Tamil Nadu Government Speaks With a Forked Tongue On School Language — And Its Students Are Paying The Price

Emotions are running high in Tamil Nadu with allegations flying thick and fast that the central (Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP) government is trying to impose Hindi in the state through its education policy (New Education Policy, or NEP, 2020).

The Tamil Nadu government's reservations against NEP 2020 are well known. But why is the issue on the front burner now?

Well, a few days back, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said in no uncertain terms that the Centre would not release close to Rs 2,500 crore under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme unless Tamil Nadu signs up for NEP 2020. And the D stocks clambered onto this issue and have been making strident noises that the Centre is up to its usual tricks.

Is their charge backed by facts? Let us see.

For the record, the SSA, which treats school education holistically without segmentation from pre-nursery to Class 12, is aligned to NEP 2020. And as part of this initiative, the Centre announced in 2022 the PM SHRI scheme and decided to develop around 14,500 PM SHRI schools across India that will reflect the key features of NEP 2020 and also support the implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009.

The scheme is intended for existing elementary, secondary, and senior secondary schools run by the central and state governments. These model schools, which lay emphasis on a discovery-orientated, learning-centric way of teaching, smart classrooms, sports, and the latest technology, would have 60 per cent of funds from the Centre and the remaining 40 per cent from the state or Union territory (UT), as the case may be.

As of now, a total of 12,079 schools have been selected from 32 states/UTs and Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS)/Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) schools up to four phases, out of which 1,329 schools are primary, 3,340 are elementary, 2,921 are secondary, and 4,489 are senior secondary.

As it happens, three states — Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and West Bengal — are yet to sign up. And the three opposition-ruled states have different reasons to oppose the scheme.

Kerala, for instance, is holding up because signing up will mean fully implementing NEP, creating two categories among schools following the state syllabus.

West Bengal, for its part, is cut up with the prefix "PM SHRI" (which actually stands for PM Schools for Rising India), while for Tamil Nadu, the bogey is the three-language formula that NEP 2020 (under which everything falls) lays down.

Are Tamil Nadu's Fears Logical?

All the states have, from time to time, complained of not receiving SSA funds. But without signing a formal agreement for the same, to expect the central government to provide money flies in the face of financial logic.

Of course, central governments in India have been notorious for treating states with unbecoming disdain. And the current dispensation may not be all that different. But if the states are not part of the SSA, under which head will the central exchequer release the funds?

Well, NEP 2020 and others do insist on a three-language policy, according to which the medium of instruction will be the local language (the mother tongue of the predominant local students), the compulsory language is English, and the third one is an optional one based on the student's choice.

Tamil Nadu politicos fear that the third option is nothing more than a thinly disguised way to spread Hindi in a state that has historically opposed it.

With Hindi as an emotive issue capable of touching a raw nerve, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has been using it as a shield to shake off NEP 2020. While standing up for one's language is fine and even needed, the state and its politicos may be feeding a misplaced frenzy and creating a climate of hostility.

The state has always been intransigent on Centre-driven education policies. To this day, Tamil Nadu is the only state in the country that is not part of the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) scheme, which runs central schools (KVs) for rural students at an extremely subsidised rate.

State’s Approach Hurts Its Students

Needless to say, JNV, which has thrown up Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) toppers from even villages and remote places, insists on a three-language system.

But at least in the case of JNV, Tamil Nadu can rightfully claim that it mandates the CBSE pattern, and also these schools require the state government to provide land for them. So JNV, which serves rural and Scheduled Caste (SC) students elsewhere, is off the course in Tamil Nadu.

But PM SHRI schools do not even insist on the central board of education. The schools that are chosen for the programme, if they are not KVs, can follow the state board, with the third language alone being extra, based on the belief that more language skills would mean more cognitive ability in young students.

There is no demand for land, too, as existing schools will be brought under the scheme. The chosen schools would receive top-notch facilities, and there is flexibility in teacher recruitment, as NEP 2020 envisages good investments for language teachers in all regional languages around the country.

"States, especially States from different regions of India, may enter into bilateral agreements to hire teachers in large numbers from each other, to satisfy the three-language formula in their respective States, and also to encourage the study of Indian languages across the country. Extensive use of technology will be made for teaching and learning of different languages and to popularise language learning," NEP 2020 says.

With education being in the concurrent list (a legacy of the Emergency-era Indira Gandhi government), states will have to willy-nilly tango with the Centre on this crucial segment. But, as you can see, most of the fears on NEP 2020 and PM SHRI schools seem just fearmongering or conspiracy theory-peddling.

Tamil Nadu indeed has historically made a strong point in its famous opposition to Hindi. But without diluting that stand in any way, it must ensure that rural and disadvantaged students, who stand to gain the most out of such Centre-supported school schemes, are not deprived of a vital lifeline to their future.

In any case, its claim of being blackmailed by the Centre for purveying funds sounds lame in the light of the facts. Without being part of the programme, to expect central funds for the same is just puerile politics.