NEP exposes fallacies in Macaulay Education System

Hyderabad: Why English is being pursued by so many in India as a medium of instruction and conversation whereas other technologically advanced countries in the world continue to pursue their native language for this purpose?

Answering these questions and stressing on the multilingualism and the power of language, the draft National Education Policy (NEP) has come down heavily on the continuation of Macaulay Education System (MES) which has established a language power structure heavily tilted in favour of English language even after Independence.

While recognising the importance of learning English, the NEP said, unlike English, Indian languages are very scientifically structured. They do not have unphonetic, complicated spellings of words and numerous grammatical exceptions. Further, the Indian languages also have a vast and highly sophisticated ancient, medieval, and modern literature in the Indian context.

However, despite the rich, expressive and scientific nature of Indian languages, there has been an unfortunate trend in schools and society towards English as a medium of instruction and as a medium of conversation. Logically speaking, the NEP said English has no advantage over other languages in expressing thoughts. On the contrary, Indian languages have been specifically developed over centuries and generations to express thoughts in the Indian scenario, climate, and culture, it pointed out.

Highlighting the consequences of how the cognitive ability of a multilingual India has been captive in Anglophilism, the NEP said since Independence the economic elite of India have adopted English as their language. But, only about 15 per cent of the country speaks English.

Further, the elite often use English (whether deliberately or inadvertently) as a test for entry into the elite class and for the jobs that they control. English is regularly used by the elite as a criterion to determine whether someone is educated, and perhaps most unfortunately of all, as a prerequisite for jobs - even in cases of jobs where knowledge of English is entirely irrelevant.

This led to the marginalisation of large sections of society based on language and kept them out of high-paying jobs. This attitude has also kept the elite class and the jobs they control segregated from the economically weaker sections of society. All this has been boiled down to creating an unnatural aspiration of parents for their children to concentrate on learning and speaking languages that are not their own.

It was against this backdrop that the NEP said for true equity and inclusion in society, and in the education and employment systems across the country, this power structure of (English) language must be stopped at the earliest. A major effort in this direction must be taken by the elite and the educated to make increased use of languages native to India.