Why have a policy for a third language? Leave it to schools to decide
The Supreme Court has spoken up for students, parents and teachers, voicing deep concern over introduction of a third language in Class 9 in CBSE schools. A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan orally asked Centre to not have a third language in Class 9 level. They were dealing with a TN petition against setting up Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, which follow a three-language policy.
The issue of CBSE’s new policy is in CJI’s court. Frankly, three-language policy is hardly an issue that should have reached SC, in the first place. But it did. The policy’s ramifications have given rise to new matters that have also reached courts.
The bench’s remarks are exactly the commonsense approach that policymakers and education ministry should have stumbled upon themselves. There was no way the hurriedly put out May circular — making three-language framework compulsory, mid-session, for Class 9 students — would stand scrutiny. Leave aside SC, students and schools could have told powers-that-be the unreasonable pressures such a policy places on students and resources.
The three-language framework – where English has been made the ‘foreign ‘ language, plus two regional languages – is proving to be a bugbear. This need never have been the case. No one has argued against teaching multiple languages as part of school curriculum.
More the languages a child can learn, the better – school education is meant to expand children’s minds to world’s literature, culture, science, and riches and the horrors it has to offer. But is it feasible that all schools across all economic and social strata, regions and communities offer children such avenues of learning? No. Hence, two languages – one the pan-India link language that is English, and proficiency in which is crucial in the world of work, in India and overseas, and a second language, the regional tongue, which boosts early learning and encourages children to learn other languages too. Dubbing regional language ‘mother tongue’ is also fraught, given modern society’s multi-ethnic backgrounds.
As for a third language, it isn’t as if children aren’t exposed to it – foreign or Indian regional. They are, in schools that have the resources to teach, and enough students interested. Teaching a third language should be left entirely to school capacity and students’ wish. It is the tunnel vision and parochial attitudes of politicians and policymakers that make learning a dirge. The best policy for a third language is not to have a policy at all.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
