Amid major push for vernacular languages, English still favourite

MUMBAI: Even as the National Education Policy (NEP) aims to promote education in mother tongue, the English language continues to be a favourite among parents and students, according to experts.

The NEP, passed by the Union cabinet last year, emphasises that at least up to Class 5, students will be taught in vernacular languages wherever possible. In his address last week on NEP’s anniversary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that 14 engineering colleges in eight states would offer the courses in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Bengali.

However, English continues to hold an aspirational value for parents, particularly in tier-2 and 3 cities, said Aarti Gupta, co-founder of Qin1, an online learning platform for children in the age group of five to 14 years. “After coding, English is the most sought-after course on our platform. We’ve learnt that parents are willing to invest in their child’s ability to speak and read English well. This is particularly so in the middle-income group families, which is almost twothird of our entire user base,” said Gupta.

Qin1, a start-up backed by the Indian Institute of TechnologyDelhi, also offers personalised live classes across disciplines such as spoken English, coding and robotics.

Parents believe that basic English knowledge increases their children’s chances of employment, said Gupta.

Mumbai-based educationist and co-founder of School Leaders Network (SLN) Francis Joseph agreed with Gupta. “You can go to any part of the country and you will find that parents assign an aspirational value to English. It gives the child the confidence to interact at a global level. While there is no harm in learning one’s mother tongue, knowledge in English provides the child access to multiple courses worldwide. The child can get access to global content and resources.”

“In school, everybody speaks in their mother tongue, and English is only learnt, not practised. We want our children to be able to read and speak grammatically correct English, which has become essential these days. It will bring a lot of prospects for him,” said the parent of a 12-year-old from Aligarh. They’ve enrolled their child for an English course in Qin1, paying around ₹1,000 a month for the course.

Joseph said that one of the reasons for the high demand for English is the higher education system in the country, which is primarily taught in English.

However, the Centre is making efforts to address this. The Joint Entrance Exam, which is taken by hundreds of thousands of students every year, is currently being held in English, Hindi and Gujarati. The ministry of education has said that from this year, the exam would be held in more regional languages.

Joseph said, “A ‘this’ or ‘that’ approach won’t work. Balance is very critical. Policies should allow both languages to survive. It is expected that NEP will grow into that balance.”