EnglishHelper and the English Language

Our English language courses are designed with a keen understanding of our customers. We know that the English language is best learnt when it is in the context of the learners. Keeping this in mind, the content of each of our courses is designed to be relevant to their context and level. They can start our programs at their level by taking an English test, which ensures more effective English learning and improvement in English speaking, reading, comprehension, fluency, and confidence. Our goal is to make our programs affordable, convenient, fun to use, and therefore very effective. Each aspect of our programs is designed keeping this goal in mind.

Education: an Essential Service

Kashmir has over a million children of school going age with a significant number actually enrolled. This is the good news. The inexcusable reality is that most children in the state have not attended school for almost 4 months.

In another part of the country, schools are scheduled to be operational for 180 days during the current academic year. This number, by itself, is lower than the nationally recommended standard of 220 school days per year. However, the burning issue at hand is that schools will be actually available for only 120 days this year. In other words, children will be denied 30% of school time due to them.

Some factors are beyond immediate human control such as floods, extreme weather conditions or, as in the case of the NCR recently, the lung choking smog. Often, however, schools are unable to engage in academic activity because of various unrelated circumstances including polls or teachers being pulled into events unconnected with their academic duties.

When children do find a school that is open for scholastic pursuit, this often does not result in desired learning outcomes. Reading in the English language in this country is at abysmal levels with over half the students in grade 5 unable to read grade 2 textbooks. Lack of reading ability creates significant spillover effects. Math proficiency is very low across the country. A large number of students drop off after primary school. No doubt, economic compulsions play a role but there is evidence that low English language reading and math skills dissuade many children from progressing through the rigor of secondary and higher education.

Challenges in the Classroom

In the classroom itself there are many challenges. For a large number of students, the forty minutes in class are their only opportunity to learn English and gain education. Back at home, barely literate parents may not provide academic support. For a number of children, it is often rigorous labour (not homework) that fulfills non-school hours. Then, there is the teacher problem – an eastern state has not seen teacher recruitment for a number of years due to unresolved litigation. The resultant shortage, in the tens of thousands, has compelled schools to make do with skeleton teaching staff. It is not uncommon to find classrooms of over 100 students across the region. A terrible situation indeed when compared with the desirable ratio of 1 teacher to 30 students.

While we discuss the failings of schools and their administration, we must not lose sight of another significant metric. There are still too many children who do not attend school. It is estimated 80 million school age Indian children are currently removed from the education system. Why is that even possible in a country that boasts 1.2 million government and aided schools?

We must learn to measure progress carefully. A galloping GDP indicates economic momentum; but we must not forget the most prosperous countries boasted total literacy over 100 years ago. Though daily news reports do not harass us with the depressing state of our education system, the fact is the crisis is upon us. This is as grave a situation as the dark gray sky of Delhi. We cannot allow silence to dupe us into inaction.

Our Education Systems Needs National Attention

Firstly, let us call serious national attention to education. Yes, my own academic fortune and economic circumstances ensured our child a fate well above the average. Yes, those of us who watch English language TV and read prominent dailies look mainly for the cricket score, stock prices, and air quality indicators. And yes, despite these distractions, we must not ignore the reality of worse than a dull future for our country if we do not act quickly to lift millions of young Indians from the abject despair of illiteracy and sub-standard education.

Secondly, we must implement solutions that will make a difference here and now, at the large scale needed. Human resource interventions will be limited by spread, speed, and spend. Over just a decade, the largest companies in the world have reached hundreds of millions of people earning billions by leveraging technology. The providers of education flirt with related possibilities. Most of this seems to be ‘by the haves, for the haves’. With phones in millions of hands, the growing web and the seemingly limitless ability to innovate, we need to now apply the best minds and immense energy for solving the problem of reaching the excluded.

Hunger for learning cannot plague a modern society. It is time to declare education an essential service.

The original article has been published by The Economic Times