Latest news with #English
Indian Express
21 minutes ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
CBSE's turn to the mother tongue requires more than intent — it demands structural shifts and classroom autonomy
The decision taken by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to switch the focus of early primary years to the mother tongue is, to say the least, momentous. With a circular, the board plans to upend the history of education in its prestigious schools. If the circular succeeds, the outcome will be nothing less than a revolution. Future historians will struggle to explain this accomplishment. Some will surely ask: 'If it was so simple, why couldn't the board do it many years ago?' The CBSE is a relatively small board compared to the state boards, but it enjoys higher status and influence. Barring exceptions, CBSE schools use English as a medium from the earliest grades. Several state boards have conceded the centrality of English relatively recently, apparently to align themselves with the CBSE. Now that the latter has announced its resolve to displace English in the early years of schooling, will these state boards follow? If that happens, it will doubtless be a beautiful dawn of systemic sanity. No philosopher or policymaker has ever endorsed the centrality of English over the child's mother tongue. Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, M K Gandhi — they all advocated the primacy of the mother tongue. J P Naik — the designer of educational policies in the early years of Independence — saw the dominant position of English in leading schools as a terrible contradiction. As the member-secretary of the Kothari Commission (1964-66), he pleaded for a sincere implementation of the three-language formula. Under this hallowed mantra, the child's mother tongue ought to be treated as the first and most important language at school. In his book published soon after his death in 1981, Naik lamented the fact that the three-language formula had been implemented piecemeal or sidelined entirely. He once told me a story that rings like an allegory today. Following the Kothari Commission report's approval, Naik said the Maharashtra government issued a circular. It referred to the commission's recommendation of 'child-centred education'. The Maharashtra circular directed all schools to ensure that child-centred education was practised with immediate effect. In fact, the circular threatened official action against defaulting school heads. The point of this story was that circulars don't necessarily work, especially when they intend to soften an entrenched practice. Wider effort, involving social collaboration, is required. It is now a popular, socially accepted fact that English is the language of upward mobility. The parallel view that English is a colonial legacy and should therefore be displaced may have political utility, but it has little traction, particularly among the traditionally deprived social groups. They recognise that the children of the dominant classes and their leaders benefit from their ease with English. This view goes along with the notion that command of English requires early induction. By sticking to the use of English as a medium of teaching in every subject, elite schools — as most CBSE schools are — have consolidated these popular perceptions of English. Indeed, this perception is a key factor driving the growth of private schools, especially in the northern belt where the state system is weak and poorly managed. The CBSE's move blinks at this wider reality. Instead of explaining what is problematic about early induction into English, the CBSE wants to sound innocent in its sudden advocacy of the mother tongue or the regional language. Laudable though this new mission is, it calls for sustained preparation and considerable investment. Apart from private schools, Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs) will require more than nudging if they are to pay greater attention to children's home language. As a privileged segment of the CBSE family, KVs have been silently copying the practices of English-medium private ('public') schools. Many years have passed since the day I noticed that Grade I children in a KV in Delhi could not name all the days of the week in Hindi. It was nobody's wish to make children monolingual English speakers so early in life; KVs were merely following a social trend. Being evasive about the omnipresence of English-medium education is probably a policy compulsion, but it amounts to a preference for snoozing in a make-believe world. If the child's own language is to find some appreciative space at school, countless euphemisms will have to be sacrificed. Some of these serve as a political shorthand; others are related to frozen pedagogies. Experienced teachers know that language is not merely literacy, however foundational it may be. Sounds, rhymes and words contain intimate, imagined