IMPACT OF NEP 2019 ON LANGUAGES

                                       IMPACT OF NEP 2019 ON LANGUAGES

National Education Policy 2019 aims at making India a knowledge superpower by equipping students with the necessary skills and knowledge. The Committee for Draft National Education Policy Chaired by Dr. K. Kasturirangan submitted its report on May 31, 2019. The Committee was constituted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in June 2017.  The report proposes an education policy, which seeks to address the challenges of access, equity, quality, affordability, and accountability faced by the current education system in the country. It follows an integrated yet flexible approach to education.

NEP suggests for reforms at all levels of education from school to higher education. It seeks to increase the focus on early childhood care, reform the current exam system, strengthen teacher training, and restructure the education regulatory framework.  It also seeks to set up a National Education Commission, increase public investment in education, strengthen the use of technology and increase focus on vocational and adult education.

The policy covers school education, higher education and professional education which in turn include agricultural education, legal education, medical education and technical education. The National Education Policy 2019 envisions an India-centred education system that contributes directly to transforming our nation sustainably into an equitable and vibrant knowledge society, by providing high quality education to all.

 English language has a very important role in a country like India where people speak different languages. NEP in certain aspects gave importance to English as a language and in certain other aspects neglects it. When I looked at NEP from the view points of a researcher in English language and literature, I felt English language is selectively neglected in most parts of the policy.

Early childhood education is a foundational stage in children's life. It includes a flexible, multilevel, play-based, activity-based, and discovery-based system of learning that aims to teach young children alphabets, numbers, basic communication in the local language/mother tongue and other languages, colours, shapes, sounds, movement, games, elements of drawing, painting, music, and the local arts, as well as various socio-emotional skills etc. These would help in developing children in the foundational stage in a holistic way. "Because children learn languages most quickly during the period of 0-3 years and during the Foundational Stage of 3-8 years - and because learning languages is an extremely important aspect of children's cognitive development-a key part of the Framework will be aimed at instilling excellent multilingual skills in children as early as is possible and developmentally appropriate". So from here we can understand that how importantly NEP prefers the role of languages.

The ability to read and write along with basic operations with numbers is a necessary foundation and indispensable prerequisite for all future school and lifelong learning. For that NEP prefers Workbooks on language and mathematics: Every child in Grades 1-5 will have a workbook for languages and mathematics in addition to the school textbook. Attaining foundational literacy and numeracy for all children must become an immediate national mission and an indispensable, non-negotiable part of the curriculum also.

Expansion of public and school libraries and building a culture of reading and communication is another area where languages usually get some serious importance. NEP says "To create a culture of reading, public and school libraries will be expanded across the country, and will contain books - particularly children's books - in local and regional languages". But towards the end it says that when students learn more languages, these readings and presentations could then be carried out in additional languages also to encourage reading as well as develop communication skills. So the reading may eventually lead to the vast collections in English literature which may create genuine interest in English language among children.

 Empower students through flexibility in course choices and reducing the curriculum content load is another guideline by NEP. Here all the subjects should carry importance within the curriculum for each student according to his/her choices and inclinations. It will help to avoid the usual neglect received by languages in mainstream education. No hard separation of arts and sciences is another golden rule here. All students will have the opportunity to engage deeply in the arts and humanities as well as in the study of the sciences and social sciences. Such a separation will be discouraged in higher education will promote the scope of languages.

NEP has given an area completely for the discussion of languages. It says that the issues regarding language are most fundamental to education. But NEP gave much importance to local and regional languages than English. It says "textbooks (especially science textbooks) written in India's vernaculars at the current time are generally not nearly of the same quality as those written in English. It is important that local languages, including tribal languages, are respected and that excellent textbooks are developed in local languages, when possible, and outstanding teachers are deployed to teach in these languages".

