The revenge of Angrezi

» Shiv Sena says no English signboards, please, and let’s keep Mumbai only for Maharashtrians. Party bosses Uddhav and Raj Thackeray send their children to Bombay Scottish English-medium school.
» West Bengal banished English from primary school in 1980. Ex-CM Jyoti Basu’s grandchildren study at La Martiniere.
» Congress MLA Jaspal Singh made a public cause out of Punjabi as a second language under the Delhi government. His children studied at Guruharkrishan English medium public school.
» Delhi Finance Minister Mahinder Singh Saathi wants Punjabi taught in government schools. His children studied English-medium and were taught Punjabi at home.
» Minister of Social Welfare Haroon Yusuf wants Urdu as a second language in schools. His children study in English-medium schools.
» Madan Lal Khurana makes a cause for Hindi and Punjabi. His grandson is studying in Modern School Barakhamba Road.

Man from Mars in Marathi schools

STANDARD IV students in Maharashtra will soon learn a very important English lesson. To sing Happy Birthday and love Robert Louis Stevenson, in verse.

In the official excitement to make compulsory English a romping success, the new textbook for standard IV hosts a grinning Man from Mars and a robot with four hands and three legs to talk about science — always helped along by a Devnagiri script for every word.

In Maharashtra’s fourth year of churning out a mass product called English, there is no boredom now that powerful Marathi voices of dissent are sulking or silent. And it’s hardly a surprise that students from rural Sangli and Ahmednagar to Navi Mumbai have snuggled so close to English.

Of 953 new primary schools approved in 2000-01, 478 were English-medium. By 2002-03, the number was 307 of 333 new schools sanctioned. ‘‘There is this craze for starting English medium schools,’’ says primary education director Vasant Kalpande.

A graded evaluation of compulsory English learning in 20,000 primary schools by the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) released in January, found only 3.35 per cent schools nearly flunking with D grade. Majority schools — 49.78 per cent — made it to a respectable B grade, 29.44 pc were tops in A grade.

The latest official overview of the compulsory English experiment gushes: What seemed like an impossible venture some years ago, has become a reality today. Children even in the remotest schools sing nursery rhymes and poems. A never before production of educational aids is seen in classrooms.’’

The State is not shying away from admitting there are pockets with little or no teaching of English. The solution? Some 1,35,000 teachers were suitably warned at training camps this summer that ‘‘there should not be even one such classroom in the State.’’

— RESHMA PATIL in Mumbai

In Gujarat, meet Mr Grammaria

REMEMBER those tidbits in CM Narendra Modi’s post-election speeches about introducing English in primary schools?

Education Minister Anandiben Patel is taking no sides. ‘‘Rural Gujarat wants English only from standard eight,’’ she says. That may be the official line in Gujarat, where English is mandatory from standard V since June 2001. It’s not important if you pass or fail, English is not a basis for promotion till standard eight.

Yet, look around Ahmedabad, and the pragmatic Gujarati is not waiting for his government to teach him the good word. Commercial helplines list over 100 English teaching classes in Ahmedabad. Take your pick, SpeakEasy or classes by B M Grammaria. His real name is Dobaria.

‘‘Many Gujarati medium students start English tuitions from standard V. They think the school’s teaching is not enough,’’ says Lily Christan, private tuition teacher.

At the Gujarati-medium Swastik Shishu Vihar in Ahmedabad, a higher level English syllabus meant for English-medium students is taught from from standard I to XI. ‘‘We want Gujarati students to hold their own with English-medium students,’’ says educationist Raju Pathak.

Pre-primary school teacher Hema Suhagia has admitted her daughter Meera to an English-medium school. ‘‘We don’t want our kids to miss out on better opportunities because of English,’’ says Hema.

Here, of 35,833 Gujarati medium primary schools, 516 are English-medium. ‘‘Drop-out rate for English-medium students is negligible,’’ says R K Chaudhary, primary education director.

— PALAK NANDI in Ahmedabad

In Punjab, C is for billi

EARLY this year, the Punjab Education Policy 2003 released with much aplomb by Education Minister Khushal Behl made English compulsory from Standard III.

Quickly, CM Amarinder Singh said it should instead be standard I. It was one of those rare occasions he agreed with his predecessor Parkash Singh Badal. Behl kept his silence, and presently English is taught from standard I.
How the language is taught is an amazing story. Punjab does not have a single teacher to teach English. Social sciences, Mathematics, Drawing and Physical Education teachers fill the gap. That’s why it’s not funny that Sahitya Akademi winners have staged dharnas to demand the decision be revoked.

‘‘Look at what they did to Punjabi, they will murder this language also in schools,’’ says educationist T R Sharma. The HRD Ministry’s annual report on education is virtually invisible on Punjab. Statistical tables are blank on Punjab. Footnotes say ‘information not received.’

The information would hardly have admitted that standard I students recite C for billi when the teacher flashes a card with C for Cat. In many schools even a chalk is luxury. ‘‘We are committed to teaching English from Class I, but the condition of government schools can frustrate all good intentions,’’ says Cabinet Minister Surinder Singla.

— S P SINGH in Chandigarh