Language of Education: Addressing the Gap Between Policy and Practice Or English-Medium Fever: In Search of a Cure

Minha Khan, Ajay Pinjani
Special Thanks to: Hina Saleem

A three-year study by TCF finds that using familiar languages when children are young and then gradually introducing foreign languages maximizes comprehension and fluency.

Ayla recalls her early days at school, when the school itself was a strange building she entered into. Her home was so different and so was her neighborhood.

“I remember my teacher, Ms. Sindhu, who lived three houses away from mine, once asked me to narrate a story about a camel ride. We have many camels around us, so I became excited and wanted to share, but I just couldn’t. I just struggled to say what I knew, what I have enjoyed and wanted to say. It felt like my tongue froze”.

Ayla was asked to narrate this story in English, a language that was unfamiliar to her at the time. If asked in Sindhi, Ayla would have not only communicated her experience but also received in return, the energy of affirmation. A school welcomes children into their new abode, with a promise of safety and wonder. Language is an invisible source of familiarity that a child holds on to, it is through language that they have experienced the world so far. In this way, language becomes a bridge between school and home, allowing children to safely cross between the two worlds.

Despite the abundance of literature and experience supporting the benefits of teaching children in languages they understand (“familiar language”), an estimated half of all children in low and middle-income countries are taught in a language they do not understand (“unfamiliar language”). Pakistan is a case in point. After 200 years of colonial rule under British India, Pakistan was born in 1947. Today, the country is home to over 70 languages, including the official languages of Urdu and English (a language that stayed, even after the British left). Urdu and English are utilized by the domains of power, including the government, corporate sector, media, and more relevantly, educational institutions.

As is the case with many other post-colonial nations, Pakistan is afflicted with “English-medium fever”, a desire to keep English as the medium of instruction in schools due to its perceived superiority and association with wealth, status, and power. This fever has led to a deep disconnect between the languages of the home and the languages of school. Only two out of over 70 indigenous languages are formally recognized in schools in Pakistan. Most of the other languages remain “informal” in their usage, given little to no recognition outside of everyday use.

Despite this fervor, for most students, “English-medium” schooling is a myth, insofar as it implies that teachers are using English in the classroom. Research has demonstrated that the vast majority of teachers do not understand the language. Instead, teachers tend to use local languages to teach and communicate with students. Being an English-medium school only means that the textbooks are in English and by rote memorizing them, children neither learn English nor the subjects they are meant to be learning.

This is surprising because Pakistan’s policy on the language of education provides provinces with the option to use native languages in the early years of schooling and encourages the inclusion of mother tongues. Yet, Pakistani children continue to learn in languages they don’t understand. This is contributing to a growing crisis where children are attending school but struggling to comprehend, let alone learn. When these children decide to no longer pursue an education, we say they “dropped out”. But the truth of the matter is that these children are pushed out due to a systemic failure.

This leads us to ask why Pakistan’s language of education policy is not translating into practice within classrooms. If there is an intention to teach children in languages they understand, why are a significant number of schools continuing to teach children using textbooks that are in Urdu or English^[1], despite those languages collectively only being the native tongue of 8% of the population?

One crucial gap between the language of education policy and practice is that while the policy details the importance of learning in one’s own language, there is no guidance on how this policy should be implemented. Schools are left on their own accord to design curriculum and develop the necessary material to implement this policy. Moreover, state examination boards for Matric and Intermediate^[2] are still being held predominantly in Urdu and English, thereby schools are discouraged from investing heavily in teaching children in familiar languages and instead facilitate the rote memorization of unfamiliar language textbooks which students will later replicate on exams. Parents fear that their children will do poorly on these exams and lose opportunities if they study in their own language and forgo learning in the English language.

