Two languages or three?

"As many as 43% of schoolchildren in Class VI can't grasp main ideas in texts, and a staggering 63% of Class IX students fail to spot simple patterns in numbers or understand basic numerical sets like fractions and integers, the ministry of education's PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan has revealed." "The study revealed the rural-urban divide and gender gaps persist in critical areas." TOI. However, "Over 90% of rural children in the 14-18 years' age group have a smartphone in their home (as compared to 73% in 2017) and are on social media, according to the Annual Status of Education Report 2023." TOI. Dr Wendy Suzuki "pointed out that the increasing dependence on smartphones is rewiring our neural pathways, reducing the potential for brain growth and eventually impacting our well-being." Smartphones 'frying' our brains "suggests that the state of the brain is overstimulated and possibly harmed by constant dopamine hits and stress responses owing to frequent smartphone use." TIE. "The Covid-19 pandemic forced most education to move online. This was disastrous" because in colleges in Delhi "most students were now relying on YouTube instead of books for learning," found Prof Shobhit Mahajan. "This Instagram generation spends a large fraction of their time viewing reels on their phones. Their attention span is, by default, limited to a few minutes." HT. The National Education Policy (NEP) seeks to force schoolchildren to learn at least three languages, of which two must be native to India. India Today. This would be an extra pressure on children because, "According to the 2011 census, 26% of India knows at least two languages and 7.2% knows at least three languages. This means that 74% of India is monolingual, around 19% is strictly bilingual and 7.1% is tri/multi-lingual," wrote Abhishek Jha. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has refused to implement the NEP, alleging that this was an attempt to impose Hindi by the BJP led Central government. "Tamil Nadu will not tolerate Hindi colonialism replacing British colonialism," he wrote. He could be right because last month, "The Maharashtra government has mandated Hindi as a compulsory third language for students in Marathi and English medium schools from Classes 1 to 5." Mint. Maharashtra has a BJP-led coalition government. wikipedia. However, faced with growing opposition, it has decided to hold off for now. ET. This backdoor attempt to impose Hindi will harm them because, "Citing 'inadequate' English language proficiency as a major factor affecting employability among youth graduating from state public universities, the NITI Aayog has recommended these institutions collaborate with international language organisations to offer English and foreign language proficiency programs." The Print. India will be home to 350 million children by 2050, according to the UNICEF's State of the World Report 2024. DH. If our politicians have their way, they will all be Hindi speaking, YouTube-educated unemployed. Only to win elections. The Moguls and the British could not destroy us. Democracy will.