Allow English As Teaching Medium & Not Mother Tongue: Nagaland's Unique Stand On Language Debate
The language issue is a hotly debated topic in India, with the Southern states wanting to preserve their mother tongue while the northern states focus on promoting Hindi.?
Now Nagaland has entered the language debate - but it has a unique stance as opposed to the other states.?
The Nagaland government last month had urged the Centre to allow it to continue the use of English as the medium of teaching in schools instead of mother tongue as mandated by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.?
Several tribal languages & no common dialect?
Nagaland's insistence on English over their mother tongue is because the state has several tribal languages.?
The state has 17 recognised major Naga tribes speaking their own languages with no officially declared common dialect.?
As per NEP 2020, the medium of instruction until class 5, preferably until class 8 and beyond, is to be the mother tongue or local language.?
For a multi-diverse state like Nagaland, the implementation of NEP 2020 thus becomes difficult in the linguistic area, especially in the developing and urban regions.?
Kekhrielhoulie Yhome, the advisor for school education, Yhome said that mother tongue as a medium of instruction can be used in rural areas and villages.?
The Department of School Education in Nagaland has thus requested the Ministry of Education to be "more flexible with Nagaland" on the medium of instruction.?
English as medium for education?
In 1967, the Nagaland Assembly proclaimed Indian English as the official language of Nagaland, and it is the medium for education in Nagaland. Other than English, Nagamese, a creole language, is widely spoken.?
A creole is a language that comes from a simplified version of another language or a mix of two or more languages. In the case of Nagamese, it is a creole language based on Assamese.?
The major languages spoken as per the 2011 census are Konyak (244,135), Ao (231,084), Lotha (177,488), Angami (151,883), Chokri (91,010), Sangtam (75,841), Bengali (74,753), Zeme (71,954; covering Zeliang, 60,399 and Zemi, 11,165), Yimkhiungr¨¹ (74,156), Chang (65,632), Khiamniungan (61,906), Rengma (61,537), Phom (53,674), Nepali (43,481), Kuzhami (34,218), Pochury (21,446), Kuki (18,391), Chakhesang (17,919), Assamese (17,201), Bodo (12,243; covering Bodo 7,372 and Dimasa 4,871), Manipuri (9,511), Sema (8,268) and others.??
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