English in Indian Cirriculum

his paper is the attempt of one interested in qualitative education to see how a competent teaching and learning of English in our schools and colleges can be promoted strictly within the framework of an approved national policy of education. No political prejudice either for or against English will be imported into the discussion as far as it is humanly possible. The place and importance of English in our curriculum will be estimated purely on the basis of its usefulness to our educational progress. This is very necessary because the popular debate on this matter has considerably clouded the issue and the politically uncommitted section of the public such as parents and teachers have been rather bewildered and quite a few of them are frankly asking whether English is being banished from the Indian curriculum. It is therefore, necessary not only to clear the misconception in the public mind with the help of recent official reports and pronouncements on language policy but also to outline the methods by which the shockingly low standards of teaching and learning of languages in general and English in particular, now prevalent in a majority our schools and colleges could be arrested and superior levels of comprehension and expression attained in the learning of English. It might be helpful in this connection to attempt a brief historical sketch of how and why English came to occupy the pivotal place which it enjoyed until recently in our educational system and how it has been disintegrating and petering out as an educational medium in the last two decades without anything equally or approximately as good being developed to do its function.
      The controversy over the medium of instruction in this country is almost as old as the East India Company. After a good deal of public resistance put up even in those days, the Company authorities finally decided that English was the only possible medium for “Education in European Literature, Philosophy and Science.” With... [continues]

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