Several officials and school principals are opposed to the government’s proposal of introducing English medium in govt. schools owing to severe shortage of teachers who are skilled in teaching English — either as a subject or as medium of instruction.
According to officials in the Education Department, one English section will be introduced in every class, along with the existing Kannada-medium sections. This, the government hopes, will attract more students to government schools. But teachers and headmasters that The Hindu spoke to said their schools were not equipped to deal with such a drastic change.
“A majority of schools do not have dedicated teachers to teach English as a subject, let alone those skilled to use it as a medium of instruction. As of now, the recruitment has been done keeping in mind Kannada as the medium of instruction. If they begin English medium, they will have to either recruit new teachers or at least train the existing ones,” said Basavaraj Gurikar, president, Karnataka State Primary School Teachers’ Association.
Several government schools have been managing with just one teacher for all their students. Adding an English-medium section in such a situation would only be a burden, said teachers.
At present, a majority of teachers in government schools are mid-career professionals with at least 10 years of experience, said Venkatesh B. (name changed on request), a schoolteacher in Mysore district. “These are people who are now well used to teaching in Kannada medium. If they are asked to teach in English, they will not be able to pull it off,” he said.
Officials from the Primary Education Department were unavailable for comments.
But not all teachers are opposed to the move. A few said it was a much-needed initiative keeping in mind the future prospects of their students. Chikkeeraiah, a hostel warden in a government school, felt that in an age where English is the language of transactions, not teaching the language would only marginalise the already marginalised sections. “Degrees are of no use without knowing how to communicate in a language that is widely spoken and used in administration. I feel this is a good move. However, the government cannot consider this without giving adequate training to teachers,” he said.