India moves to end primary teaching in English as Modi unveils major education reforms

[Vanamali]

$hit, curse this move! I used to enjoy my chats with the Indian call centre staff.
Modi you wanker.

You too.... Even Moderator trolls... Now pls don't say we troll and give warnings...
Honestly I was happy on this new policy.. due to English we might get job in MNC but current set up is just churning out Engineers without required skills. New policy is atleast trying to change it.

 

[Joe Shearer]

With great respect and humility if you think that then you must come from a very privileged
background and had a very educated mother.

Her (spoken) English was about an order of magnitude better than mine. Her sense of humour was devastating. She regularly cleaned out foolhardy challengers in Scrabble games with scores of above 900 (I never stood a chance; those games were MOST humiliating).

 

[Joe Shearer]

PS one more point. It is also more likely that the teacher teaching the poor student doesn't speak English very well either. So you have a 5 year old with an uneducated mother being taught basic arithmetic in a language neither he nor his teacher really understands. No wonder most kids in India drop out of school. It's a waste if time.

As it happens, I think THIS ^^^^^^^^^ is the core of the problem. I think the damn' policy should have focussed on this.

 

[Nilgiri]

No wonder most kids in India drop out of school. It's a waste if time.

Not entirely sure where you get this data from.

UNESCO (UIS stats) has India at around 92% for completion rate of primary school.

Lower secondary completion rate around 80%

Upper secondary rate (at around 42% completion) is where majority drop outs start to happen.

http://data.uis.unesco.org/

 

[Joe Shearer]

I see this insistance on teaching everything in English to a four year old to be elitist and a way of maintaining the status quo and keep the peasants in their place.

Well, in that case, you have a fervent admirer, the bravo who just challenged me to a duel!!!

 

[Vanamali]

I just hope after Chai wala. A tandoor wala or rickshaw wala becomes the next prime minister.

Why only cricketers have brain? In India a politician to become PM, he or should definitely be master of tactics and should have survived all dirty politics.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Not too good for religion though.

Not too sure about that.

I am agnostic. But reading the New Testament in the KJV edition does have its moving moments.

 

[Redbeanpaste]

Upper secondary rate (at around 42% completion) is where majority drop outs start to happen.

My point exactly. These kids never understood anything in primary school . By high school it was obvious to everyone that schooling was a waste of time.

 

[Redbeanpaste]

Not too sure about that.

I am agnostic. But reading the New Testament in the KJV edition does have its moving moments.

Probably because as an agnostic you were reading it as a piece of literature. For the faithful , English is a little wanting in expressing the true depths of devotion.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Probably because as an agnostic you were reading it as a piece of literature. For the faithful , English is a little wanting in expressing the true depths of devotion.

Not an impossible interpretation.

 

[Joe Shearer]

You too.... Even Moderator trolls... Now pls don't say we troll and give warnings...

How petty!

Cut the man some slack.

 

[Nilgiri]

My point exactly. These kids never understood anything in primary school . By high school it was obvious to everyone that schooling was a waste of time.

I beg to differ. As bad as the quality of education is on average, its far better than nothing. The raw enrolment rate and completion rate of primary school (90%+) means we have a good setting to work with to improve (rather than it being a question of expansion/reach).

Some states do a lot better on the average quality than others, so there is plenty of scope within India to drastically improve the laggard zones.

You will notice in the UNESCO stat database, China also has its completion rate of upper secondary at 60%. Does that mean it faces quite the similar "kids never understood anything in primary school" problem?

 

[Nilgiri]

Not an impossible interpretation.

G U Pope makes some interesting commentary on just this kind of thing... if you have read his translation of Thiruvasagam.

 

[Shantanu_Left]

Many of my friends are settled abroad, some even with gori wife studying in a pure bengali medium. Just saying.

Wow, a "gori wife" is the benchmark of success for so many Indians.

You totally missed the point I was trying to make. That's why I like to say: many Indian men have their brains in their _____

 

[Shantanu_Left]

Bro, I don't know where you got this about "God saves the queen" for morning assembly, but I went to two "proper" private schools in India with a very deep and rich history of "British/Scottish" traditions.

The Daly College, Indore
The Bombay Scottish School

Never once was "god save the queen" EVER a requirement in the assembly.
There was a fair amount of Christian (Protestant) faith sermons and hymns we had to recite at assembly (which frankly I liked), but NEVER was the National anthem ever substituted with the English Anthem.

Starting to make me believe you were born in pre-independence India lol

@Joe Shearer thoughts?

Firstly you shouldn't partially quote anyone. You obviously missed the comment's remaining part where I clearly mentioned that my school had absolutely nothing to do with "God Save the Queen". We had to yell Jana Gana Mana and Sare Jahan Say Acha like the rest of India.

Now, let me give some proper context on what really happened. I went to participate in an inter-school debate competition (maybe quiz? I don't remember that well) and there were these kids from some distant boarding school with a weird name (maybe Himachal Pradesh or Darjeeling). Around 7-8 of them in a prayer formation, accompanied by a Headmistress type. I decided to listen and they were singing "God save the Queen" in an anglicized accent. It was something they had to clearly memorize.

I am not sure if it was part of their official school routine. In today's India, a bunch of Sanghis would have been all over them. But during that event, noone really cared. Let's remember it was the mid-90's, the pre-Internet era. So the kids weren't doing this to "troll" us. There were already too many weirdos in that setup (including children who smoked cigarettes).

From that memory I have, I know that a minority of ICSE schools must have surely had that British anthem in their prayer tradition, at least until the '90s. Maybe those schools were Commonwealth-funded directly by UK government? I have been out of sync with India's education system for around two decades so not really sure how the ICSE system is holding up in today's India.

@Joe Shearer
Need a small favour. Can you please go through the above paragraphs? My grammar and sentence structures are becoming a bit rusty. Perhaps it's the alcohol interfering with my system. Would love to have constructive suggestions from you. Feel free to mark in bold/italics/red color font scheme.