Pitfalls of Universal education.
Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar in his weekly TOI column. Some words of wisdom, once again from Swami .
“Research suggests that if children cannot read after two to three years of education, they probably never will. They may be promoted regularly and complete school, but they will be functionally illiterate, and their many years of education will not improve their incomes.
Lesson: Indian education must focus above all on early reading skills. If that is not achieved, all subsequent schooling is a waste. Why are schools so weak in teaching poor children to read? Because, …….better-off children typically enter school with a vocabulary of 2,000 to 4,000 words, and have often started reading already at home.
But poor children typically have a vocabulary of only 600 words, and have never read at home.”
But for once i counter Mr Aiyar's views
As usual, I fell for Mr Aiyar’s well researched, lucidly written web. But a few minutes later, realised my folly—I realised, I have blindly begun to tread the same rationale path of a celeb.
Mr Aiyar, to start this column, dwelved on the rich-poor divide and its effects on literacy or rather functional literacy, and backed it up with the results of an NGO Survey.
I reckon the survey could have a few errors. And I base my assumptions on a self made, micro survey. I recently happened to interact with a group of kids reading at some of the best or at least the “hep” schools in a South Indian Metropolis. And I concluded their command over the language was as naked as a student who sits in a regional medium school. And next, these kids, never read anything that is in their mother tongue.
To add to the kids lexicon is the garbled, obfuscated slang. That’s starts with the pedantic, “hey mon, tell me da” to I did that only dude” and …….
At least the poor do not try to speak English supposedly. Instead they chaste speak local language’s. Isn’t knowing your mother tongue well enough to read and write functional literacy?
8 Comments:
I appreciate your views on mother tongue. But still, you can go nowhere without knowing english. Not for nothing is China on an overdrive to teach its kids the Queen's language. Last heard thare was a massive demand for english language teachers in China. And the adage about bongs seems to be inverted now: what China thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.
Fool,
Fair enough. But my primary point their was the rich-poor divide and the english language. Being rich, doesn't mean you are an "English commander". On the contrary a large part of the so called English speaking rich are snobs, who speak crap!
My point is that more universal knoledge at the lower level will only help ease the rich-poor divide. Isnt it better now than it was 30 years back when only a minor section of the society was exposed to english? Dont we have board toppers and IIT busters from the outback, where english medium schools have sprouted only 10-15 years back?
Now answer this: Why was the West Bengal govt panned universally when it said english should be taught only from class 5 onwards?
More clarifications.
I am not against English being taught in Indian schools, all I say is, make the rich read as well and don't use rich-poor divide to juxtapose it with english (il)literacy in our country.
Next, very true we have board busters and toppers sprouting out of the semi-urbs and the lower eco-sections. But Fool, do you realise my stand was just vindicated. You just said it. It's not the rich-poor divide silly, when it comes to education. It just isn't.
However, i concur with you in this;
"Isnt it better now than it was 30 years back when only a minor section of the society was exposed to english"
I am confused now...
the language in which a man (or child for that matter) dreams is his own language, the best education can be given in that language only. and learning english is not getting educated.
in fact, as people say (may be those who never got a chance to get educated in an english medium school) students who have studied in a vernacular medium and subsequently switched on to english at later stage of their career has better command over written english (me being the exception).
frankly speaking i do not subscribe to swaminomics in this regard.
students can get educated in their mother tongue and can contribute to the country's growth.
Thomas Alva Edison was a good-for-nothing (a `makkuplasthiri' in Tamil)to his teachers. For, he couldn't convert himself (or rather the teachers couldn't) into that student who exist in the popular perception. Yet, you know how he grew up the world to prove wrong. Education has nothing to do with the ability to read or write. If that were so, the world today should've been a better place.
Reading maketh a full man_ bacon.
I agree with swaminatha.A Iyer. education is a waste without reading. Many kids resort to write in their own words.They blame the teachers saying that they do not encourage originality. what is originality ? Where is the Originality?half baked crooks talk about own
words and originality, mostly they do not understand the basics of the language. Read ,read, Read.then only you can master the language, whether it be English or your mother tongue
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