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nothing new. basically, a ruling that is in par with the current shallow depth of the debate on medium and the generally apathy towards language. what is the honarable judge saying? to be able to communicate in a language we need to do all our learning in that language? that flies in face of the experience of 100s of millions of indian who migrate to different parts of the country and pick up the local language within a short period for all the communication. clearly the judge is no enthusiast, forget expert, in the field of communication. or in education ... if i have to lay blame on anybody, i would lay it on the intellectuals of KA. they have reduced this to an all or nothing proposition. no point in blaming private school walas, they are playing this education game to their depth and charging a pretty paisa for that too. as i said before, the only solution is to make education in government so good and so sexy that these private schools and conments become redundant.

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TS,

The judge is not an expert on education.  He does not have to be.  His job is to give a ruling that he sees constitutionally fair.  He hears both arguments - we have seen enough movies :).

At no point has he said that we need to outdo the queen.  His point was simply that the parents have a right to choose the medium of instruction for their children? You can disagree on his POV about English being the link language, etc.  but here we are communicating in that language.  The petition was not about the quality of education.

Still not sure why you confuse English and convent education :).

A number of things are sales pitches.  Why does one need to take a huge loan to buy a fancy car when a Maruti 800 will do?  One does so because I think it fit to do so and I have not stolen your money and have paid my taxes. 

There is no guarantee that I would learn science better if I learnt it in a  Kannada medium school.  There is no guarantee that I will learn anything in our schools except rote.  And the root cause lies elsewhere.  You really think this would have been solved by the judge giving the opposite judgement?

"from my education in and out of school one of the things i have learnt is that diversity of worldviews and opinions is what it is all about. kannada is not some magical language, but it is a language that has its own worldview. in any other part of the world they would endeavor to preserve it."  So what would your ruling have been to ensure this?

Srivathsa

 

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This ruling does not infringe on anyone's right to study in a Kannada medium school or to start one. 

There are always reasonable restrictions on any fundamental right.  I doubt schools can get away with not teaching the local language.  Schools would be foolish to bring the court's wrath down on them by doing something like this.

As parents I think we all like to do what is in the best interests of our children.  There might be volumes of data and evidence that learning in the mother tongue is ideal and so and so forth.  But leave it to the parents at the end of it.  I am responsible enough to decide these things for myself. 

Let us say tomorrow the government comes out saying that however sick your child is you must take him/her to only an ayurvedic doctor because we know best (4000 years of tradition blah blah) and also otherwise Ayurveda will suffer.  What would your first reaction be?

I also believe that the language is for the people and not the other way round (similarly the State is for the people, laws are for the people, etc etc).  To say that I must study  in Kannada/Telegu/Hindi whatever medium because

a. The government knows best in these matters.

b. Kannada/Telegu/Hindi will suffer otherwise

is unfair.  On the first one, the government's credibility is not particularly high.  On the second one between choosing to be the saviour of a language and trying to do what is right for my child, the latter wins everytime. My parents might have made the worst possible error in sending me to an English medium school, but given my personal experience, I don't think I suffered much by learning English. 

Bashing another language is easier than promoting one's own - start libraries, story telling sessions, classical movie screenings among many other things.  No one is stopping you.

Education is a state subject and hence the government can decide on what the medium of instruction is.  Sadly the poor don't have a say in most things in India.  The one way of overcoming this is to offer coupons which give BPL parents a chance to choose their schools too.  But there might be merits/demerits to this which I have not thought about.  We are capable of abusing and misusing any system in India.

IMHO, the real problem is not the medium of instruction but the quality of instruction.  Whether a child is taught badly in Kannada or in English does not change the fact that he/she is going to come out badly taught.  And I don't know which policy is addressing that?

Srivathsa

 

 

 

 

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that is exactly the point here. quality is not anybodies concern. english & convent type education is now a sales pitch. as long as you can sell that there is no need to guarantee or provide any assurances in actual education itself. the entire purpose of education seems to be geared exclusively towards making us proficient in the usage of english there is no guarantee that i will learn science better, or develop intuition in math or develop greater civic sense beyond gaining a sense for cunning use of "sorry" and "thank you". for 90% of the people this - english & convent education - is the sales pitch that is made. the sad part is to this publicity glitz native languages are losing out. yeah english is important. but it is not that we have to out do the queen herself in speech, taste and practices. from my education in and out of school one of the things i have learnt is that diversity of worldviews and opinions is what it is all about. kannada is not some magical language, but it is a language that has its own worldview. in any other part of the world they would endeavor to preserve it.

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Read these developments with great interest. See all news articles here (google news).

Court says un-aided schools can't be forced to use kannada as the medium of instruction, because parents have the right to choose. Quoting a newspaper, the court also said:

"The parents’ decision to impart education in a well-known international language like English cannot be bypassed. The government can make Kannada or (the) mother tongue compulsory in schools run or aided by the government"

Two questions that I got are:

• Can this logic be extended by some schools to say that they can't be forced to teach the local language? Schools will say we will keep local language subject optional (elective) so that parents can decide what languages they want their children to study. I think Maharashtra and possibly some other states too have laws to make teaching local language compulsory i certain classes (Class 5 to 9 ?).
• Why does this logic (freedom to choose) extend only to un-aided schools? Are the courts saying that aided or government schools have the freedom to force a medium of instruction, but unaide/private schools don't? So the poor people (who are more likely to go to government schools) don't have a choice, but middle and upper class do?

We know this is an emotive subject. Hope we can do a reasonable and sane discussion here :)

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