Public Policy Dilemma of Choosing the Medium of Instruction for School Education: A Case for Questioning Fallacies and Connecting Objectives

Abstract

This article focuses on the issue of the public policy choice of the medium of instruction in public schools in India, taking the high demand for English-medium school education into consideration. Building on the available literature and evidence, the article argues against the introduction of English as a singular medium of instruction in school education. The introduction of English in public and private low-cost schools is not helping children in attaining any proficiency in English. The use of English also adversely impacts their capacity to learn other subjects well. The article argues for the adoption of the translanguaging philosophy and multilingual approach to address all objectives that drive the choice of a particular medium of instruction: gaining proficiency in the said languages, ability to communicate well using those languages, using those languages to learn other subjects, making schools inclusive by including diverse home languages present in school education and enabling diverse languages to flourish by promoting their learning and usage in formal schools. This requires a reform in institutional approaches and capacity building but does not necessarily imply additional burden. Certain parts of the world have adopted these approaches successfully and learning from them. Indian states can device their own approaches taking local contexts and realities into account.