Karnataka students get a dual-lingo shot in arm
The 23rd general meeting of the Karnataka State Higher Education Council (KSHEC) last week took a decision to allow students of undergraduate (UG) and post-graduate (PG) courses to write their examinations—with the exception of language subjects—in English as well as Kannada. This will be allowed from the forthcoming examinations in the current academic year. In this, a student can answer a particular question using both languages, even using one sentence in English and the following one in Kannada, or interspersing an English sentence with Kannada or vice-versa, as per the student’s convenience. This is the first time such an allowance has been granted to UG and PG students in India.
The dual language answer script is being seen as a revolutionary step. It has its benefits, the main being putting the student in focus. An average Indian thinks and speaks most fluently in his mother tongue, which among the vast majority, is not English but a regional Indian language or a dialect. But most UG and PG courses across India are in English, restricting the students. It tends to take them to rote learning for scoring marks. According to KSHEC members, the idea of allowing dual language answers is to test the UG/PG students’ grasp of the subject and enable them to express themselves more accurately in the examinations—just like using dual language speech to convey their thoughts on a particular topic. Ordinary Indians, while speaking regional languages, anyway mix English with them. But this is not without criticism.
Many have questioned the timing of such a concession for the students. Karnataka goes to polls in a few months. Students in higher education are fertile ground for votes, hungrily eyed by the political parties. Critics say the ruling BJP government is doing just that by using the National Education Policy 2020
as a shield.
The critics also question whether this would compromise the students’ quality of answering in English in international exams while exploring courses abroad. However, one of the biggest challenges would be the accurate evaluation of dual-language answer scripts, which remains suspect even for single-language ones. Still, the criticism pales before the benefits for the students. The challenge of evaluation needs to be met. As the Austrian-British philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein put it: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”