It is rightly said that a student, who is not strong in mother tongue cannot be strong in any subject. But hardly steps have been taken to strengthen the teaching of mother tongue. Rather the questionnaires have been prepared with objective pattern; so that student can secure good marks like other subjects and get desired grade or division.
Over the years the education system of the state is in decadence. The government run schools are no match to the private schools. Not only the infrastructure but also the teacher pupil ratio of govt. run schools is main reason behind the depletion of education standard of the vernacular medium schools. Primary education which is the foundation of education is in total doldrums. Most of the schools have no rooms for different classes only one big hall for all classes starting from class one to fifth with herd division for different classes with one teacher to look after all the classes. The same teacher besides teaching will also look after mid-day meal arrangement and other departmental works assigned by his authority from time to time. In any stretch of imagination can anybody think quality education in such conditions can be imparted.
Taking scope of such type of decadence in primary education in govt. run schools, now private and English medium schools are mushrooming in rural areas. As there is a class divide in education system, guardians are preferring private schools to government schools. Only parents who have very scant means are sending their wards to government schools that too with the attraction of a squire meal in mid-day meal system.
No doubt the existing teachers in the govt. run schools are well qualified teachers in comparison to the private schools and their salaries are better than their counterparts in private run institutions. Still there is a quality difference in imparting teaching. The reason behind this is the degree of involvement in profession. In private schools there are accountabilities and fear of losing the job if expected performances not given but in govt. schools there are no such accountabilities as well as no fear of removal from job. Majority of the teachers are posted in close vicinity of their home, so they are more interested in running other businesses, agriculture and also doing politics in the village. Sometimes they treat their main job as a part time and treat the profession very causally having scant concern for the proper education of the children. As primary education is the foundation upon which the structure of future education and shaping of career of a child is built upon, it should be given due weightage. Unless we strengthen the primary education, there is hardly any possibility of making bright students in future.
Now new education policy has given emphasis on education through mother tongue medium; which is definitely a welcome step. Leaving aside the primary education, in secondary education system there are no specified teachers to teach mother tongue language. There is a strong belief that any graduate of arts can teach language in schools and think it a subject which needs no specialisation or skill. Tom, Dicken and Harry can teach Odia literature in schools. Teaching of literature which enhances the vision and imagination of a student has been given scant attention and the concerned teachers prefer to teach the students relying upon the key books and test papers. As the teachers are not professionally trained to teach language and literature, they find it difficult to draw analogy to the concerned topics. They only restrict themselves to subject with an intention to complete the course. We cannot blame them but the system because they have never been imparted any training to teach Odia literature.
It is rightly said that a student who is not strong in mother tongue cannot be strong in any subject. But hardly steps have been taken to strengthen the teaching of mother tongue. Rather the questionnaires have been prepared with objective pattern; so that student can secure good marks like other subjects and get desired grade or division. Now students are securing more than ninety percentage marks in Odia which was unimaginable in the past but if the same students will be asked to write an essay on topics other than the curriculum they will simply say that is not in their course. For this we cannot blame the students but ourselves because the present system has always given stress on percentage rather than knowledge.
The NEP has given importance to teaching in mother tongue but before that it should be ensured qualified Odia teachers to be posted in schools and existing teachers of all subjects to be given orientation training by experts about the teaching process. Unless we train the teachers or equip them with proper technic of teaching mother tongue, the concept of NEP to teach in mother tongue will not yield desired result.
