Share Of Kids In English Mediums Peaks, Dips In Poorer States

Source: Indian Express

The preference for English as a medium of instructions at a different level of school education until secondary is a rapidly rising trend, revealed in the latest all-India survey conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
More than 50 percent of pre-primary schoolchildren (nursery, KG) who spoke one of the 13 regional languages at home, including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and Punjabi, was admitted in English medium schools.
 
On the other hand, the share of Hindi-speaking students in English-medium schools at the primary level has dipped from 18.3 percent in 2014 to 18.2 percent in 2018.
Household Social Consumption on Education in India, released last week mapped 1.13 lakh households during July 2017-June 2018 accounting for 1.52 lakh students.
Nationally, 48 percent of children attended pre-Primary schools with the medium of instruction in their native languages.

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At the Primary level (Class I to V), English was the medium of instruction for 23.2 percent of students – a rise from 22.3 percent in January-June 2014 — and for 65 percent of children, the medium of instruction was the same as their mother tongue.
However, it has remained low at around 29 percent for the Higher Secondary level (Class XI-XII) during the same period.
The report has defined medium of instruction as “language through which subjects other than ‘languages’ (like Hindi, English, etc.) are taught in the school.”