What to Read in The Hindu Editorial( Topic and Syllabus wise)

Editorial 1: The student and the three language debate

Context

There is no academic merit in thrusting a third language on students; there could be a risk of raising a generation that is handicapped to compete nationally.

 

Introduction

In the rhetoric of partisan politics surrounding the three language formula, unsurprisingly, the most important stakeholder has been forgotten: the student.

 

The Core Issue: Public School Students and Language Policy

• Public School Students at the Center of the Debate: First, it is the child who goes to a public (government) school, and no one else, who should be at the very centre of this debate.
  1. Students in public schools form about 55% of the school enrolment in Tamil Nadu.
  2. Children in private schools (largely from the upper class) increasingly rely on supplemental learning beyond school hours, i.e., coaching or tuition classes, which a public school student cannot afford.
• The Critical Question: Is learning three (instead of two) languages essential to enable a child from a public school to compete with other more privileged candidates in the job market and become a productive, value-adding citizen?
• Challenges in the National Education Policy (NEP): Second, while the National Education Policy (NEP) is path-breaking on many accounts, there are a few provisions that ignore the ground realities of public education in India, especially at the primary and secondary levels.
  1. The three-language formula is one such issue.

 

A problematic hypothesis

• NEP’s Justification: The NEP declares that the compulsory learning of three languages is intended to improve cognitive ability, enable mobility for employment, and promote national integration. This very hypothesis is a problematic one.
• Role of Language in Knowledge Acquisition: Language is a necessary tool for acquiring knowledge and for communication. However, with the breathtaking progress in technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence, language proficiency itself will gradually lose its significance as a tool for knowledge acquisition.
• Impact of AI on Language Learning: You could post your query in any language in say Google Gemini (even children in a public school will hopefully soon have access either through a smart classroom or a smartphone) and get an answer instantly.
• Future Accessibility: In the years ahead, this access will only get cheaper and better.
• Cognitive Benefits of Language Learning: There is indisputable evidence linking language skills with cognitive abilities, but none which establishes that proficiency in more languages will proportionately improve cognitive abilities.
• Mother Tongue and Learning: In fact, research suggests quite the contrary — that a strong foundation in a child’s mother tongue is essential before introducing additional language(s).
• Third Language and Communication: A third language will certainly enable better communication with the community that speaks that language. But that is a choice that most adults make as a part of the profession they choose.
• Practical Examples of Language Adaptation:
  1. Tamil ‘thambis’ quickly learn Hindi when they join the Indian Army and thrive famously.
  2. Tamilian salesmen speak flawless Marathi when they sell their wares in Maharashtra.
• State of Primary Education: Third, the state of primary education is pathetic, both nationally and in Tamil Nadu, as highlighted in the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Survey 2024.
• Literacy Challenges in Tamil Nadu: Despite some good initiatives in recent times, 88% of class three studentsin Tamil Nadu still lack basic literacy proficiency.
• Struggles with English as a Second Language: The challenge is even greater with the second language, English. Many top-scoring students, even from English-medium public schools, struggle to adapt when transitioning to English-medium instruction in college, particularly in professional courses, because in school, they are taught in Tamil, not in English.

 

Focus on teaching and learning

Challenges of Implementing a Third Language in Public Schools

• Focus on Improving Education Quality: The response to the shocking state of quality in primary education(which continues into secondary and higher secondary education) should be to massively improve teaching quality and learning outcomes, rather than adding one more language.
• Time Constraints in School Curriculum:
  1. There is a finite time available at school to cover all subjects.
  2. With acquisition of knowledge getting easier and quicker through technology, education should focus more on developing curiosity, critical thinking, and creativity, which are critical to success in the 21st century.
  3. There is a need to provide more time and space in the curriculum for inculcating these traits, rather than thrusting a third language.
  4. Within this finite time, it is important to enable deeper learning rather than wider learning.
• Shortage of Qualified Teachers for a Third Language:
  1. It is unclear how public schools would find adequate and competent teachers for a third language, even assuming every parent chooses Hindi and not a variety of other languages.
  2. There is every reason to fear that poor teacher quality would lead to inferior learning.
• Budgetary Constraints and Impact on Infrastructure:
  1. Despite Tamil Nadu having one of the highest per-child education budgets, 80%-90% of the budget is spent on teacher salaries, while infrastructure suffers.
  2. The cost of hiring third-language teachers could reduce funds available for infrastructure development.

