A section of students, parents and lecturers in Prakasam district consider the mandatory English medium instruction in all degree colleges in the State as a ‘path-breaking’ one that will improve students’ employability within the country and abroad.
Currently, 60-odd private colleges provide English medium education to more than 30,000 students in the district and ensure campus placement after honing their communication skills while the same is not available to their counterparts in the State-run colleges.
"Proficiency in the global language is a must to either go for higher education or get suitable placement in jobs both in government and private sectors," says N. Ravikumar, a lecturer in a State-run college, while hailing the decision. Bilingual textbooks have been made available and bridge courses started for the benefit of students who have all along been pursing education in their mother tongue up to the junior college level.
The State government’s collaboration with the University of Cambridge will go a long way in ensuring a fair deal for students in the eight government degree colleges in the district, where a majority of students belong to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Economically Weaker Sections pursue education, feels an educationist, Harsha Preetam Dev. Transition from Telugu to English medium will be relatively easy at the graduation level. It will be more difficult at the post-graduation level, reasons a degree college student Sai Sandeep.
‘Make it optional’
Another section feels that the sudden switch from Telugu to English medium for the over 6,000 students in the State-run colleges will not be a smooth affair. Mediocre students will not be able to cope with the sudden shift as they have been studying in Telugu medium up to the senior intermediate level. Students from rural areas will be the worst-hit as also the slow learners who require more time to get themselves accustomed to the new environment, argues an educationist A. Prasad. It is better if the choice is left to students themselves, he feels.
Questions are being raised over the capability of teaching staff to teach students in a foreign language. The change has to be effected from school level before introducing English medium at the under-graduation level, some feel.
