NEP: Importance of mother tongue

Mother tongue is generally understood as the language a child acquires through her parents and people around her or the language of the locality where the school is located. Therefore, the NEP’S recommendation rightly states that “wherever possible, the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, will be the home language/mother-tongue/local language/regional language”.

The use of English as a language of instruction goes back to our colonial past. This is best illustrated in the words of Charles Grant of the East India Company who proclaimed more than 200 years ago that “The Hindus would, in time, become teachers of English themselves; and the employment of our language in public business, for which every political reason remains in full force, would, in the course of another generation, make it very general throughout the country.”

The colonial masters also had great contempt towards Indian languages, as illustrated by what Macaulay said in British Parliament in 1835: who could deny that a single shelf of a good European Library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia? On another occasion, Macaulay asserted that the introduction of English among Indian masses had the potential to produce a “class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect”.

When we lament why we have become imitators of western intellectual and scientific approaches, rather than be original innovators and knowledge creators, among other reasons, we also need to examine if excessive dependence by generations of teachers and students on English as a language of instruction in colleges and universities has led to this undesirable situation.

Nearly 100 years ago, writing in Young India (1921), Mahatma Gandhi said: “The foreign medium has caused brain fag, put an undue strain upon nerves of our children, made them crammers and imitators, unfitted them for original work and thought, and disabled them for filtrating their learning to the family or the masses. The foreign medium has made our children practically foreigners in their own land. It is the greatest tragedy of the existing system.” Language provides us with a sense of belonging and imposing English at an early age will affect the self-esteem of students as they traverse from known experiences to explore the unknown territories of knowledge.

In 1953, UNESCO suggested that “Every effort should be made to provide education in the mother tongue”. As recently as in 2016, as part of the Global Education Monitoring Report, UNESCO again outlined that “To be taught in a language other than one’s own has a negative effect on learning.”

Experts also cite further two targets from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) that necessitate the need for instruction in the mother tongue in early childhood. As per target 4.1 of SDGS, we need to “ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes” by 2030. Target 4.5 says it is important to “eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education...for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations”.

There is increasingly corroborating research evidence in support of imparting early education in the mother tongue. Howard Brabyn, writing in UNESCO Courier, cites an important discovery made by Professor Tadanobu Tsunoda of the Medical and Dental University at Tokyo, a leading figure in brain research. After 15 years of research on how the mother tongue can affect our brain, Professor Tsunoda concluded: I believe that the mother tongue differentiates the way in which people receive, process, feel and understand sounds from the external environment. The mother tongue is closely related to the development of the emotional mechanism in the brain”.

Carole Benson of Columbia University, an authority on international and comparative education, sums up the research in this area: “The more highly developed the first language skills, the better the results in the second language, because language and cognition in the second build on the first.” She further adds: “Decades of research demonstrate that the use of a dominant language as the medium of instruction negatively affects learners’ ability to both learn that language and access the wider curriculum.” Another research study, points out Carole Benson, found that “learners developed high self-esteem and better confidence as they participated in classroom activities in their own language. They were spontaneous in responding to teachers’ questions and they could express themselves clearly in their mother tongue. Their written work made more sense than their counterparts who were taught through the medium of English. They could elaborate on issues, making use of complex sentences, which showed originality and better understanding of Science concepts”.

The use of mother tongue in early education or even later on, will also promote the production of educational materials and books in local languages. If suitable efforts are made in finding local words for the English counterparts for translation and if support is provided to train the teachers to teach in local languages, it will also help in preserving those local languages.

Some people seem to suggest erroneously that if children are not taught in English, it would lead to lack of opportunities. But it is well known that inequity in society is a result of various other factors and is not dependent on proficiency in English. In the top ten countries with the largest number of Nobel prizes, early education and in many of these countries even university education, is imparted in their mother tongue. Not imparting their education in English has not deprived them to be highly creative. In spite of cogent arguments and supporting research, some opponents argue in favour of English as a language of instruction to the detriment of the creative and cognitive advancement of our children particularly from the disadvantaged sections. We certainly do not want the children of the disadvantage sections to become further disadvantaged by preventing them from becoming creative, innovative and confident by learning through their mother tongue. Apprehensions about introducing mother tongue in early education are completely tenuous and seem to be driven primarily by dogmatic motives. We certainly do not belittle the importance of English as a language of communication. English can always be learnt in the later years of education since it is required to enable one for carrying out matters in a wider world.

Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar is Vice-chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University.