Global ambitions in search of language tools
When the aspiration is global, can education for achieving it be enforced in a language that is local? The debate is over the State’s 1994 language policy, which says the medium of instruction in primary schools should be in the mother tongue or regional language. Of the 1,800 schools registered with the Karnataka Unaided School Managements’ Association, “not a single one actually uses Kannada as the medium of instruction,” says its lawyer, K.V. In many ways, at the individual level, the choice is a language that can cater to economic and social aspiration, but at the mass level, the issue turns into “linguistic pride.” Ultimately, the government cannot promise jobs to the people and even politicians who bat for the language policy send their children to English-medium schools, says Vikram Sampath, writer and Executive Director of the Indira Gandhi National Centre of the Arts, Southern Regional Centre. Jnanpith Award-winner Chandrashekar Kambar, for instance, initiated an online campaign for a national policy on the medium of education “to protect and promote all mother tongues of India.” He argued for a national policy on education that made “a judicious use of mother tongue-based bilingualism.” What has puzzled many is why the battle is so virulent in Karnataka.
Karnataka govt to teach English along with Kannada in 1,000 government schools
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