meanings for small children. Sensible teaching lets these meanings develop new forms; misconceived schooling throttles them, imposing dictionary meanings through tests and competition. In our system, the child's language is the first casualty. Prematurely acquired capacities to recite and spell run parallel to rote numeracy. These practices run counter to the basic principles of child-centred teaching. If the CBSE wants to improve language learning at early stages, it will have to look beyond publicised priorities. As an examination board, its focus is naturally on tests and outcomes. Currently, this focus has intensified. New technologies have exacerbated this tendency. Language learning during childhood is an aspect of intellectual growth that demands a generous teacher and diversity of resources. Music, drama and other means of aesthetic expression also enhance children's linguistic strength. A multilingual classroom is best suited to achieving these aims. The education system is accustomed to treating language like a subject. It is taught with the purpose of ensuring success in tests. In recent years, this systemic tendency has worsened. Distrust of the teacher has led to a general, undeclared policy of denial of autonomy. In KVs, teachers must abide by a nationwide convergence of weekly completion schedules. This practice compels every teacher to complete each segment of the syllabus or textbook at the same pace as others. Practices in private schools are not very different from this norm. There is little room in such a system to permit teachers to pursue curricular goals at their own pace. The transformation of such a system cannot be achieved with a circular and a brief re-orientation. The writer is former NCERT director and the author of The Child's Language and the Teacher and Padhna, zara sochna
Leader Live
28 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Leader Live
Ed Sheeran joins Olivia Rodrigo for surprise duet at BST Hyde Park
Rodrigo, 22, opened the 2025 British Summer Time Hyde Park (BST Hyde Park) series on Friday ahead of her headlining set at Glastonbury on Sunday evening. She took a brief pause from performing some of her biggest hits to introduce Sheeran to the stage for a duet version of the English singer's 2011 song The A Team. A post shared by Ed Sheeran (@teddysphotos) He wrote: 'Both (Rodrigo's) albums (Guts and Sour) are no skips for me, I'm a proper fan. We first met at the rock and roll hall of fame back in 2022, sat next to each other with her mum and my dad and went on to hang and keep in touch from there. 'Was gonna go watch the show anyway but she hit me and asked to sing The A Team with her, which was such a buzz. 'That song turns 15 this year, and I remember playing it to rooms with no one in it in 2010, so to still be playing it to new fans with one of the brightest stars of the next generation is an honour and a privilege. Rock Glasto headline Sunday @oliviarodrigo , UK loves you x.' Other performers scheduled for this year's BST Hyde Park series include Sabrina Carpenter, Neil Young and Stevie Wonder.
Indian Express
31 minutes ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
‘I was in jail with RSS leaders… People tried to hear each other out then': Jamaat leader
Fifty years after he was jailed during the Emergency, Ejaz Ahmed Aslam, 82, says he has clear memories of the 19 months he spent in prison. He met his third daughter for the first time at Madras Central Jail, where his wife brought their newborn child just 40 days after her birth. A resident of Tamil Nadu then, Aslam headed the North Arcot district unit of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a socio-religious organisation he had joined when he was 15. Maulana Muhammad Jafar, a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind's Central Advisory Council, says the organisation was 'misunderstood' by the Indira Gandhi government, 'which is why its workers were arrested'. While eight Jamaat members were arrested in Tamil Nadu, around 3,000 of its members were imprisoned across India during the Emergency. Sitting at the Jamaat office in Delhi, wearing a crisp white kurta-pyjama, a grey Nehru jacket and a fur cap, Aslam says, 'Once the Emergency was announced, I was put in Madras Central Jail along with other political workers and leaders of the Jamaat, CPI, CPI(M) and DMK. It was a difficult time for my wife, who was nearly eight months pregnant when I was sent to jail. She had had to take care of two young children — a four-year-old and a two-year-old — alone at home. Three months later, I saw my newborn daughter in jail. I can never forget that day. Aslam is the editor-in-chief of Radiance Views Weekly, a 61-year-old magazine supported by the Jamaat. Of the 19 months he spent in jail, Aslam says he was fortunate that his family was very supportive since many others didn't have that liberty and struggled. However, an incident haunts him to this day. 