NEP 2020, NTM, and Indian Languages in Higher Education

Language region maps of India. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Language_region_maps_of_India.svg (Filpro / CC BY-SA)

 

 

The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) (PDF) makes several recommendations for education in Indian languages. The 60-page document's recommendations for languages in school education are being discussed quite a lot in the media. In the English media, "Why is India obsessed with English-medium education – when it goes against scientific consensus?", by Shoaib Daniyal, is a sensible look at the current debate, and points to several studies worldwide to make its arguments.

However, this post is about the National Translation Mission (NTM), which is already addressing several of the Policy's recommendations for Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). The Policy observes:

22.7. For languages to remain relevant and vibrant, there must be a steady stream of high-quality learning and print materials in these languages – including textbooks, workbooks, videos, plays, poems, novels, magazines etc. Languages must also have consistent official updates to their vocabularies and dictionaries, widely disseminated so that the most current issues and concepts can be effectively discussed in these languages. Enabling such learning materials, print materials, and translations of important materials from world languages, and constantly updating vocabularies has to become a national priority. (pp. 52-53)

NTM is seriously engaging with a part of this "national priority". Here is a list of the 69 "chief domains" in which NTM has identified "knowledge texts". As their website notes: "All prescribed text books, reference books and articles that are considered foundational in any discipline of college / university education are included for translation. Specific attention is given to the disciplines of Natural Sciences and Social Sciences." The result is a list that currently ranges, alphabetically, from "Adult / Continuing Education" and "Anthropology", through "Linguistics" and "Management", to "Women's Studies" and "Zoology (General)".

To create a network of translators for such a massive project, NTM has been conducting regular Translator Education programmes – currently on hold because of COVID-19.  Here is what their Translator Education page says:

Translator Education Programme of NTM primarily aims to orient the translator towards the translation of knowledge texts. It also offers academic support to those who are willing to take up translation as their profession. It orients translators about the history and tradition of translation in India, problems and challenges in knowledge text translation in Indian Languages and how to use translation tools such as dictionaries, glossaries and thesaurus. It also intends to prepare versatile and efficient professional translators. To achieve the said goal, NTM conducts events like Workshops, Orientation Programmes and Seminars. Translation Today (NTM′s biannual journal), Handbook for Translators, AV materials produced by NTM Media and NTM′s Course Materials would act as apparatus in educating translators.

Thus, NTM is already performing some of the functions envisaged in NEP 2020 for the "proposed Indian Institute of Translation and Interpretation" (p. 53).

Nor is all this somewhere in the future! Here is NTM's 2018-2019 Catalogue of 63 translations already published and available – in India's 22 Official Languages! A few examples of what is already available in their catalogue:

• Dogri, Telugu: An Introduction to the Study of Indian History by D. D. Kosambi
  
• Hindi: Abnormal Psychology by Carson et al.
• Kannada, Maithili: Fundamentals of Molecular Spectroscopy by Banwell and McCash
• Kannada, Marathi: Heat Transfer by J. P. Holman
• Malayalam: Principles of Mathematical Analysis by W. Rudin
• Bodo, Urdu: The Penguin History of Early India from the origins to AD 1300 by Romila Thapar

And here's a list of "Shortlisted Books for Translation". There are many more fascinating details: see NTM's Detailed Project Report. Further, appropriately enough for a project addressing India's multilingualism, the NTM website is available not only in English, but in all the other 22 Official Languages as well!

On a smaller scale, such systematic translation projects are going on in other places as well – at Azim Premji University, for example. As details become available, we will blog about those too.

However, as this post shows, there is much to learn from this National Translation Mission project to keep our languages "relevant and vibrant".

School closures and mergers - Report

A report on School Closures and Mergers (PDF 4.5 MB) in India argues that tens of thousands of government schools in three states are being arbitrarily closed down and merged, causing immense hardship to children and their families. Poor girl children, and children with disabilities are the most severely affected, often dropping out of school altogether. The Save the Children report (not yet on their website, as of August 2017) studies the implementation and impact of policies of school closures and mergers in Telangana, Odisha, and Rajasthan.

