With more than 30 crore students in schools and higher education institutions, education is a massive endeavour of critical importance for India’s development. Overcoming the initial inertia, the National Education Policy (NEP) launched in 2020 is in its fourth year of remodelling the Indian educational milieu and preparing India’s children for a 21^st-century world. Being the most populous and one of the most linguistically diverse countries, there are, however, several challenges to overcome and needs to be fulfilled on the way to this feat.

It takes a village to educate a child 

As per the Economic Survey 2023 – 24, there are approximately 94.8 lakh teachers in school education and 15.98 lakh teachers in higher education. However, to transform the system besides teachers, an army of education professionals in different capacities is the need of the hour. These professionals could be teacher-trainers, subject matter experts for curriculum, pedagogy and textbook development, education researchers, policy analysis experts etc. 

“Considering the enormity of India’s educational landscape, however, there is a dearth of such trained professionals and good courses in preparing them.” says Rajagopal CV, Lead Admissions Outreach at Azim Premji University”, Bengaluru. Run by the Azim Premji Foundation known for its work in improving school education since 2000, this university offers a postgraduate degree and a bunch of diploma programmes in Education to nurture passionate professionals for the evolving Indian Education System. Aiming to reach the regional youth, they carried out a week-long outreach drive entitled ​“Careers in the Education Sector” at several locations in West Bengal. 

CV, himself a Malayalam speaker, was delivering one of these presentations at the Milli Al-Ameen College, Kolkata, in a mix of Hindi and English and the audience comprised Bengali, Hindi and Urdu speakers. This is a nice illustration of the mélange of the languages in India. CV comments, 

While it’s great to live in such a diverse country, so many languages, however, is a major challenge for the education system, pointing to the demand for more education professionals with the necessary language education skills and perspective to overcome this unique problem.

Language education for India’s education professionals 

Agniva Pal and Abdul Qaiyum, faculty at the School of Education, Azim Premji University were also part of the outreach team. Pal comments, ​“In India, there are 22 scheduled languages that have gained an advantage and become prestigious. However, NEP 2020 says, students should be instructed in their home language for a better understanding of concepts, so all the other Indian languages should also be in focus.”. He thinks that the language issue is solvable by hiring people from the community who speak local languages.

Throughout a theoretical linguistics scholar, initially Pal was unsure how he could be useful in the education department. However, soon he saw many applications of linguistics in teaching education. He also understood how these two disciplines could be combined and merged with the NEP guidelines. 

Pal notes that they have already begun implementing several NEP guidelines like four-year bachelor programmes (some courses), continuous assessment (no exam at the end of the semester), encouraging critical thinking among students, and interactive pedagogy. Pal notes, ​“The right interpretation of NEP is crucial, otherwise there is the scope for misunderstanding as is happening in many places.” 

As per the university protocol, Pal was not allowed to take classes as a new faculty for the first six months. Instead, he needed to shadow the ongoing classes to understand the pedagogical methodologies practised here. After this intro, however, faculties are free to decide their teaching style. He says, ​“Here we encourage students to read widely, develop critical thinking, ask questions and freely discuss. There is a huge value in giving them agency in participation so that they don’t remain a dead component of the class.” 

They need to enjoy to understand the concepts. Anonymous feedback from students is also collected on teaching and that helps faculties a lot.

Theory to practice

Presently Pal teaches two courses in the MA in Education programme. The first one is ​‘Language Education’ which consists of introduction to language and literature (ILLE) and advanced language and literature pedagogy (ALLP). Pal says, ​“During the ILLE classes, students are acquainted with the language scenario of education in India, issues like unplanned language death and planned ones caused by governmental policies like recognising selected languages and thus neglecting the rest. The ALLP classes teach pedagogy to teach literature so that students can appreciate and enjoy.” 

The second course is ​‘Field Research’ which teaches students how to do literature reviews, understand current global scenarios in education and based on that ask research questions on education practices in the Indian context. Students also have to complete actual field research by visiting places like Dhamtari (Chhattishgarh), Sirohi (Rajasthan), Kalaburagi (Karnataka), where Azim Premji Foundation has schools and district institutes for teacher training and research. Here students observe classes, teach and carry out their research on the side by staying for ninety days. The analysis part begins as they come back to the university and a few works get published as well. 

Pal adds, ​“The three months before the field visit are spent preparing a strong research proposal. After a preliminary drafting under the guidance of faculties, a meeting is held with the field faculty who helps in checking the feasibility of the proposal in the field and realising it.” 

Trouble in the classrooms

One of the challenges in language education classrooms is artificial intelligence (AI). To tackle this, they have started giving assignments where the students have no option to consult AI. Pal says, ​“For example, we are giving personal assignments like linguistic autobiography where they need to discuss the languages they have learnt or been associated with since birth.” 

Language itself could be a challenge also. Many students from remote areas come here. Though they are competent in their own language, but find learning and higher thinking in English difficult. Thus, the university has a one-month programme providing language and cultural support to students in need. Pal says, 

These students start one month earlier than the rest and are oriented through the programme. A year-long programme is also there for students who need additional support.