'As I was being taken away by the police to the local station, my eldest daughter Ayesha (then four years old) started running after me. The policeman who arrested me told me later that she was crying.' Born in Karnataka's Hassan district in 1943, Aslam grew up in Bihar's Muzaffarpur after his father shifted there in 1954 to work at a sugar mill. In 1969, Aslam got his master's degree in English literature from L S College in Muzaffarpur. Later, he went on to become a lecturer at C Abdul Hakeem College in Tamil Nadu's Melvisharam. After teaching there for two years, Aslam, then 28, got married and shifted to Tamil Nadu's Vaniyambadi, where his father-in-law had a leather business. Aslam started working with his father-in-law and also became more active within the Jamaat, which, he says, influenced his way of life since he was a teen. During his initial days in jail, Aslam says the political prisoners were sure that they would all be 'released soon'. However, three to four months passed without any signs of their imminent release. 'That's when the fear and anxiety in jail started going up. People started fearing that their incarceration would become permanent. Psychological issues started impacting political prisoners. There was a shift in thinking among the prisoners,' he says. Calling Madras Central jail a 'notorious site of brutality' during the Emergency, he recalls one particular case. 'I was in prison with C Chittibabu, the former Mayor of Chennai. He had sustained injuries during a brutal lathi-charge. At the time of the attack, Chittibabu had been trying to protect a young M K Stalin from an attack inside a prison cell. He would succumb to his injuries later.' Maulana Muhammad Jafar says the Emergency 'proved to be a blessing in disguise for the Jamaat' because its imprisoned office-bearers had the opportunity to interact with people in jails. Jafar adds, 'These very people became leaders and a part of the government later. They came to know the Jamaat much better (during their jail term), and all their doubts and misunderstandings were cleared.' On why the Jamaat workers were arrested during the Emergency, Aslam says, 'We did nothing illegal and our accounts were open to the government. We were working on education, Hindu-Muslim harmony and other social issues.' Aslam says his prison barracks had several RSS workers, including Rangasamy Thevar, then Tamil Nadu chief for the outfit. 'It was a different time. People tried to understand each other's ideology and engage with one another. I remember having long discussions with Thevar,' he says. One statement made by Thevar has stayed with him. He says, 'Thevar said, 'India is such a country that any unscrupulous person can rule India for any period of time'. I liked this quote very much, and I have used it in my writings too.'
Spectator
an hour ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Demographics is the new dividing line on the right
It's an ominous time for a state-of-the-nation conference. Each week, the shores we defended against Hitler, Napoleon and the Spanish Armada are breached by hundreds of foreign men, while asylum seekers make up 'a significant proportion' of those currently being investigated for the grooming of British children. Earlier this month, there were days of violent anti-immigration riots in Ballymena. The five Gaza independents elected last year marked the grim rise of electoral sectarianism in the UK, a trend that is only set to accelerate. Academics and government insiders, despairing at the state of Britain, fret about looming civil war along ethnic lines. 'Now and England', a one-day conference hosted by the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation this week in Westminster, was billed as 'exploring nation, culture, and identity in a time of change and renewal'. In truth, 'a time of decline and crisis' would probably have been more apposite. At the root of each issue lies mass, unasked for immigration and the resultant demographic change. The figures are bleak. On current trends, white British are expected to be a minority in Britain by 2063, according to a recent study by Prof Matt Goodwin; the figure is even sooner for England. The Centre for Migration Control forecasts that if nothing changes, by 2035, one quarter of the population will be foreign-born, with one third of the of the population a first- or second-generation migrant. Fewer than one in four children in Greater London's schools are white British. To the predominantly younger right-wingers in attendance, along with the country, such trends are deeply alarming. Yet do political leaders on the right feel the same way? When Reform's Richard Tice was pressed on Goodwin's demographics projections recently on GB News, for instance, he scarcely seemed bothered. The question of the conference, then, was just how seriously it would take these issues. What is England without the English? Robert Jenrick gave it his best shot with the opening keynote. 