Change in medium puts students in quandary

Guntur: The government decision to convert all the Telugu Medium Municipal Schools into English Medium is drawing flak from all sections of society. At the end of first quarter of academic year, The Hans India sought opinions from parents, teachers, social oranisations and public and response is not in favour of move.

Many people opine the government should have taken the decision after providing thorough training to all Telugu Medium teachers

The government issued the GO No. 14 on January 2 stating all the existing Telugu Medium Municipal Schools would be converted into English Medium Schools from 1st standard to 10th standard irrespective of students and teachers’ strength with immediate effect.

State Teachers Union (STU) president E Shanmurthy dubbed the state’s move as hasty and added students are worst hit by the government’s step and the verbatim in mathematics and physics are annoying the pupils. While introducing English Medium in civic body schools, the government should have first considered to strengthen basic foundations of school education system.

Progressive Recognised Teachers Union state president CVS Mani welcomed the government’s decision and said the critics of the GO should consider the increase in admissions in private medium schools and thousands of rupees are being wasted as fee.

With the GO, the civic schools have become the real substitutes and hoped bright future belongs to them under the government supervision, he said.

R Kristuratnam, faculty from educational psychology, AL College of Education, said the conversion of medium of teaching is painful to all and it was difficult to switch over without any prior training.

Rajesh Patnaik, convener, AP Save Education Committee, criticised the government decision and said that instead of monitoring the private schools, the government is aping them and in the process, they are forgetting the harsh facts that dropout rate in the Telugu Medium Schools was only 14 per cent where as the English Medium, it was 31 per cent.

He said it was proved time and again student’s ability of learning would be high if they are taught in mother tongue and at the same time the students never feel any inconvenience.

SFI district unit president Bhagavan said with the introduction of the GO, the dropout rate is alarmingly high in Guntur Sub-urban Municipal Schools and teachers are in a state of confusion.

N Ramarao (name changed) working as a mathematics assistant in a municipal school, admitted that most of the time he is searching online for approximate terms in English for Telugu words.

Havana Devi, a housewife, with her high school education background used to help her wards in the primary classes. But now she says the change of medium forced her to send her children to tuition which was beyond her family budget.

However, most respondents opine that change in English Medium is certainly a welcome move but it should be done in a phased manner. The government should have taken the decision after giving thorough training to all Telugu Medium teachers and frequent orientation sessions with parents, they opine. District educational officer Raghukumar and other concerned officers are not available for comment.

By D Rajendra Kumar