Two years after announcing it would set up 100 English medium schools to cater to the demand for them at the district and taluka levels, the Gujarat Government seeks to establish them in the current academic year, a step ahead from introducing English as a subject from Class I in the 2022-23.
In 2022, in more than 32,000 government-run primary schools in Gujarat, where over 50 lakh students are enrolled from Classes 1-8, English was introduced as a subject from Class I for the first time in a move to make students conversant with the language, and to meet the demand of parents who wanted their offspring to learn the English language from early schooling onward.
Prior to this, students of Gujarati medium schools were taught English from Class 3.
Earlier, in September 2021, in a circular, the State Education Department had proposed to set up English medium schools in several districts, including Mehsana and Aravalli in north Gujarat, tribal-dominated Dangs in south Gujarat, and the rural districts of Ahmedabad and Surat.
The State Education Department runs more than 32,000 primary schools across Gujarat but nearly all of them are in the Gujarati medium, with a few schools in the Hindi medium and in other languages.
“We introduced the English subject from Class 1 in 2022-23 and now, we will set up schools with English as the medium,” Gujarat’s School Education Secretary Vinod Rao.
Currently, students of Classes 1 and 2 are taught the basics of the language, and from Class 3 onward, even writing will be taught in English.
Mr. Rao also added that the State government’s residential school project is being implemented in the ongoing academic year, with 75 residential schools coming up in partnership with private players, for Classes 6 to 12, where the medium of instruction will be both Gujarati and English.
“From this year, around 25 schools [each] will be opened for the next three years, adding up to a total of 74 schools with an intake capacity of 1.5 lakh students,” Mr. Rao told The Hindu, admitting that there has been some delay in the project.
The exclusive curriculum and pedagogy of the residential schools will be prepared in consultation with national and international boards. The Education Department has held talks with the international Cambridge Board to create a special academic curriculum.
Aligned with the education policy announced by the Centre, the schools to be set up under the new initiative will emphasise a bilingual medium from Classes 6 to 8 before transitioning students into only the English medium from Class 9 onward.
In Ahmedabad city, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation runs 55 English medium primary schools, where around 12,000 students are enrolled. “We are planning to set up higher secondary schools [Classes 9-12] in English medium from next year, besides increasing the number of primary schools,” Municipal Commissioner M. Thennarasan said.
The Surat Municipal Corporation also runs English medium primary schools.
In Gujarat, where the quality of teaching and education in government-run primary schools is perceived to be below average, middle class parents even in rural areas prefer English medium schools. In the absence of State-run English medium schools, parents turn to private schools, which have mushroomed to around 10,000 primary schools spread across in almost every taluka of the State.
In June this year, at the flagship annual school enrolment drive in which all bureaucrats from Gandhinagar visit villages to enrol children in schools, senior bureaucrat Dhaval Patel, in a letter to the government, pointed out several learning shortcomings among students in schools in the central Gujarat tribal belt.
Mr. Patel, posted as the Commissioner of Geology and Mines, visited six primary schools as part of the enrolment programme, and found several Class 8 students who could neither add single digit numbers nor read a word in Gujarati (instead, they read letter by letter). Some students could not point out where Gujarat or the Himalayas were on the map of India. He also pointed out to practice of mass copying in examinations at the schools he visited.
According to Manish Doshi, spokesperson of the Gujarat Congress, who has tracked the education sector for more than 20 years, there are 1,657 schools in Gujarat run by just one teacher. “Of those 1,657 schools, 1,363 schools are in rural areas, and the remaining 294 schools are in urban areas,” he said, adding that 353 single-teacher schools were in the tribal belt.
Mr. Doshi accused the State Education Department of making announcements but not recruiting teachers despite a shortfall of over 30,000 teachers in State-run schools. “The State government should first recruit full-time teachers and then make new announcements,” he said.
