THE MEDIUM/ LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION USED IN PAKISTANI CLASSROOMS
Introduction
1. A QUESTION we are still grappling with in Pakistan after 65 years is, what should be the language of instruction in our schools. Given all the scientific research that has gone into the language and literacy issues worldwide — but surprisingly not enough in Pakistan — one would have thought we would have found the answer by now. Unfortunately, we haven’t. This language paradox has undermined our education standards. With no well-defined language as a medium of instruction policy, we have a fractured system that divides society.
2. Pakistan Government has been unable to come up with a uniform medium of instruction to be used in our educational institutions. A glance at our national educational history reveals a disturbing trend towards our attitude to the language to be used in our educational institutions. Ever since independence, barring few English medium schools [which were mostly run by Christian missionaries then], the mainstream educational establishments continued mother tongue as the primary medium of instruction. This system seemed to have worked well till late 1960’s. However in the seventies of the past century our educational wizards came up with the novel idea of unilingual [Urdu] concept of instructing the Pakistani kids in their elementary schools. With introduction of a unilingual concept the students were now being instructed right from the kindergarten to secondary classes in Urdu [especially in Punjab]. While making this decision they totally ignored the fact that Urdu had never been the mother tongue of more than 6-7 percent Pakistanis. A great majority of Pakistani school kids used their respective mother tongues as medium of general discourse in their mohallas, in streets especially amongst their buddies. Naturally conflicts arose in the tender minds of young Pakistanis, who adopted a speech pattern which is neither standard Urdu nor compatible with the intonation and stress patterns of their mother tongue spoken for centuries by dwellers of the Indus valley lands called Pakistan.
The Essay on English A Medium Of Instruction
As everyone know that English is international language and important medium of communication. But there is still a Controversial topic that should English be the medium of instruction in secondary school? Population are growing rapidly in this world. Imagine that if we doesn’t have English, how would we be communicating with others from foreign country? We could not use our national language to ...
3. In the 1990’s other fits gripped our education wizards; chief affliction in this regard being adoption of English as a medium right from kindergarten and onward. The Government of Pakistan also decided that the government run elementary schools will also use English as medium of instruction ignoring the fact that such a large number of teachers who can speak English and teach English to kindergarteners does not exist. The problem got further complicated with the advent of 20th century as various provincial governments promulgated various educational policies to meet the challenges of the era of the ‘global world’ shaped by the information technology.
Statement of the Problem
4. The statement of the problem is as follows:-
“The medium/ language of instruction used in Pakistani classrooms”
Scope of the Study
5. The researcher will use a questionnaire of twenty five items. The researcher will also use technique of structured interviews to gather information from teachers and students of selected educational institutions in order to record their response towards medium/language of instruction to be used in the Pakistani classrooms.
Significance of the Study
6. Educating children for quality and lifelong learning is very essential for the development of active citizenship, indispensable for their active part in a democratic society; and vital role to play for the better and progressive country.
The Essay on Foreign Language Instruction Should Begin In Kindergarten
For years it was thought that learning foreign language is getting more and more important because of the globalization. In order to acquire a new language as soon as possible, amounts of parents would like to let their children begin to learn new languages in kindergarten. There are many positive effects if people learn foreign language when they are young children. Even though adults have ...
7. Pakistan has 35 % population that has been categorized as below 15 years of age. This means that a huge number of its population is in school going age bracket. This population will be our work force of tomorrow, in order to do long term planning for such a huge number of young minds, Pakistani Government must adopt a uniform policy regarding medium of instruction to be used in our educational institutions.
8. Pakistan as a nation can not claim a respectable place among countries of the world in this age of technology till it has work force which has been educated and trained according to the demands of the international market.
This study will try to focus on finding a suitable medium of instruction for each level of studies based on children comprehension level, field of study and availability of trained teaching staff.
Literature Review
9. The language of instruction in or out of school refers to the language used for teaching the basic curriculum of the educational system. The choice of the language or indeed the languages of instruction (educational policy might recommend the use of several languages of instruction) is a recurrent challenge in the development of quality education. While some countries opt for one language of instruction, often the official or majority language, others have chosen to use educational strategies that give national or local languages an important place in schooling. Speakers of mother tongues, which are not the same as the national or local language, are often at a considerable disadvantage in the educational system similar to the disadvantage in receiving instruction in a foreign official language.
10. In many multiethnic and multilingual countries, the choice of a language for the medium of instruction in state educational systems raises a fundamental and complex educational question: what combination of instruction in students’ native language(s) and in a second language of wider communication will ensure that students gain both effective subject-content education, as well as the second-language skills necessary for higher education and employment? Beyond this educational issue of choice of language(s) of instruction, medium of instruction policies are also linked to a range of important sociopolitical issues, including globalization, migration, labor policy, elite competition, and the distribution of economic resources and political power. The contributors to this volume examine the tension between the educational agendas and other social and political agendas underlying medium of instruction policies in different countries around the world, and unravel the connections between these policies and the related, critically important educational, social, political, and economic issues. (Tollefson, 2003)
The Essay on Culture and Educational Policy in Hawaii
American education policy has been formulated and shaped through the three major cartels of institutions. These are social, political and economic which have led to the transitions from one system to another. Although education has profound effects in all the institution, education and politics are seen to have much great effects on each other in terms of policy formulation. Due to the ...
