The Punjab government’s decision to revert to Urdu as medium of instruction at the primary level in public schools from the next academic session needs consideration. The government must consult teachers, educationists, psychologists and linguists before enforcing Urdu as the medium of classroom instructions since researches favour imparting education in mother tongue to the learners for a better understanding of the concepts. The flawed delivery of concepts in a language other than the mother tongue creates confusion and fear in the minds of the learners, which often results in dropouts or a degree earned on the basis of rote learning.
The recent decision about Urdu as a classroom language was tweeted by Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. In his tweet, carefully crafted in Urdu, he said that teachers and students ‘waste most of their time in translating their lessons’. The decision is in pursuit of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s manifesto that the medium of instruction will be Urdu at the primary level. The government says a survey of students, parents and teachers in 22 districts supported Urdu as the classroom language with English a separate subject. The government should have better consulted learning specialists and psychologists and educationists on the technical subjects. Earlier, English was introduced as classroom language by the previous regime. That decision was also as flawed as the recent one. Regional languages should be the primary classroom language with Urdu and English as separate subjects.
Just like English teachers, our education system has, unfortunately, not produced many good Urdu teachers. To teach in English, a teacher must be able to effectively deliver the lesson in English. Though Urdu is our national language, a common observation is that most of the teachers are not good at Urdu either. More importantly, when a child who is raised by the parents who speak a regional language like Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashtu, Seraiki, Hindko or Kashmiri, gets too confused when he hears Urdu in the classroom.
The saner approach will be to introduce regional languages in primary level classrooms. This must be added here that the enforcement of mother tongue as a medium of instruction is not enough. Our classrooms need professionally trained teachers who know how to proceed from simple to complex and easy to the difficult. They must be aware of the children’s learning needs. They must know that rote learning kills creativity. They must be familiar with the contemporary assessment and evaluation techniques. They must know that books are for the teachers, and not for the students. They must know the art of lesson planning. They must know the effective usage of local resources to enhance learning in classrooms. *