LAHORE: Speakers at the concluding day of a conference on language and learning on Saturday stressed the need for making first language a medium of instruction at least in the first five years of school education so as to help students easily understand subjects and prepare themselves for learning Urdu and English.

They also urged for making the government understand that English or Urdu should be taught as second languages and not as subjects. And for that purpose there was a need to produce teachers proficient in these languages.

“Students in Pakistan are being forced to learn subjects in English without knowing the language. The irony of the fact is that their teachers do not also have proficiency in English or Urdu. This is leading to high dropouts or production of degree holders having no or less understanding of their subjects,” said Mr Abbas Rashid of Society for the Advancement of Education (SAHE) that arranged the two-day international conference at a local hotel attended by linguists, educationists and researchers from Pakistan and abroad.

Punjab Assembly’s Standing Committee on Education Member Lubna Faisal of the PML-N agreed with the idea and said the provincial government was doing a lot to improve the education system in the province. She agreed that teaching in the mother tongue along with Urdu and English would prove productive.

“I have adopted eight schools in my constituency where students are being taught all subjects in Punjabi, Urdu and English at primary level. This method is proving successful.”

PTI MPA Saadia Sohail Rana, a member of the National Caucus on Education, said there was a need to remove the misconception that speaking English proved one was educated. “The medium of instruction in China is Chinese and it has excelled in all fields,” she added.

She advocated making mother tongues as medium of instruction in schools saying there was also a need to eliminate the present culture of elite schools which she said was producing the harmful class system.

Dr Faisal Bari said there was a need to evolve consensus among all stakeholders before implementing this idea.

“Arrange for teachers first and then assure parents that we are not going to deprive your children of English which they want them to learn,” he added.

Dr Yasira Waqar from University of Management and Technology (UMT) briefed about how technology could be integrated into the language curriculum to activate learning. In the language and learning context, she said technology could play a supporting role in planning and organising writing, creative writing and collaborative learning.

Amy Lightfoot, representing British Council India, talked about supporting and improving language education through technology in the Indian context. She mentioned how British Council was employing technology in its projects by way of workshops to help teachers develop their digital literacy skills and those of students, online courses for teachers, classroom videos for teaching any language and assessment techniques.

Dr Sarmad Hussain from Centre for Language Engineering, UET Lahore presented innovative technology solutions in service of local language development and effective language instruction. He proposed to conduct research in language and linguistics of local languages, local language teaching methods as part of education and develop local language technology to address challenges.

Nargis Sultana of Open Society Foundation that helped SAHE organise the conference in league with British Council and Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives also spoke on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2017