Languages can provide access to opportunities and serve as a bridge between yourself and the outside world. However, to ensure academic success, cognitive development, and positive identity formation, among other benefits, children must be taught in languages that are familiar to them. Conversely, learning in an unfamiliar language is too demanding for a young child to cope with. This disadvantage disproportionately impacts children who already face other barriers to education, such as poverty, hunger, and poor learning conditions. Moreover, research finds that after children have developed proficiency in their familiar language(s), they are better positioned to learn foreign languages like English.

This presents a need for a mother tongue-based multilingual curriculum: children must be taught in languages they understand, with alignment between the language spoken in the classroom, textbooks, and assessments, but schools should also support them to learn additional languages that will allow them to access the world and its opportunities.

So, how can a mother tongue-based multilingual education policy be translated into the classroom? To answer this, The Citizens Foundation, which operates what may be the largest network of independently owned, nonprofit schools in the world, began a research study in 2018, which included a socio-linguistic survey, interviews and focus groups with stakeholders and experts, and secondary literature review. We combined 5+ years of research findings to develop a language ladder (or language progression plan) that outlines how a child can be taught in their native language in early years and then transition to learning multilingually to equip them to optimize on learning as well as opportunity.

The language ladder can be adapted to any context; all it requires is that a thorough socio-linguistic survey be conducted in the community to ensure that the aspirations and needs of the community are understood and are reflected in the language progression plan. This model supports children in learning in their most familiar languages thereby optimizing their learning and development without compromising their multilingual abilities and opportunities to succeed within their own community and in the world at large. The development of a language ladder is a first step towards teaching children in languages they understand.

This multilingual language ladder is currently being implemented in Tharparkar, Pakistan, across 19 schools and 84 classrooms, from Nursery to Grade 3, with the intention to scale to 97 schools in the 2023-24 academic year. The model in Tharparkar adopts the most familiar language as the medium of instruction in the early years (until Grade 3), a gradual transition from familiar to unfamiliar language in the late primary and early secondary years of schooling (Grade 3 to 7), and finally making a complete transition to the language most demanded beyond schooling in the late secondary years (Grade 8 onwards).

Given the relationship between language and opportunity, a common and legitimate concern raised by parents, education practitioners, and policymakers during our research is whether teaching in students’ most familiar languages will further the inequality between English-medium and non-English medium students in Pakistan. As it stands today, there is a deep inequality between those who are studying English in immersive and highly-resourced learning spaces (very few), in contrast to those (majority) who are learning English in low-resourced environments as a foreign language with very little exposure.

In low-resourced environments, students are subjected to learning unfamiliar content in a foreign language, by a teacher who has not mastered the language. This places a burden on students that they cannot handle, thereby furthering the inequality between themselves and more privileged students.

The multilingual language ladder puts comprehension at the center. It insists on the use of a familiar language to teach unfamiliar content so that there is a higher likelihood that the student will thrive in their environment.

To ensure this goal is achieved, it is not enough to develop a policy that simply endorses mother-tongue instruction. There is also a need for technical guidance as to how multilingual schools can implement such policy on a classroom level. TCF has developed templates that support policymakers in multilingual countries to develop both language policies and actionable language ladders[1]  for their specific localities. While developing and implementing these programs and policies, it is crucial to continue to longitudinally study the effects of familiar language instruction in Pakistan to inform our language decisions and, ultimately, to create a world where Ayla, and the millions of children like her, are able to learn and share their experiences with camels with confidence, ease, and excitement.

Designing and introducing a language ladder is a possible solution that can support policymakers and practitioners in enabling multilingual teaching within their own context. It is also crucial to continue to longitudinally study the effects of such solutions, to identify what’s working and can be potentially scaled up, and ultimately, to create a world where Ayla, and the millions of children like her, are able to learn and share their experiences with confidence, ease, and excitement.  

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^[1] The exception is the province of Sindh in Pakistan, where the provincial government has implemented a dominant native language, Sindhi, as the language of instruction in most of the public schools.
^[2] Board examinations, similar to high school completion exams, for years 9 through 12