 

Language, Cultural Values, and National Unity

• Language as a Cultural Anchor: Language is a great anchor of cultural values.
• National Unity and the Role of Hindi:
  1. National unity is a foundational value, and the Constitution provides for the propagation of Hindi.
  2. While a common language is desirable, it should be at the tail end of cultural initiatives to promote unity.
  3. A spirit of respect for other cultures and a shared sense of history should be an integral part of learning.
  4. A third language is neither the only nor a superior way to inculcate these values.

 

The Role of Education in Employment Opportunities

• Education and Career Choices: Education should lead to a choice of gainful employment opportunities.
• Relevance of a Third Language for Public School Students:
  1. As long as opportunities for public school students are available within the State (from government, private enterprise, or self-employment), the need for a third language may not be critical.
  2. However, wider choices should be facilitated so that students from Tamil Nadu can compete for the best educational and employment opportunities, both nationally and globally.
• English as a Competitive Advantage:
  1. Since English continues to be an official language in examinations for central services, defence services, and the judiciary, students from Tamil Nadu should be able to compete at a national level, as they have done successfully for several decades.
  2. Better teaching and learning of English would improve their competitiveness in the world, which is increasingly looking for English-literate service providers.

 

The politics and the student

• Two Dimensions of the Problem: The issue has both politico-cultural and child development dimensions.
• Political Context and Challenges: The right or wrong of the ruling party’s politics on this issue is not the subject of this article.
  1. However, from a child development perspective, it is a two-front political battle:
     1. Stopping Hindi ‘imposition’ on the State.
     2. Fighting to retain the robust status of English nationally—a more challenging task.
• Impact of State Politics on Students’ Future: The State’s politics may not harm students’ future, as long as English continues as an official language at the Centre, with equal force and usage.
  1. However, if Hindi progressively replaces English at the national level (even in spirit, if not in letter, due to constitutional safeguards), the State’s policies must account for this reality.
  2. It is important to insulate the child’s development from political conflicts.

 

A Possible Approach

• No Academic Merit in Thrusting a Third Language: Since there is no academic justification for forcing a third language, especially at the primary level, an alternative approach is needed.
• Optional Introduction of Hindi in Public Schools: Hindi could be offered as an option as a third language from middle public school.
  1. The implementation could start in district headquarters and be gradually expanded to other schools, based on demand.
  2. This demand will depend on the extent to which Hindi replaces English at the national level.

 

Conclusion

A rigid political position could result in a generation of students that is handicapped to compete nationally. This issue should be a debate and a discussion, and not a war that destroys the future of the young.

 

Editorial 2: Multiple bullies at work, out to create a ‘multipolar world’

Context

A growing illiberal international project is posing the biggest threat to democracy, people and peace in the world.

 

Introduction

Why has U.S. President Donald Trump thrown a public tantrum and refused to deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy? It is time to remember what is at stake for Ukraine. Who better to tell it like it is than John Mearsheimer, Realist advocate of a multipolar world order, who has consistently accused the U.S.-led West of provoking Russia to war.

 

 

Mearsheimer’s Explanation on Ukraine and Russia

• Peace Deal Requirements: Exactly a week after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Mearsheimer explained in a media interview that any peace deal with Mr. Putin would require Ukraine to give up not just some territory or hopes of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership: it would be nothing short of its democracy.
• Putin’s Intentions: He told an interviewer that Mr. Putin “wants to install in Kyiv a pro-Russian government, a government that is attuned to Moscow’s interests….”
  1. A Ukraine that was a liberal democracy, he said, was “from a Russian perspective…an existential threat.”
• Interviewer’s Question on Imperialism: But would it not be imperialism, asked the interviewer, to tell Ukrainians that they cannot be a liberal democracy.
• Mearsheimer’s Response: Mearsheimer replied: “It’s not imperialism; this is great-power politics. When you’re a country like Ukraine and you live next door to a great power like Russia, you have to pay careful attention to what the Russians think, because if you take a stick and you poke them in the eye, they’re going to retaliate.”