Among its findings are that:

• the policies are being haphazardly and arbitrarily implemented (Chapter 3)
• no consultation with the community; nor any guidance to the community regarding alternatives (Chapter 7)
• "Closures are both a cause and a consequence of the process of privatisation of schooling in educationally advanced districts and urban centres." (p. xi; see also Chapter 11)
• "the mergers have only disrupted teaching-learning activities and perhaps further degraded the quality of education" (p. 50)
• the closures and mergers impact more severely the economically underprivileged (Chapters 8 and 10)
• serious impact on gender equality: "girls will be much more vulnerable to be married off earlier than before" (p. xi; see also Chapter 10.2)
• these closures and mergers are a violation of various provisions of the Right to Education Act (Chapter 12)

The Report also documents cases of resistance. Regarding Rajasthan we are told that "about 384 schools were re-started due to the pressures from community members and political parties and representatives, thus making the total number of schools closed 14,673" (p. 69, Annexure 4, footnote 34).

The Report concludes in its section on "Issues and Recommendations for Advocacy" that the issue of school closures and mergers needs to be more widely known and better understood by the various stakeholders.

RTE is not causing schools to close - APF Report

A new report from Azim Premji Foundation (APF) argues that India's Right to Education Act (RTE) "does not in any way by design seek closure of private schools, so long as [the Act's] norms are met. As revealed in this report, it doesn’t seem to result in closure of private schools in practice either, at least in districts of the 7 States and 1 UT where the Foundation operates." (p. 8)

As the report, "Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009 and Private School Closure in India" (11 pages; PDFs here and here) notes, this is not the dominant narrative about the effect of RTE on private schools. Predictably, the report has raised something of a storm. "Many schools, mostly those under state board syllabus, have voluntarily closed down unable to bear the rigid RTE rules. The study is blind to ground realities," said the Secretary of the Associated Managements of English Medium Schools in Karnataka. A newspaper reports him saying that, "over 200 economy schools in Karnataka have closed due to the RTE". In contrast, the APF report finds that in the 69 districts that it surveyed:

only five schools closed down out of a total 34,756 private schools. Of these five schools, four schools were closed in Karnataka (all four in Yadgir district) and only one school was closed in Bageshwar district in Uttarakhand. It could not be ascertained whether non-compliance of RTE alone was the reason for these school closures. Also, whether the schools that were closed, were ‘recognized private’ or ‘unrecognized private’ schools is not stated. ‘Unrecognized private’ schools in any case do not have the license to function. (p.3) 

Punjab is one of the states which the APF report does not survey. A 2014 report by Centre for Civil Society (CCS), informs us that, "The education department of Punjab released a list of 1170 private schools closed down for the year 2013-14. While approaching the school owners of private schools, it came into limelight that some of the schools have been shut down under the RTE before the prescribed deadline [April 2014]." The CCS report (7 pages, PDF here) then goes on to investigate in two districts of Punjab the impact of these closures on the various stakeholders.

Thus the picture may be varied across the country and needs more investigation.

Telugu-medium students do better at math than English-medium students - report

A recent report (PDF, 18 p. + appendices) concludes that "Telugu (mother tongue) medium students on an average perform significantly better as compared to English medium students after controlling for students ability, household characteristics and parental aspiration. This analysis suggests that introducing English medium of instruction at earlier grades during school life may negatively affect learning outcomes of students."

The report's author P. Sree Kumar Nair compared math test score data of 182 primary school students from 78 English-medium schools and 694 students in 144 Telugu-medium schools in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. He asks "does medium of instruction affect learning outcomes?" His answer is yes, it does. But the material conditions of these two groups of students are quite different. He notes:

"Summary statistics indicate that Telugu medium students are still substantial in number and are a disadvantaged lot as they not only have fewer infrastructural facilities but also their nutritional levels are significantly lower than their counterparts. Such a situation leads to lower cognitive development of students. Moreover Human Development Report of Telangana (2014) also reveals that there is lesser accountability on the part of government school permanent teachers that offer Telugu medium education. Against all such odds, there exists a strong potential for Telugu medium students to perform better. Thus, this evidence supports the claim that this paper strives to make about the need to give importance to mother tongue based education at primary levels of education." (p. 16)

Thus, the report cautions against changing the medium of primary education from Telugu to English. "In other words, a step towards a transition of schools at primary level from Telugu to English medium might create larger inequalities by widening the gap in the achievement levels.... Moreover, insistence on instruction in English is certainly a barrier for the poor, rural and lower caste students as revealed by this study." (p. 16-17).

