The Central Government is setting up 6000 ‘Model Schools’ across the country to promote quality education… and the recommended language is English. Any guesses as to which is the only state that is refusing to comply? UP? Bihar? Jharkhand?.... Well it’s our good ol’ Maharashtra!
Ideally, 3M should be happy that Marathi Culture and Language is being preserved by this Congress initiative… But he is not! In the global economy, if we have to succeed, we cannot ignore English… let’s learn from the mistakes made by countries like Bangladesh. Respect and learn your mother tongue but don’t ignore English… or we will be left with a generation of Kupamanduks (Frogs in a well)!
First it was ‘Marathi as compulsory subject’… then came the 90-10 funda… with elections round the corner, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, our education minister is busy trying to usurp the ‘Marathi Asmita’ issue from the Senas!
Ideally, 3M should be happy that Marathi Culture and Language is being preserved by this Congress initiative… But he is not! In the global economy, if we have to succeed, we cannot ignore English… let’s learn from the mistakes made by countries like Bangladesh. Respect and learn your mother tongue but don’t ignore English… or we will be left with a generation of Kupamanduks (Frogs in a well)!
First it was ‘Marathi as compulsory subject’… then came the 90-10 funda… with elections round the corner, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, our education minister is busy trying to usurp the ‘Marathi Asmita’ issue from the Senas!
Bhargo, you give example of Bangladesh but conveniently forget Korea, Japan, China and most of other non English speaking countries.
ReplyDeleteLets not mixup the issues.
Learning a Good English and respect it as global language is one part and studying all subjects in English is another part.
The basic aim of school education is to give basic knowledge of all necessary subjects may require for higher studies and day to day life and create a good citizen. For this purpose, mother tongue based education is utmost needed.
People who are educated in vernacular mediums till 10th std. do great on national and international level. They have sound knowledge of subject and no way bad in english too.Our PM Manmohan sing, Narayan Murthy, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, scientists Raghunath Mashelakr, Vasantrao govarikar, D.B. Deodhar, Jayant Naralikar etc are classic example of this.
Rather I would propose thatlets end this dilemma of mediums, scrap all English medium schools, introduce mother tongue based education system till 10th std; keep higher level English as compulsory subject right from 1st grade.
This will not only end social inequality but will be first step towards superpower nation.