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Date 13h Oct 2008 Source: Times of India
Dramatic Rise In English-Medium Enrolment In State
Hemali Chhapia
Mumbai: As the middle class wakes up to the opportunities available to the English-literate, the state of Maharashtra has for the first time seen a drop in enrolment in Marathi-medium schools. In its place, more students are taking to English. Data released on Saturday by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration notes that the student population in Marathi-medium schools has fallen from 119.61 lakh to 117.95 lakh, whereas enrolment in English-medium schools has gone up from 11.91 lakh to 15.02 lakh. (see box). The trend is more pronounced in the state’s capital. If there are 4.31 lakh students in Marathi medium schools in Mumbai, there are over a lakh more— 5.57 lakh kids—in our city’s English medium schools. Mumbai’s municipal schools, which witness an annual exodus of students from Marathi- to English-medium schools, has been forcing the state to think on lines of converting some of its Marathi schools to English medium. “However, that decision has been pending since a year due to political resistance,’’ said a source in the BMC. On the other hand, Priya Khan of Samarthan, an NGO which works in the area of education, said, “Many private schools like King George have converted some of their Marathi-medium divisions to English. This drift is only going to grow.’’ Socio-linguist Peggy Mohan, who has authored a paper on ‘Is English the language of India’s future?’, believes that control of the discourse of science and technology is what gives a language a hold over the future, not great literature and poetry. Even native language words are replaced.
Hemali Chhapia
Mumbai: As the middle class wakes up to the opportunities available to the English-literate, the state of Maharashtra has for the first time seen a drop in enrolment in Marathi-medium schools. In its place, more students are taking to English. Data released on Saturday by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration notes that the student population in Marathi-medium schools has fallen from 119.61 lakh to 117.95 lakh, whereas enrolment in English-medium schools has gone up from 11.91 lakh to 15.02 lakh. (see box). The trend is more pronounced in the state’s capital. If there are 4.31 lakh students in Marathi medium schools in Mumbai, there are over a lakh more— 5.57 lakh kids—in our city’s English medium schools. Mumbai’s municipal schools, which witness an annual exodus of students from Marathi- to English-medium schools, has been forcing the state to think on lines of converting some of its Marathi schools to English medium. “However, that decision has been pending since a year due to political resistance,’’ said a source in the BMC. On the other hand, Priya Khan of Samarthan, an NGO which works in the area of education, said, “Many private schools like King George have converted some of their Marathi-medium divisions to English. This drift is only going to grow.’’ Socio-linguist Peggy Mohan, who has authored a paper on ‘Is English the language of India’s future?’, believes that control of the discourse of science and technology is what gives a language a hold over the future, not great literature and poetry. Even native language words are replaced.
Analysis:
This converting the Marathi –Medium schools to English–Medium schools or terminating some Marathi Medium Divisions to English Medium can be seen as a sympotic relation between environment and policy making. Societal and natural environments in which the political systems works or the policy making process takes place contain causes that create and shape or further bring changes to policy making. Here the social change has brought policy change. The variable in the environment ranging from geographical factors to social structures to cultural factors affect policy making process.
Language is a subset of cultural variables. Due to globalization and technology driven development (as technology is available from developed world) the dominance of English has increased. Now a days English has become essential to get a job. This changing scenario has influenced government’s policy to convert Marathi Medium schools in English ones.
Language is a subset of cultural variables. Due to globalization and technology driven development (as technology is available from developed world) the dominance of English has increased. Now a days English has become essential to get a job. This changing scenario has influenced government’s policy to convert Marathi Medium schools in English ones.
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