Early childhood report overlooks language

The Law Commission of India has just published a good report called "Early Childhood Development and Legal Entitlements" (PDF). In a brief 73 pages it offers a useful overview of the concept and importance of early childhood care; the international conventions, treaties and declarations on the subject; the (Indian) constitutional context; and the various national policies and schemes dealing with health and nutrition, as well as care and education. The report concludes with a list of recommendations to strengthen the "statutory backing" for the various provisions already in existence.

The recommendations include making mandatory free preschool education (rather than optional as it currently is under the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RtE)). But the report is silent on what this might mean for children of Indigenous peoples and linguistic minorities (ILM -- incidentally, ilm is the Urdu word for knowledge and learning). As things stand, when a ILM child enters primary school, hardly anywhere in the country does she receive education in the mother tongue. The report's silence on the issue of medium of instruction indicates that for ILM children preschool education too will be in a non-mother tongue.

This flies in the face of the report's declaration that, "There should be a reference to quality of education in the Rules. Education for children under six must mean quality education and care to prepare them for elementary school and anything less than that should not be called education" (p. 61). Brave words! Similarly, the report also enjoins the state to provide training of preschool teachers "to ensure quality standards and a proper implementation of the best methods of promoting play and learning" (p 72). Let us hope that these admonitions to provide quality education through play and learning translate into a mother-tongue-medium education for our children.

Private schools not better than government schools - APF study

An Azim Premji Foundation (APF) 2013 report, "Private Schools Are No Panacea" (PDF; 20 pages - but see Update below) "suggests that contrary to popular perceptions, private schools are not adding value as compared to government schools to the children in the main subjects" (p. 15).

Previous analyses like that by Wilima Wadhwa in ASER 2009, "Are Private Schools Really Performing Better Than Government Schools?" (PDF; 3 pages) did suggest the same: "In the case of reading in the local language, in many cases most of the learning differential disappears once other factors are controlled for – Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. In the case of Madhya Pradesh, the difference is actually reversed – once other factors are controlled for government schools perform better than private schools. In the case of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where government schools had higher learning levels to start with, the gap widens once other factors are taken into account" (p. 3).

APF's School Choice study follows a different methodology. Government school children in 180 villages in Andhra Pradesh were offered a scholarship to study in a private school if they wished to. Then, the scholarship children in private schools, the non-scholarship children in private schools, and children in government schools were all evaluated over a 5-year period (2008-2013).

Analysis of five years of test data shows that:

"1. The scholarship children in private schools (children who were interested and voluntarily shifted to private schools) perform no better than their corresponding counterparts in government schools in the two main subjects - Telugu and Mathematics as also in EVS [environmental science] and English. This is observed consistently across the five years. This implies that private schools are not able to add any significant value in terms of learning achievement of these children.

"2. The learning achievement in general among non-scholarship children in private schools (who would have been in private schools any way) is significantly better than among children in government schools. However, the private school children’s households have a relatively better socio-economic and education profile which may have been a contributory factor.

"3. There are clear and significant differences in the profile of the teachers and the school facilities between the private schools and government schools. The teachers in private schools are younger, less experienced, less trained and with lower educational qualifications and are also paid substantially less. On the other hand, the government school teachers need to handle multi-grade teaching situations.

"4. Interestingly, interviews with parents of the scholarship children in private schools indicate that they are happy with the private schools. A closer look at the responses shows that the parents are possibly evaluating school outcomes on softer factors like uniforms, discipline, attendance in school (both of children and teachers) and social standing in the community.

