Author: B N Patnaik
In Odisha, as elsewhere in our country, many language activists and language pedagogists and some intellectuals concerned with the present state of our languages, have been demanding for quite some time that education be imparted in the child’s mother tongue at the primary school level. Some want instruction to be imparted in the medium of the mother tongue at the college level. As for the former, the experts’ logic is that the child learns concepts best in his (or her or their) mother tongue; so, he should be taught in his mother tongue at that level. As for the latter, the intellectuals and the language endangerment experts feel that our languages will not develop and, in a few years, might become languages of home and the local market, if they do not become carriers of modern knowledge. The New Education Policy 2020 has responded affirmatively to these demands and concerns. As for the matter of language death, our take is that a language can be saved from extinction if it is used as the medium of instruction at the level of primary education. But this obviously cannot happen without the intervention by the State.
Education in the standard variety of the regional language, in the name of mother tongue education, benefits only the speakers of that variety and excludes almost all of the rest from this facility.
B N Patnaik
In our country, mother tongue education is often not distinguished from education in the regional language for all practical purposes and “regional language” in this context means the standard variety of the regional language. Each such language has many varieties (often called “dialects”), some of which have low degree of intelligibility with respect to the standard variety.
The problem of mother tongue education turns out to be more complex when we take into account the fact that there are many tribal languages in our country which do not have script. Education in the standard variety of the regional language, in the name of mother tongue education, benefits only the speakers of that variety and excludes almost all of the rest from this facility. This situation would eventually lead to the “mother tongue divide”, which can be more divisive than the many societal divides that we already have.
The “excluded” category includes many who are marginalised and among the poorest of thepoor. If they are to enjoy the benefits of early mother tongue education, assuming that it is their aspiration too, then the very first task for the experts would obviously be to devise scripts of the many languages that have none and write interesting readable material for the children speaking those languages. The society must be genuinely committed to “mother tongue education for all” in the true sense of the term.
Now, as for those, who enjoy the privilege of mother tongue education at the school level, the situation is not at all comforting. A worrying number of children of Class III in many government-funded Odia medium schools, reportedly, do not know all the letters of the alphabet. Many cannot pronounce a word; they pronounce the letters of a word one by one and then pronounce the word. Quite a few children of Class V cannot write sentences free of grammatical and spelling errors and many of Class VII cannot write a small paragraph. Unfortunately, the language pedagogists hardly talk about it. So, this very serious matter does not come to the notice of the public. It is possible that many of them might even be unaware of this situation.
One important reason why the above-mentioned problem has not received due attention could be this: the English-medium of schools have been considered responsible by even some language pedagogists for much that is wrong with the Odia-medium schools. Now, if some children in Class VII in an Odia-medium school are not able to write a short and coherent letter to their mother, far more likely it has to do with the fact that the teaching of Odia is not given due the importance. It is believed that just anyone whose mother tongue in Odia (that is, the standard variety of the language), can teach Odia, be he the physical training instructor or the mathematics teacher. The physical training instructor or the music teacher does not teach mathematics or science. That requires special knowledge, teaching of the mother tongue needs none. That’s the attitude. Children are taught grammar almost as a subject and are taught literature rather than functional Odia. They are not taught how to write meaningful pieces and are not exposed to the kind of writing in Odia with which they must connect, such as the newspapers, for an example. If the situation outlined above is correct, then we can ask who really benefits from the mother tongue education policy. Maybe, the children at some important schools in the big cities? Isn’t it something to be seriously concerned about?
ekushé 