'Mass immigration lies at the root of… so many of our problems', he said. Reckless border policies, his own party's included, had eroded our 'sense of home'. He reiterated calls for a legally binding cap on immigration and ECHR reform. It wasn't nothing, but a stump speech was hardly going to break the Overton window. Next came a worthwhile panel on cultural renewal, before the second keynote by Dr James Orr, Cambridge academic and Nat Con grandee. 'England is slipping away', he warned gravely, and the cause was 'hyper-liberalism'. It was a philosopher's way of saying that we had recklessly imported millions of foreigners in the vain pursuit of GDP growth. But it was notable that even this conservative luminary seemed to be dancing around the issue somewhat. It was on the final panel, 'England's Past and England's future' that things came to a head. Danny Kruger MP spoke of Bede, the common law, and the importance of homogeneity, but it all remained rather abstract. Apparently, what we needed was a 'violent rebellion against encroaching ideas' and to 'tame the technium'. A leading light of the class of 2019, Kruger seemed to have forgotten why his party was turfed out with such disgust at the last election. Robert Tombs spoke about historical memory. Rupert Lowe MP ranged widely on statism, Blair's constitutional revolution, the rape gangs and free speech, but demographic change didn't feature. We had all been waiting to hear from Thomas Skinner, the former Apprentice star and small business owner known for cheerily belting out 'Bosh!' on social media and seemingly eyeing a tilt at the London mayoralty (he wouldn't be drawn). But if he had any concerns about immigration and cultural change he never made them explicit, instead preferring populist bromides ('England is about the people'). All of which meant that by the Q&A, the young audience had grown restive. Up stepped one mid-20s professional to speak for England. He noted that while Kruger had spoken of greater localism – 'watching the barley grow' from his Wiltshire idyll – this was hardly much of a solution when demographic change has already rendered some English councils corrupt tribal fiefdoms. Being from Rotherham, he said, he would know. 'So my question is, if we reach a juncture where democracy becomes a zero-sum game between different ethnic and religious blocs, what feasible future is there for it?' It was like a dam breaking: suddenly, thunderous applause and whoops filled the 200-seat lecture theatre, the loudest we had heard all day. (Later, several people went to congratulate him.) Skinner seemed uncomfortable, while Lowe was making notes. Piling on the pressure, there followed the voice of Carl Benjamin of the Lotus Eaters, noting how the central question of demographics had loomed over the whole conference largely unsaid. He then went after Danny Kruger for a remark in his speech that 'anyone can become English', also drawing applause. The panel tried to answer, but it was clear they were on uncomfortable territory. 'I detect a very strong desire for action to restore the basis of our polity lest we lose it altogether', noted Kruger, gingerly. Rupert Lowe offered simply that people who come to Britain ought to speak English and pay their taxes; Skinner had gone out for a phone call. Tombs at least volunteered that we should ban postal voting and cousin marriage. But in his view, the best approach would be to 'clone Katharine Birbalsingh', the headmistress of the ultra-diverse and disciplinarian Michaela School in West London. If you've seen 'little girls with headscarves on reciting Kipling and singing the national anthem' he said, 'you think becoming English is quite possible if you want to do it, and if you're encouraged to do it and indeed required to do it'. Tombs then argued that being English was something that 'we all learn'. This is the nub of the issue: the largely generational divide that is becoming increasingly visible on the British right. There are many who prefer to ignore ethnicity, ancestry and demographics on the grounds that such topics are both immaterial and icky; there are even some who insist, against all the available evidence, that multiculturalism has been a success. On the other hand there are those who are unapologetic about believing that the English are an ethnic group, that England is our home, and that the more diverse our society becomes, the less happy it will be. Such sentiments would have been common sense to most people throughout human history. It is ordinary and natural to identify with one's ethnic group. It is also ordinary and natural for a people to understand itself as a people. Yet for the past 60 years, as woke moral guardrails have expanded throughout our culture, such sentiments have been rendered deeply taboo. If that taboo is now being broken, it is not before time.
Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
India need to start counting on the Kuldeep factor
Kolkata: Just over a year ago, 83 of 98 English wickets to fall were taken by Jasprit Bumrah, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav during a five-match home series. Off-spinner Ashwin averaged 24.8 runs per wicket and struck every 36.1 balls, left-arm spinner Jadeja averaged 25.05 and 46.2. Left arm wrist spinner Yadav? 20.15 and 36, numbers that were only bettered by Bumrah. If playing on the psychological pivot of recency was a game, India certainly lost that one when they announced the team for the Leeds Test. India's left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav during practice at the Headingley ground. (Reuters) Take out the last two sessions and India were effectively playing with two proper bowlers in Bumrah and Mohammad Siraj, Prasidh Krishna struggling with his length all the while as Jadeja was repeatedly being given the 'reverse' treatment by Ben Duckett. Barring Ollie Pope, England's top-order has always been edgy against proper spin bowling. Jadeja, anyway, is generally reliant on the surface and even he didn't exploit the rough outside the popping crease for a long time, something that hasn't gone unnoticed. 'You talk about experience, and he (Jadeja) has all the experience in the world,' former England cricketer Mark Butcher was quoted as saying on the Wisden Cricket Weekly Podcast. 'Somehow, it didn't seem to click with him or Rishabh Pant, the keeper, that it might be a good idea not to keep missing the rough all day to the left-handers.' Maybe Jadeja wasn't on top of his game but India too weren't brave with their team selection. And that has been a recurring problem with India's overseas tours—bravery has somehow grown to be associated with taking the right call, as if there would be any less flak if they took the wrong one. It was the sort of 'dilemma' Rahul Dravid had faced in the fifth and final Test against England in Dharamsala last year, till he took the call anyway. 'It was the braver option (to pick Kuldeep) and yes, we had to take a call there, and I'm really glad we were brave,' he had said after the match. 'We went with the braver option when we decided to back the fact that we knew we needed 20 wickets to win the series, and trust our batsmen to do the job when required, and I think that's paid off.' A little context here. Like on this tour, in 2024 too Yadav hadn't started in the first Test at Hyderabad. England won it by 28 runs. He featured in each of the three subsequent Tests though, India winning all three handsomely. Since Dharamsala offers a pitch most favourable pitch to seamers, there is always the temptation to go with the one less spinner but India stuck to Siraj-Bumrah, alongwith Ashwin, Jadeja and Yadav. That game was won by an innings and 64 runs. Yadav returned seven wickets in that match, including 5/72 in the first innings when the pitch was doing nothing for the spinners. He bowled 15 overs non-stop from one end and kept chipping away at England, reducing them to 175/4 from 64/1 till they were 218 all out. He then followed it up with a 69-ball 30, stitched a 49-run ninth-wicket partnership with Bumrah and helped India garner a 250-run plus first innings lead. There was no coming back from there for England. Two valuable lessons should have been learnt that day. First, Yadav doesn't need any conditional advantage to be successful as a bowler. He has taken some facets of his white-ball bowling and incorporated it in accordance with the demands of the longest format. Stupendous control of his bowling trajectory is one of those things that he has mastered with time. He can be a bundle of nerves, but Yadav is also an extremely skillful bowler capable of squeezing out a wicket with the smallest of variations. When you pit all this against the monotony with which England try to play spin (reverse sweeping almost all the time), it's hard to justify not including Yadav. Secondly, Yadav is no muppet with the bat. For all the talk of sacrificing a bowler for the sake of adding depth to the batting, India know how that plan worked at Leeds. Even if Jadeja was trying to put together some runs in the second innings, he didn't get any support from the lower order. Adding Yadav could have bucked that trend, apart from obviously boosting India's wicket-taking ability against an England batting that was willing to be patient against good bowling. India are deep into a transition that doesn't only mean a change of personnel but also a change of outlook. For nearly a decade, India took for granted the batting returns of Ashwin and Jadeja at home while sacrificing Ashwin the allrounder away from home. Throughout this time, Yadav hovered on the fringes. He made his debut eight years ago, but has played just 13 Tests. Twice he has been the Man-of-the-Match, only to be dropped from the next Test. Ashwin has retired, Jadeja isn't as challenging a bowler in non-Asian countries, and Axar Patel is still considered only for home series. Any change of guard must involve giving Kuldeep Yadav a wide berth, for no other spinner deserves this more than him.