"It seems clear that, contrary to general perception, private schools are not adding any greater value as compared to government schools to the children in Telugu and Mathematics, the main subjects, as also in EVS and English over five years of primary schooling, after controlling for the background of the households. The reasons for the perception that private schools may be better than government schools may lie in socio-economic, household or other factors. This research has provided rich data on various aspects and there is a need to do further detailed analysis to better understand these complex issues" (p. 1).

This is clearly a report that needs to be more widely known.

Update, July 2018: The report on which this post was based is no longer available on the APF website. It is, however, archived on the Right to Education Forum website here. The APF website has a shorter (6-page) version, "Does school choice help rural children from disadvantaged sections improve their learning outcomes? Evidence from a longitudinal research in Andhra Pradesh". And there is a much shorter (3-page) overview of the research in D. D. Karopady, "Do private Schools Really Ensure Better Learning Outcomes for Children?" Learning Curve, XXV (January 2016). This overview, in turn, draws upon D. D. Karopady, "Does School Choice Help Rural Children from Disadvantaged Sections? Evidence from Longitudinal Research in Andhra Pradesh", Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 49, no. 51, (20 Dec 2014).

ASER 2013: no significant improvement in learning to read

The provisional Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for rural India is out.

Highlights from the section "The National Picture".

• Enrollment in the 6-14 age group continues to be very high, with more than 96% of children in school. The proportion of out of school girls in the 11 to 14 age group has declined since last year.
• Nationally, there is a slight increase over 2012 in private school enrollment. The proportion of children taking paid private tuition classes has also increased slightly since last year.
• Since last year no significant improvement is visible in children’s ability to read - nationally, 47% of 5th class children in government and private schools were able to read a 2nd class text. Among Std. V children enrolled in government schools, the percentage of children able to read Std. II level text decreased from 50.3% (2009) to 43.8% (2011) to 41.1% (2013).
• Children are still struggling with basic arithmetic.

During ASER 2013, 14,724 government schools with primary sections were
visited across rural India. Observations:

• Teacher attendance holds steady, but student attendance drops.
• The proportion of “small schools” in the government primary school sector is growing (with total enrollment of 60 students or less).
• Compliance with most measurable Right to Education (RTE) norms continues to grow.
• the percentage of schools with no drinking water facility has declined from 17% in 2010 to 15.2% in 2013. In 7 states, more than 80% of schools visited had both the facility and drinking water was available.
• significant increase in the proportion of schools with a useable toilet, from 47.2% in 2010 to 62.6% in 2013. In 2010, 31.2% of all schools visited did not have a separate toilet for girls. This number has declined to 19.3% in 2013. The percentage of useable toilets for girls has also increased from 32.9% in 2010 to 53.3% in 2013.
• steady increase in the provision of libraries in schools that have been visited. The All India figure for schools with no library provision dropped from 37.4% in 2010 to 22.9% in 2013.
• mid-day meal was observed being served on the day of the visit in 87.2% of schools. This year, in 14 states, mid-day meals were seen in more than 90% of schools visited.

The report notes the increasing prevalence of private schools and private tuition in rural India. On this matter, the article in the report by Wilima Wadhwa : "Private inputs into schooling : Bang for the buck?" notes:

"One thing to note here is that while private school learning levels may be higher than those in government schools, children in private schools also are far below grade competency. For instance, in 2013, the proportion of Std. 5 children who could read a Std. 2 level text is 41.1% in government schools. The corresponding number for private schools is 63.3%- indicating that one third of children even in private schools are at least 2 grades behind in reading ability."

Linguistic minorities report

The Government of India's Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities submitted its 48th report (PDF) in July 2012. The Commissioner circulated a questionnaire on the implementation of "safeguards" for linguistic minorities. All but five states replied to the questionnaire. Another query was also sent to states and government departments asking what action had been taken on the recommendations of the previous report. Thirteen replies were received; 26 did not reply.

Chapter 37 of this report (p. 275 onwards) gives "Findings & Observations at a Glance". It takes each "safeguard" in turn and lists where it has been fully or partially implemented; where it needs to be implemented; and where "no specific information" has been provided.

The first safeguard, for instance, is "Facility for Instruction in Mother Language at Primary Stage of Education". The report tells us that it has been implemented in Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Delhi; "implemented in parts" in 13 other states; needs to be implemented in 10 more; while nine have not given any information.