NEP has some very strange proposals in the medium of instruction that, at least until Grade 5 but preferably till at least Grade 8 home language/mother tongue/local language will be the medium of instruction. Thereafter, the home/local language shall continue to be taught as a language wherever possible. The Committee observed that a large number of students are not able to follow the language which is used as the medium of instruction. Therefore, it recommended that the medium of instruction must either be the home language/mother tongue/local language till grade five, and preferable till grade eight, wherever possible. From here itself English language start losing its importance.

Giving more stress to local languages may ruin the importance of English language. This may eventually lead to the backwardness of Indian education system while comparing it with western education system. Because a group of graduates or postgraduates in Sanskrit or Paali, unable to communicate in English will face some serious troubles in international academics. "Exposure to three or more languages in schools" will be the only area where English gets some true attention.

But still in the area dealing with multilingualism also NEP prefers local languages more and underestimates the role of English in a country like ours. "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, of course, 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". This is what NEP's attitude towards English language.

But on the contrary they state like this also; "English has become an international common language in certain realms such as science and technology research, e.g. most high level scientific journals around the world at the current time publish predominantly in English. For this reason, it is also important for children (especially those who intend to pursue scientific subjects at a postgraduate level) to become bilingual in science and to be able to communicate science fluently both in their home/local language and in English. This is in concurrence with the practice in all technologically advanced countries".

The three language formula from Kothari commission will be continued with flexibility in choice of languages in this 2019 policy too. Introduced by the first National Education Policy, the three-language formula stated that state governments should adopt and implement study of a modern Indian language, preferably one of the southern languages, apart from Hindi and English in the Hindi-speaking states, and of Hindi along with the regional language and English in the non-Hindi speaking states. The draft Policy recommended that this three language formula be continued and flexibility in the implementation of the formula should be provided.

 NEP offers a choice of foreign language(s) as elective(s) during secondary school. At the same time NEP overemphasizes the study of Sanskrit and other classical languages in a wider scale. As a researcher in language framework I am unable to understand why NEP prefers such languages without much practical usages in the current society. As of my understanding, English acts as the most important linking language in this wider world and it needs to be the most significant language which we impart to our coming generations.

But in the case of teacher education, NEP follows a more inclusive strategy which may help in the holistic development of teacher trainees. In teaching learning programme, technology has got a substantial position but not languages.

In the case of higher education, NEP focuses on the improvement of quality as a major aim. It's a very significant step from the side of Indian govt. to improve the quality outputs in educational structure. Even though NEP offers more inclusive methods in graduate and post graduate level of education, no specific role is given to the languages. The only thing which we can relate to the promotion of languages is the interdisciplinary or trans-disciplinary approach suggested.

One of the other major factors discussed in NEP is the establishment of National Research Foundation which will significantly expand research and innovation in the country. Here also language, being the part of humanities discipline got an equal preference with sciences and technology. This is the only possibility we can expect here. We can hope languages and literature will also get some equal importance in coming research foundations.

Promotion of research is a major aim of NEP. It concentrates the four broad areas of Sciences, Technology, Social Sciences, and Arts & Humanities. NEP plans to strengthen the presently weak support that subjects such as the Social Sciences and the Humanities receive in academics and research. NRF will also bring in cohesion among the various research endeavours of multidisciplinary character. Thus it's clear that English language which comes under humanities subjects will get some considerable attention here.

Thus by going through the draft prepared by NEP in the year 2019, as a researcher in English language and literature I can say that not much importance is given to my discipline. In the case of school education a little more importance is given to English as a language. But still the policy wants to eradicate the role of English as a medium of instruction. It says that only privileged in the community are exposed to English. So going back to the classics is a new agenda prepared by NEP to avoid such distinctions in the society, which I couldn't understand. English has a claim of being a linking language internationally. But NEP couldn't recognise and accept this function of English.  For technical education, vocational education etc NEP give some serious concerns. Even for the study of Indian languages which are no longer in use also preferred by NEP. But the importance given to English is not specific or particular. For academics in general, NEP 2019 is a very historic and crucial step. But coming to the languages, it's not a very great policy, or it's very trivial in its outlook.

 

References

1.       Draft National Education Policy 2019

          https://mhrd.gov.in/draft-national-education-policy-2019-revised