Some protagonists of MoI claim students should not be compelled to study in a foreign language but in their mother tongue. If some parents and their children reject this view it is because English may not be their mother tongue but it is certainly nothing less than their step mother’s tongue.
In the 21st century we have a lot of mothers and a lot of tongues. The perspective reader will be able to see my tongue is not in my cheek. I’m simply stating a fact of life in Goa in the 21st century.
The government has shown flexibility on this issue. Church managed English medium schools are supported financially even though the mother tongue of the learners might be Konkani or Marathi. They both agree with the government on the solution to this vexing problem. A broad vision which is to be welcomed.
Don’t compel parents or their children to study in their mother tongue or even their step mother’s tongue in a society which is multilingual and different from countries which are largely monolingual. And, if according to one politician, studying in English makes learners Englishmen and Englishwomen, of course it applies to all learners in government as well as private schools.
Parents have the right to choose the medium of instruction for their
Children’s education at the primary level. The children are theirs, and not the government’s.
Upper castes need to put an end to exploitation of thousands of years which was institutionalized by the wily priestly class to rationalize the injustice against lower castes even today in this age of space and the Internet.
No need of doles and freebies to appease vote bank politics. Give lower castes parents and children an equal opportunity to choose their medium of instruction and, by doing so, acknowledge them as equal human beings. No thought and taught control, please.
As I said earlier the government is showing flexibility. Freedom is given to learners in private primary schools and church managed primary schools. The private schools and church managed schools are free to teach in
English. And children are free to study in English. The only catch – according to some critics – is the government will not support private schools financially, as they do for the church managed schools. But this is not much of an issue as children who attend private schools are taken care of by their parents who can usually afford to pay the high tuition fees of private schools. No problem with butter as their parents can afford jam and cake too. If they can’t the children will have to enlist in government schools where they will lose the right to study in English and will be forced to study in the mother tongue.
Now, if studying in the mother tongue is a universal linguistic principle, and sacrosanct for some, then it applies to all – learners who attend government and private schools. Surely, this much ought to be clear to everyone. Otherwise, there can be only one reason: don’t allow the poor an equal playing field. Keep them downtrodden in India for as long as possible. We have done it successfully for millennia, from the time when Sanskrit was the gold standard of linguistic power and respectability, and we can do it again today.
In the 21st century and in the age of the Internet to try and keep the poor from advancement in society through preventing them from studying in English from the primary section is futile, and it is silly to even try it. English is here, there, and everywhere and might even survive cockroaches.
