Language is not imitative but creative and generative. Children generate rules that they use to generate intelligible utterances. This process is similar to what happens in knowledge formation in the pure sciences. As in language learning, what is available and known is experimented with in order to produce that which is novel. It has already been argued that language acquisition is generative. Children do have the capacity to grasp more than two languages what is needed is “necessary exposure to language”(chomsky) and not “poverty of stimulus”. So exposure to languages in “critical period” is very important. English therefore need to be introduced as a supportive language from first standard itself, considering significance of this language in day to day technological dealing which has seeped into our life.
When a child produces ungrammatical utterances informed users (of the language) know that it is only a matter of time before they will be corrected. The child cannot be judged as having ‘failed’ in learning his or her mother tongue. The same attitude should prevail towards alternative conceptions in the learning of MST. Learners should not be written off as it usually happens. A lot of learners drop out of science classes because they were never led successfully to develop principles that will lead to the creation of authentic knowledge, a process that allows for the formation of alternative conceptions and the remedying thereof. From language acquisition studies it is established that all normal children succeed in learning their mother tongue if given the necessary exposure, it is all-inclusive. The learning of MST does not have to be as exclusive as it has been made. In learning MST knowledge gaps that breed from insufficient exposure to scientific principles should be closed in a similar way as in language learning. The constructs of generativity, time, alternative rule formation and the remedy thereof, the formation of knowledge gaps and how they have to be filled are what should form a basis for the understanding of teaching and learning in MST. These considerations should inform any endeavour to provide for learning and teaching that is meant to achieve the highest level. They should also be used to analyse all the activities geared at such endeavours. The point on the place of mother tongue in the schooling process is best clarified by Fafunwa (1977) when he wrote about the Educational Anachronism in Africa. According to him, a child learns best in his mother-tongue. Yet, for most of Africa, formal education is offered in a language that is foreign to the child. This is unlike the practice in most other leading countries of the World such as England, France, Italy, Germany, India (to a great extent), China, Japan and so on where the child goes through his primary, secondary and university education in his mother-tongue. Unfortunately, we have continued to emphasise the use of a foreign language (English) as a major medium of instruction in our schools, perhaps as part of our colonial inheritance. It is the informed view of scholars including Fafunwa (1975) and Bamgbose (1977) that foreign language constitutes barrier to effective teaching and learning. This is an important case study to restrain people to blindly jump into the bandwagon of “English only”. Rootedness of culture is an important aspect of development. Early education in the mother-tongue expands the verbal facility and cognitive ream of the child. Early introduction of a foreign language distorts the accumulated vocal and verbal facility, thought process and cognitive equilibrium. Studies have shown that this accounts for a good proportion of primary school dropouts in Nigeria (Fafunwa, 1975) and India (Mohanlal 2001). An alarming rate of school drop out (even mid-day meal scheme may not help in the long run) in India these studies need be taken seriously. This example of Africa is very important for India. In most countries of Africa formal primary education is conducted in foreign language(English and French) but that has not helped to create a sound educational foundation (particularly in science and technology) in most of these countries nor do we see much presence of people from these region in international scene. Now one could blame this for corruption , nepotism, poverty….but these are present in India too. This is an important comparison since you will find that in India those who had their primary education in mother tongue have also done exceedingly well. If one student is able to get into lets say, IIT or PMT out of 500 it is a great achievement considering the limited opportunities under which the child did his/her schooling. And you can see the number is much much more than 1:500. Where I studied the ratio was as high as 60-70% and many I considered as above average if not brilliant(It was fun to do calculations in mother tongue or to translate difficult theories into Malayalam). This points out to the significance of mother tongue and the innate abilities it carried. If given sufficient primary education infrastructure, relevant and mother tongue oriented empathetic syllabus and teachers, these kids may over run the English-replaced-mother tongue kids (unless offcourse the Entrance is skewed to elitist needs). Even now despite all these hindrances India’s core competence seems to coming from this base, whether it is IT or Mr. Manmohan Singh or Mr. Abdul Kalam. This also puts up a question mark on the competence of most of those who are “convent” educated- the colonial left over, and the policies they pursued. It is quite clear from India’s presence in international scene and its contributions except maybe in circle where glib talk, proper accent and easy confidence carry the show. Even they are also proverbial frog in the well since world out there is not shallow they know the bluff. It is for no reason why they are referred to as “developed” nations. Also the outstanding development of countries like Japan and Germany from rubble is also to be noted. What sort of primary education did they follow?. Or is our Education System meant to produce battalions of slaves on market demand??. These things are not to be decided (or enforced on )by underprivileged. The state has role to play in protecting its linguistic heritage not for chauvinistic reason at the expense of poor but as a holistic approach to education applicable to all.
The constitution of India (via Article 350A) makes State liable to provide instructions in mother tongue at primary stage (one may add, with bilingual intentions). Mother tongue education and multilingualism are increasingly accepted around the world and speaking one’s own language is more and more a right. International Mother Language Day, proclaimed in 1999 by UNESCO and marked on 21 February each year, is one example. Encouraging education in the mother tongue, alongside bilingual or multilingual education, is one of the principles set out by UNESCO in a new position paper. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights (1993) provides more generally in section I, paragraph 19 that the ‘persons belonging to minorities have the right… to use their own language in private and in public, freely and without interference or any form of discrimination’. For the same reason punishing or any form of degrading attitude towards a child speaking mother tongue in school(particularly those run by missionaries) should be taken as a criminal offense and the guilty “teachers” severely dealt. An important goal of education is to impart the universally recognized moral values to the individual and integrate these with the ethnic-specific eco-centric values, cultural norms, and worldview. When this is not done, a gap between the education system and the society results. This gap is often a result of using a language other than the language of the society as the medium of instruction. The curriculum, syllabus, teaching methodology and content of the lessons not suited to the genius of the society contribute to this gap that leads to an increase in the school dropout rate among the minority linguistic and less-privileged communities in India. A nation that is inherently multilingual, multiethnic and culturally pluralistic must meet this challenge if the rulers wish to deliver justice to all (Mohanlal 2001).
Everything said and done although one realizes the significance of education in human development one cannot stop agreeing with what Oscar Wilde once said, "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."
These lines of Sujatha Bhatt’s poem Search for my tongue (from Brunizem) are very relevant.
And if you lived in a place you had to
speak a foreign tongue,
your mother tongue would rot,
rot and die in your mouth
until you had to spit it out.
I thought I spit it out
but overnight while I dream,
it grows back,
a stump of a shoot
grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins,
it ties the other tongue in knots,
the bud opens,
the bud opens in my mouth,
it pushes the other tongue aside.
Everytime I think I’ve forgotten,
I think I’ve lost the mother tongue,
it blossoms out of my mouth.
