A lot of the concern around #NEP2020 is about children who may have to move states while in school. This is a perfectly legitimate question. In this thread I shall try and explain a) what happens to such children now and b) what the NEP actually says about this. Thread.
There are, very broadly, three categories of households that face this situation. Low-income, middle class and the wealthy. Now for the low income group migration and broken edu for children is hardly a new problem.
The vast majority of children of migrant labour just drop-out or stay back in villages or origin cities with relatives. The thing about a lot of this kind of migration is that a) it is often seasonal and b) it is often either temporary or results in bonded labour
So what is currently being done about these types of families. Many things actually - for example one source of migrant labour is Odisha and the state runs state-wide Seasonal Hostels for children of such families that function both as homes and schools at home.
Andhra has freedom schools which are similar, Bihar is home to many pilots of such hostels. Sometimes hostels are not an option, there too - State often steps in at destination. For example, in Delhi if you migrate here from outside you receive free education in gov school and...
that includes a component of bridge learning and catch-up classes for all formerly Out Of School kids (OOS) or kids schooled in a different language. Instruction in a Modern Indian Language (MIL) is compulsory but that does not have to be Hindi.
Govt., school teachers are often lenient about language expectations and performance from children from other states too.
Category two is the middle class. This group feels a lot of anxiety because they mistakenly believe that if they move they will end up being forced to learn foundational learning skills in an MIL which is not their own. Now what types of people are routinely transferred?
Army kids, kids of government administrators... these groups already have the KVs and Army Schools and Navodya Vidyalayas or access to private schooling and an ethos where learning in multiple languages or Hindi is not an issue.
Sometimes people from outside these groups also have to move - what about them? This is where we need to look at what the NEP says - page 55 onwards the policy clearly says that it is a POLICY document. The words in the document say "suggest" and several paragraphs...
establish that a policy is not a law and that much depends on implementation. The power of implementation is with state administration, who is to say that all states will actually implement local language instruction? Also local language instruction happens a lot already
further the policy actually says nothing about the implementation mechanics around this. Several educationists note that implementation will be challenging and it will be. In that spirit, how are we so sure that implementation design WILL NOT look at dual language instruction?
especially for those who need it genuinely from a language stand-point? Finally, children at foundation level, as studies have time and again demonstrated -- are quick language learners at the foundational level. They can pick up and learn regional languages and English together
especially since the NEP does not say that that English as a language will not be taught at the foundational level. It will be. Teaching in a familar language only will enhance the capacity to learn English later, faster and better.
The third category of households are the wealthy. Most of twitterati has concluded that the wealthy want to keep English language education for themselves. But the policy clearly is a national policy and does not apply only to government run schools.
All schools, for example, government or not have to comply with the RTE and align themselves to the National Curriculum Framework 2005. There is no choice here. So if local language instruction at the foundational level is made compulsary - it stands to reason that this...
includes private schools. Yet another thing about really elite education, which costs a LOT of money, is that most such schools already have adopted the teach-foundational-skills-in-local-language idea. Look at some of the top private schools in India - SPV, Shristi, Bhoomi etc
guess why? Because it is good pedagogy. So the rich already have access to what the NEP is trying to bring to everyone.
Schools that suffer from the English language instruction disease at foundational level are typically middle- class schools and govt schools.
So, in summary, the NEP is not trying to cheat anyone out of English language learning, not trying to impose Hindi and is not, by a long-shot wrong about this.
Of course, like all State implementation, many many schemes, idea and mechanisms fail. No denying that.