 

‘Democracy is not realistic’

• Democracy in a Multipolar World: Democracy simply is not realistic in a multipolar world, said Mearsheimer.
  1. “In an ideal world, it would be wonderful if the Ukrainians were free to choose their own political systemand to choose their own foreign policy. But in the real world, that is not feasible.”
• Trump’s Position on Ukraine: Today, Mr. Trump is eager to give Mr. Putin the regime change he wants.
  1. He calls Mr. Zelenskyy a “dictator” with a “4% approval rating”.
  2. He has suggested more than once that peace is possible only if Mr. Zelenskyy steps down.
• What Kind of Ukraine Do Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump Want? Look at the other nations that “live next door to a great power like Russia”, and the answer is clear.
  1. Democratic protests in Belarus and Kazakhstan have been brutally suppressed with the help of the Russian military.
  2. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko declares, “It’s better to have a dictatorship like in Belarus than a democracy like Ukraine.”
  3. The Ukrainians obviously disagree.
• Biden’s Actions Before the War: It should be remembered that far from instigating Mr. Zelenskyy to stay and fight, former U.S. President Joe Biden had done all he could to force him to flee, hoping that it would appease Mr. Putin and avert a prolonged war.
  1. In January 2022, Mr. Biden had declared that NATO would be divided in case of a “minor incursion”, and Zelenskyy had to “remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations.”
  2. Mr. Biden had evacuated the U.S. embassy from Kyiv and said, days before the Russian invasion, that “it may be the wise choice for President Zelenskyy to leave Ukraine.”
  3. After the invasion, Mr. Zelenskyy had to again tell the U.S. that he was looking for ammunition, and not a ride.

 

The wider border of this project

• Trump and Putin’s Influence Beyond Ukraine: Ukraine is not the only country where Mr. Trump and Mr. Putinwant a regime in their own image.
  1. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and Trump’s oligarch aide Elon Musk urged Germans to vote for the far-right anti-immigrant AfD.
  2. Mr. Vance told the European Union (EU) in Munich that Mr. Trump wanted to liberate European peoplefrom their “internal threat” — immigrants and the liberal democratic leadership that let them into Europe.
• Hungary’s Illiberal Democracy and Putin’s Support:
  1. For the past decade, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has declared making his country an “illiberal democracy” as his goal, and to turn the EU into an illiberal project.
  2. Since then, Mr. Putin has put his weight behind that project in every way.
  3. Mr. Vance made it clear that Mr. Trump, “the new sheriff in town”, wants the same:
     • An EU aligned with Christian values, not universal human rights and democratic standards.
     • An EU where member-nations will face no censure for passing Putin-style laws banning “gay propaganda”.
• Defying International Warrants and Supporting Putin:
  1. Mr. Orbán has refused to honor the International Criminal Court’s warrants issued against Mr. Putinand Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
  2. Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu voted for Mr. Putin in the United Nations.
• Trump’s Real Estate Approach to Global Conflicts:
  1. Mr. Trump treats Gaza and Ukraine as pieces of real estate at the mercy of the genocidal bully next door.
  2. He branded ethnic cleansing in Gaza with his name, turning it into an obscene AI-generated Nero’s Feast.
  3. He turned peace talks in the Oval Office into reality TV, where the most powerful man in the world and his henchmen bullied an elected leader of an invaded and occupied nation.
• The Multipolar World of Bullies:
  1. National bullies are acting in concert to create a “multipolar world” — a world safe for all bullies and bigots.
  2. It is high time we stopped imagining that multiple bullies make the playground safer, and that “multipolar” non-western tyrants are the lesser evil “regardless of the internal character” of the regimes involved.
• Rubio and Putin’s View on the Multipolar World:
  1. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has declared support for a multipolar world.
  2. Mr. Putin has always insisted that there are “two Wests”:
     • His quarrel is with the West of universal democratic principles and rules.
     • An illiberal U.S., United Kingdom, and EU are welcome to the multipolar world.

 

It is better late than never

1. Led by Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin, Mr. Netanyahu, and China’s Xi Jinping.
2. Includes Narendra Modi, Mr. Orbán, and European fascists.
   • Moral Bankruptcy of Ignoring the Threat:
3. To insist that the rise of this new illiberal international is just the West versus the Rest “business as usual” is moral bankruptcy and suicidal folly.
4. This is exactly as dangerous as quibbling over the semantics of Mr. Modi’s project of an illiberal Hindu-only India.

 

Conclusion

It is better late than never to take on the illiberal international and defend universalist human rights, democratic solidarity. A good start would be for Indians defending democracy to show solidarity with Ukraine defending itself from the Putin-Trump tyranny.