Resolve the Dilemma; Accept English as a teaching language
I am writing this article on a response to my friend Rafay’s article “English: A Device to Measure Critical Reasoning in Pakistan”; In which, he want to establish a point that many countries developed following their language and that there is no need to test individual’s English literacy at the aptitude test.
This is a common discussion and we found general public agrees with the point, but, the qualified individuals, usually they are foreign qualified, is supporting the use of English as a language of teaching. Our dilemma is that we follow the things which we are not supporting theologically and the case is same with English. We want to implement Urdu, even our constitution bind government to implement Urdu as an official language, but we failed to do so. We establish Urdu university to teach higher education in Urdu and translate books in Urdu, but, everybody knows how effectively it works. Almost nothing is available in Urdu relating to modern knowledge. We are unable to translate classical books in Urdu and even we do not have any research in Urdu language. So, please not to say about modern research, which is continuously updated, been available in Urdu.
Another problem is that we are easy to compare us with the most developed nations or those we are in contrast. Usually people argue that if Chinese attained the progress using Chinese as their official language why not we too attain this success in our country. So, I plead to you that please do not compare Chinese with Urdu. Kindly before comparing these two languages read simple history about these languages. Urdu is a combination of different languages and was start evolving in Mughal empire and comes in current form in 1837 AD while, Chinese language dates back to 1046 BC…
Rafay also mentioned the example of Quebec Province, The French-speaking province achieve tremendous progress in different fields maintaining French as their official language. But before quoting its example kindly read its history, which If possible I will write in detail in another blog, The French settlement in American continent dates back to 16th century. Quebec as a separate entity established just after the American Revolution of 1776 in 1791 maintaining its long practiced French civil laws, means practice already developed laws. While, on the other hand as mentioned earlier Urdu comes in its present form in 1837 AD and there is no official civil or any law in Urdu language yet.
At last, we are much short of the available material in Urdu language and even it is impossible for us to do so. Or if may be possible, It is basically the wastage of resources. Rather, we should declare a state of emergency in education sector as we are ranked with respect of literacy rate at 113 among 120 nations. So, immediately we should have to resolve that we should teach in English at all levels from primary to higher level and from public to private schools and then concentrate all are resources to increase our literacy rate to be competitive among world nations and also to meet Millennium development goals.
The only country whom we compare us is India. They established that if they want to success in the world they have to adopt English. That’s why, they accept English as an official language just after independence in 1947 and now English is established as a common lingua franca between those speaking diverse mother tongues. English is taught as a first language in English medium schools and the second language in regional schools. However, Science and technical education is mostly undertaken in English. Simply, the result of this is that they achieve tremendous success in the world’s literature and from the top 10 best English authors 6 are Indians beating even USA and UK.
So, by letting down our so-called national ego, we should first accept the success of the western countries and Use English as a language of learning. This response is designed to answer the hot debate in our country. It is difficult to digest but we should have to rapidly increase our pace towards achieving higher literacy rate and solve these issues at first and as soon as possible.