Concern for English

AT A GOVERNMENT School in Visakhapatnam, a file picture. - K.R.DEEPAK

There is no serious attempt to look at the way English is taught to our children in schools where the subject is actually taught.

INDIA gained independence from the British 64 years ago and the literary traditions of its many languages go back thousands of years, yet English continues to be the preferred language for higher education and governance and certainly always for commercial and economic work.

This may not have happened if the country had had a common language that was flexible and dynamic enough to be a useful means for not just day-to-day communication but for comprehending the more complex subjects that are essential to growth science, biology, engineering and information technology. Sadly, such a language does not exist, and hence the recourse to an alien language that has since become integral to academic, commercial and social communication in the country.

One is not trying to open that tired and silly argument about whether English should be done away with. It is here to stay. However dismissive one may be about the language, it will continue to be the language of higher education and research and in the fields of medicine, engineering, physics, chemistry, biology and also management.

However, politically, it has not been accepted in the way it ought to have been, perhaps because politics is in the hands of petty people who do not have ability to comprehend too much but are crafty enough to see an immediate political advantage. Had it been accepted so, the situation in terms of awareness of the English language would not be what it was today. There is no serious attempt to look at the way English is taught to children in the schools where the subject is actually taught. A frighteningly large number of teachers of English cannot put two sentences of grammatical English together, leave alone pronounce words correctly. One can only imagine the kind of English the children actually learn.

The situation in universities is only marginally better, and that is being very optimistic. In point of fact, many who sit for their examinations in English cannot write let alone speak the language. Yet they pass and then go around looking for jobs they will never get because they cannot speak English. In the process they devalue the degrees they possess and the institutions that gave them those degrees. But does anyone care?

The fact is that politics has done more than make it politically correct to pretend that English does not exist. It has gone further and tried to declare that concern for good English would mean a devaluation of the other languages of the country, which is a ridiculous stand to take. The richness of Indian languages will grow irrespective of politicians as long as people love and nurture them; these languages have survived through centuries of neglect and even suppression. Does anyone really think that in today's age they will wither away for no reason at all? Or because some care is taken to see that English is learned as it should be by our children?

The consequence of all this is the grotesque situation that one sees everywhere in cities and in towns big and small. There are hundreds of hole-in-the-wall places calling themselves institutes academies, and other such names, which profess to teach English. Going by what one has found out by talking to a few who have been to these teaching shops, they are packed to capacity and many have anxious people waiting to get in. What is taught in these places can only be imagined, how much of that the students grasp is anybody's guess.

Try calling up a helpline that professes to be in English anywhere in the north of the country and the results will immediately be evident. The problem is, for some reason, more pronounced in the north in Delhi and all northern cities and towns than in the south. It has, almost certainly, to do with the way English is taught in the north.

This is a problem because the world is beginning to grow and develop on the basis of people's ability to speak English fluently and to understand it. China, one is told, is investing, typically, in thousands of teachers of English and fairly soon India may see its lucrative business process outsourcing (BPO) shifting base. That apart, international business and trade need a good command over the English language, as do higher levels of research in different specialised subjects.

Already one can begin to feel the effect of the third-rate teaching of English in the way it is used in the field of medicine; several doctors, even in Delhi, can barely make themselves understood in that language. How they passed their examinations is a mystery. And there is a recent scam involving persons who became pilots with false, forged certificates and documents. Not only fake pilots but also many who are regular captains and commanders speak poor English, which makes one fear for the safety of the people they fly. The language of aviation is English and if the awareness of the language is poor something said by air traffic controllers could be misunderstood, with disastrous consequences.

It is time this problem was addressed without the political baggage it has been carrying through the years. If India has to grow in every sense of the term, it must ensure that those who are in the centre of this growth can communicate with the world in clear and fluent terms; scholarship must grow in a language that is comprehensible at the most complex levels.

It needs to be reiterated that the other languages of the country will not suffer as a result; they are too rooted in the culture of the country. In fact, much can be done to ensure that children learn their mother tongue well, not just to pass examinations but well enough to speak, read and write it fluently and expressively. There are several countries whose citizens can speak two languages fluently; Canada is an example. A carefully thought-out policy on this subject can only benefit the country, and do so in a way that will be abiding.