Government will bring out a book to assist teachers, says Primary Education Minister
Thousands of children leaving government schools due to absence of English medium: Sailajanath
‘Private schools without infrastructure attracting students showing English as bait’
HYDERABAD: World’s uniting language — English — will now reverberate in the classrooms of government schools from class one from the ensuing academic year.
Primary Education Minister S. Sailajanath said that the government had decided to introduce English as a subject from class one itself from 2011-12 academic year and efforts were on to streamline the procedures involved in it. “We can’t keep socially and economically backward children away from the subject and it will be injustice if the government can’t provide the education which people want,” he told The Hindu.
Teachers already trained
Mr. Sailajanath, however, doesn’t see any administrative or academic problems for the decision to be implemented in such a short time. He feels teachers are already trained to teach English at that level. All that students would be exposed is to English alphabets and a few words. “We will also bring out a book to assist teachers,” he said. In fact, he has already got some books from Kerala and Maharashtra and these student-friendly books will be the base for the books to be published for our State children.
Explaining what prompted him to take an immediate decision, he said thousands of children were leaving government schools due to the absence of English medium. Though English medium has been introduced from 5 {+t} {+h} class, he says dropout can be contained at the lower level if English is introduced from first class. Lot of private schools without infrastructure or trained teachers are attracting these children showing English subject as bait. “When we have presence in all the villages with decent infrastructure and trained teachers we can offer better teaching almost free of cost,” he said.
Social respect
The popular mood among the villagers is also to make their children learn English due to the social respect they gain learning the language and also the additional benefits like easy transformation from school to college. “Thanks to information explosion, parents are aware of the opportunities available due to good education and also English,” the Minister reminds. Apart from the social responsibility, the government apparently is also of the view that many students at the higher level are facing problems due to lack of English language skills and this move will solve the issue permanently.
Source : The Hindu