While most states have returned the questionnaire, they seem to have answered only some of the questions about the safeguards that they are actually implementing. Thus, there are many gaps in information.

A previous commissioner has recommended (DOC) that the Indian census should record the names of all languages -- not just those with more than 10 000 speakers. Indeed, he recommended the abolition of the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution altogether. One result of the way the census currently counts is that under the rubric Hindi, for example, the 2001 census lists 49 "mother tongues". It then has a category called "Others" with as many as 14.8 million speakers. They all speak variants of Hindi, but each variant has less than 10 000 speakers. So their mother tongues are not mentioned.

The recommendations of this report (chapter 38) do not address the census issue. However, this report acknowledges the increasing mobility of urban populations and the increasing multilingualism of our cities. Clearly we need to know more reliably who speaks what, and design our policies accordingly.

Education in mother tongue essential - ASER

ASER, whom we've met several times in this blog, has a new report Inside Primary Schools: A study of teaching and learning in rural India (PDF). The study tracks about 30 000 children over a period of one year.

For about 10% of those children the school language was different from the home language. They consistently attend and learn less compared to the 90% for whom the school and home languages were the same (see Table 6.14 "Home/School language and children’s learning and attendance", p. 69).

As the authors - Suman Bhattacharjea, Wilima Wadhwa, and Rukmini Banerji - note:

"Children whose home language is different from the school medium of instruction face enormous additional problems at school. Given the lack of bridging mechanisms to enable a smooth transition from one language to the other, these children tend to attend school far less regularly. Whereas across both classes, about half of all children whose home language was the same as the school language were present in school on all three visits, this proportion is far lower among children whose home language was different from the school language (Table 6.14). Learning outcomes for these two groups of children are unequal to begin with and these differences accentuate over the course of one year, both in [class] 2 and in [class] 4." (pp. 68-69)

Here are the key findings of this report (p. 8):

• 20% of children surveyed are first generation school goers. Less than half of all households have any print material available, so children do not have materials to read at home.
• Children are learning in the course of a year, but even in states with the best learning outcomes, children’s learning levels are far behind what textbooks expect. At each grade level, children’s starting point is well below that of their textbooks.
• Children whose home language is different than the school language of instruction learn less.
• Attendance is the most important factor in children's learning.
• The average number of children present in each classroom is low, but in most classrooms children from more than one grade are sitting together.
• Child-friendly practices, such as students asking questions, using local examples to explain lessons, small group work, have a significant impact on children's learning.
• Teachers can spot mistakes commonly made by children, but have difficulty explaining content in simple language or easy steps. Teacher characteristics such as qualification/degree, length of training, and number of years of experience make little difference to children’s learning.

And the key policy recommendations (p. 8):

• Textbooks need urgent revisions. They need to start from what children can do and be more realistic and developmentally appropriate in what children are expected to learn, with clear learning goals and sequence.
• Systems must be put into place to track attendance, not just enrollment, and ensure regular reporting and monitoring of this attendance.
• Mother tongue instruction and programmes for language transition need to be introduced and expanded.
• Teacher recruitment policies need to assess teachers' knowledge, but more importantly their ability to explain content to children, make information relevant to their lives and to use teaching learning materials and activities other than the textbook.
• State teacher education plans should invest in the human resource capacity of academic support structures, like Block and Cluster Resource Centres (BRC/CRC) and District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET), to enable them to help improve teaching and learning quality via in-service training and classroom visits.
• As per RTE [Right to Education Act], indicators for child-friendly education need to be defined and measured regularly as a part of the markers of quality.
• Libraries, with take-home books for reading practice at the household level, should be monitored as part of RTE indicators. Family reading programmes could also be part of innovations to help support first generation school goers.

ASER studies and surveys have considerable impact. Let us hope some of these recommendations find their way into policy. As the study concludes:

"this study has provided a host of insights about influences on teaching and learning that can help align policy with what children need in order to learn well. As new provisions are put into place for teacher recruitment and training, student assessment and tracking, textbook content, and so on, we hope that these ideas will be debated vigorously and tested in practice."