The predictable media bloodletting is now underway on the recent Government decision to end German as a middle school subject in the Kendriya Vidyalayas (KV). In one of the more level-headed opinion pieces on Firstpost, R Jagannathan concedes that teaching German in the KV schools violates the spirit of the three language formula of the National Education Policy of 1968 (reiterated in 1986, and yet again in 2005). This policy is clearly laid out in the NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework of 2005 which states that the preferred medium of instruction is to be in the mother tongue, with other languages being progressively introduced in the middle-school level. This includes English, Hindi and a modern Indian language, one of which is Sanskrit. There is a further provision for a foreign language such as German to be taught at the high school level, and none of this has been affected by the Government’s recent announcement. All the fuss in the Press is only about something that affects grades 6-8 in middle school. But Mr. Jagannathan is concerned (and rightly, on the face of it) about the lack of a gradual transition from one language to another, and wonders about the effect of the sudden imposition of a new language, mid-year, on unsuspecting students. He also presents the rather interesting notion that the advancement of Sanskrit must be left to private advocacy groups such as Samskrita Bharati, and that students who do choose to study it should do so as a labor of love, and not, presumably as a full-fledged academic subject He questions the legitimacy of the study of Sanskrit because it has no value, he says, in the job market. These notions about Sanskrit are so egregious that they merit a separate article altogether.
The article below also reveals the same undercurrent of imperfect understanding that bedevils much of Indian mainstream media reporting which tends to react with an atavistic animosity to certain predictable issues To start with, there is the unnecessary pitting of two venerable languages against each other, Sanskrit and German, when this is not at all the case. The media’s biased treatment willfully hides the full truth of the matter. The Government clearly states that the withdrawal of German as a modern Indian language is only for Classes 6-8, as it clearly does not fit that definition. It makes no mention of replacing this with Sanskrit, only saying that any Indian language can replace it. But almost every news site indulges in blatantly false reporting, such as this article from India Today which screams from its headline and first paragraph that German is being tossed out for Sanskrit, only to report the real facts almost in passing in the next paragraph. Why can’t a child learn Tamil or Telugu instead, screams another news crusader, while blissfully ignorant of the fact that this is indeed what the child of his concern can do under the new rules. In a recent development, the HRD Ministry has clarified on German issue to Supreme Court in response to earlier notice. The Centre today submitted before the Supreme Court that Sanskrit will be the third language in classes 6 to 8 in Kendriya Vidyalayas. German was brought in in 2011 at the cost of Sanskrit which was effectively tossed out of the school curriculum. Who took up cudgels for the cause of Sanskrit then, and who will step up to bat for it now?
Which brings us to the second point of concern – one does not see much curiosity on the part of the media in exploring the history behind this problem. German was first introduced into the KV system as a supplemental activity outside of regular school hours in 2009 and not as a core curricular subject. When it proved to be popular, it was summarily introduced as a third language option – at the expense of Sanskrit – at the middle school level in 2011. If guitar music had been introduced instead as a supplemental class and proved to be similarly popular, would that be sufficient grounds for making it an integral part of the curriculum? How could Avinash Dikshit, the commissioner of the Kendriya Vidyalaya system sign a three-year MoU with the Goethe Institute in 2011 in clear violation of the guidelines of the three-language formula and without getting clearance from the HRD and MEA? Who gave Mr. Dikshit and a German institution the unilateral authority to introduce a language as globally limited as German into such a vast school system? German is confined to primarily Germany and Austria. If the intent is to raise a generation of globalized kids, the focus ought to have been on Chinese, or even French or Spanish both of which are spoken in far more countries and by far more people than German. More disturbingly, who gave Mr. Dikshit the authority to poach existing Sanskrit teachers from within the KV school system and turn them into semi-literate teachers of German by putting them through a crash course in German for a few weeks? These qualified teachers of Sanskrit were being forced to teach something they had no expertise and interest in, the only other option being to lose their jobs, and it takes little imagination at this point to get a sense of the quality of German being taught by these Sanskrit teachers in the KVs. What is equally astonishing is that this state of affairs persisted for three whole years with no one daring to question the legitimacy of the agreement. It was only when the agreement expired that a writ petition was filed in the Delhi High Court against its renewal by a teachers association. What emerges is that interested parties conspired to bring an outside language into the Indian system in clear violation of the rules, and the only loser was Sanskrit, a language that had no constituency or resources to fight on its behalf So far from Sanskrit being imposed as is sought to be portrayed by the media, the stark truth is that it had been summarily abandoned by the unilateral decision of a small-time school official colluding with a foreign entity
Third, the media reports with righteous concern that Chancellor Merkel brought up this issue with Prime Minister Modi, and that he has promised to look into it. It doesn’t appear to have struck any of these investigative journalists that these kinds of agreements are almost always reciprocal in nature. So, given that there is no initiative in Germany to introduce Sanskrit or Hindi or any other Indian language into its school system, Ms. Merkel really has no business to complain. Especially given that in the total absence of any reciprocity on the part of the Germans, German still continues to be offered today as a valid school subject in the KV high schools of India, and as an extra-curricular hobby language in the middle schools as well. It only ceases to be taught in the middle schools as a third language under the Modern Indian Language category. Thus the Government action only proposes to right the wrong perpetrated by law-breaking officials three years ago, by refusing to renew the 2011 MoU that has now come up for renewal in 2014. Once a wrongdoing has been detected, there is no excuse for not fixing it as promptly as possible. Should an unlawful agreement continue to exist on the grounds that necessary change and corrective action would involve some inconvenience?
Which brings us to the fourth and last leg on which our media bloodhounds are left standing as they howl in frenzied unison – the issue of hapless students being suddenly saddled with Sanskrit midway through the academic year. Students actually have the freedom to select any other available Indian language besides Sanskrit. Be that as it may, this is where Mr. Jagannathan’s sensible suggestion of using Samskrita Bharati is actually practical. This organisation of grassroots volunteers has run countless short-term Sanskrit camps to help interested students gain fluency in Sanskrit at a surprisingly rapid pace. The Government should reach out to them to conduct a foundational Sanskrit course for affected students for the remainder of the academic year, so that they are well prepared to start learning Sanskrit as a regular course for the next school year, should these students choose to do so. There are of course other organisations besides Samskrita Bharati that are well positioned to help in this effort, as the clever little ad below indicates. Sanskrit schoolteachers who have been repurposed to teach German can then go back to teaching what they know (and love) best.
As a KV parent succinctly puts it:
“If you ask me, this step corrects a wrong that was done three years ago by putting German into the middle school curriculum in the slot reserved for Modern Indian Language (don’t ask me what is a Modern Indian Language, but I am sure German is not one). KV students continue to have the choice to study a foreign language in high school and that has not been touched. There is a good chunk of the Press that wants to unload on the HRD Minister and the BJP in general and they are trying to capitalise on this issue by portraying this as “sending us back into the Middle Ages by throwing out German in favour of Sanskrit”. I don’t think that is the truth at all.”
Although we have had a free and vibrant Press for over 65 years, a highly vocal section of it seems to be stuck in a state of perpetual adolescence. It is about time they grew up and learned the difference between freedom and irresponsibility.
Source : Niti Central
