By Jose Kavi

New Delhi: The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) has welcomed the recommendation of a government appointed group to give greater importance to English education and to reintroduce detention policy in schools.

The 12-member Group of Secretaries wants to make English a compulsory subject in all secondary schools and introduce English as the medium of instruction in at least one government school in each of the 6,612 blocks in the country from April this year.

“This is a step in the right direction as it will promote inclusiveness and extend international quality and competence to the students who otherwise would lose out in the highly competitive higher education and the job market,” says a press release the CBCI Office of Education issued on January 15.

The Indian media had highlighted the recommendations the previous day.

The bishops’ body wants English education given greater attention in India because it says countries in Europe and East Asia are “frantically learning” the language realizing its global relevance. It says it would sad if “we denied such an opportunity to our own children.”

However, the Church body says teaching English should not undermine the relevance of regional languages in primary education.

The bishops also urge the government to not discriminate its grant of aid to schools on the basis of the medium of language.

They want the government to aid all schools “irrespective of religion or language” and allow the parents to choose the school and medium of instruction for their children.

According to them, “inequality in jobs and future training” exists now becuasethe poor have neither the choice of medium of instruction nor the money to pay for English medium schools.

The CBCI Education Office also welcomes the Secretaries’ Group recommendation to reintroduce the detention policy after fifth grade.

However, the Church body wants the state governments to decide on how far they should follow the all promotion system. It also schools to introduce detention only after they provide weaker students “all necessary helps” such as counseling and remedial classes.

It points out that the Right to Education Act suffered from “a glaring lacuna” because of its failure to provide way to achieve “a proper and well defined learning outcome” at the end of each academic year by each class.

The bishops also welcome the suggestions of the Secretaries’ Group that schools allow third party and participation in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). However, they want these agencies to be impartial, objective and well aware of “the social, regional, cultural, economic and linguistic diversities that characterize our country.”

The bishop’s body expresses misgiving on the group’s recommendation to standardize post school national examinations for entrance to all higher educational institutions through a National Testing Organisation. The secretaries want this organization to conduct various exams JEE, NEET, UGC NET, CAT, GATE and CMAT.

The Church body says the recommendation tends to overlook the rights of minorities, the autonomy of institutions and the needs of students from diverse regions and languages and social backgrounds.

“There is also no guarantee that the new National Testing Organisation will not land up in the very same situation as the existing testing organizations,” says the press release signed by Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, CBCI secretary general, and Salesian Father Joseph Manipadam, secretary of the CBCI Office of Education.

They want the federal Ministry of Human Resources Development to withdraw its previous “anti-people” draft on National Educational Policy.

The Church officials want the government to start a wider consultation with education providers and education receivers.

“The Catholic Church in India, the biggest provider of educational facilities in the country second only to the government, reiterates its resolve to continue in nation building and offers its partnership to the government and other agencies to promote all round, integral, development oriented and sound education to our children and our youth,” the press release concludes.