Telangana govt. schools set to embrace English medium but no word on teacher training yet

English-medium education is planned to be introduced in 15,370 schools

The State government has a memorandum of understanding with the Azim Premji University for the training of teachers in English but that was signed much before the announcement on English-medium education in schools. | Photo Credit: G.N. Rao

The government’s decision to introduce English medium education in all schools from the coming academic year is likely to lead to higher admissions, but the training of teachers for the purpose is yet to take off in the real sense.

The government has an existing memorandum of understanding with the Azim Premji University for the training of teachers in English but that was signed much before the government’s announcement on English medium education in schools.

A senior official said no new MoU has been signed for training the 43,000 teachers identified. However, the government’s intention is to introduce these teachers to the English Language Enrichment Course for four weeks in two stages. The training will be online but officials have little clue on when and how it is going to take off. “We are yet to get a final picture as the discussions are still on,” a senior official said, requesting anonymity.

As per Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s desire, English-medium education will have to be introduced in 15,370 government schools. Telugu medium of instruction would be continued and English medium would be introduced parallelly to cater to the needs of those wishing to learn English.

In the 26,754 schools under the School Education department, English medium is being already offered in 10,702 schools. These include Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas, Model Schools, Residential Schools, and a few others. Only Telugu medium is offered in about 15,300 schools.

Government statistics reveal that 10,16,334 students are already pursuing English medium while 15,44,000 students are pursuing their education in Telugu medium. Among the 1.03 lakh teachers in both English and Telugu mediums, about 60,600 are engaged in English medium instruction. The remaining 43,000 teachers in Telugu medium will now be trained in English-medium teaching.

Statistics also reveal that the highest number of students in English medium are from classes 6 to 10. For example, in class 6, a total of 1,41,000 students are in English medium and 1,34,22 are in the Telugu medium. Likewise, 1,46,574 are in the English medium in class 7 class and 1,45,310 are in the Telugu medium.

In class 8, there are 1,45,020 students pursuing English medium and 1,51,753 Telugu medium. In class 9, a total of 1,20,360 students are in English medium and 1,66,599 are in Telugu medium while in class 10, the numbers for English medium and Telugu medium are 1,02,764 and 1,67,334, respectively.

Though teachers welcome the move, they insist that teacher training is an important parameter if the decision has to be successful. Untrained teachers will do more harm to the young children and if the right steps are not taken in the early stages, they will lose out in the long run.