Hitting out at the BJP for its “double standards”, the ruling Congress in Rajasthan on Wednesday highlighted its guarantee for free English-medium education to every student if the party is voted back to power in the November 25 Assembly election. Calling it a “revolutionary step”, the party affirmed that it would benefit underprivileged people unable to send their children to good schools.
Senior Congress leader Pawan Khera led the charge against the Opposition BJP, asking why the party leaders were raising an objection to the guarantee when their own children were studying abroad and getting English-medium education. “The BJP leaders proudly show their children’s photos and post them on social media. They feel elated that their sons and daughters are studying in foreign institutions.”
Mr. Khera, chairman of AICC media and publicity department and a Congress Working Committee member, said at a press conference here that the BJP leaders were perhaps troubled by the fact that the children of poor labourers and farmers would very soon start competing with their children while talking in fluent English. This attitude depicted “hollowness and double standards” of the BJP, he said.
“If the BJP leaders really have a problem with English education, then they should call back their children from abroad. Only after this will they a moral right to raise objection to the guarantee of English-medium education,” Mr. Khera said. He said the BJP leaders were opposed to the idea that children of their domestic helps and party workers would be get English education.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had recently announced free English-medium education, mainly through the Mahatma Gandhi schools, as one of the seven guarantees of Congress to the people of the State. Other guarantees were ₹10,000 every year for women heading households, purchase of cow dung at ₹2 per kg, laptop computers for government-college students, free insurance against natural calamities, LPG cylinders for 1 crore families and Old Pension Scheme.
The flagship Mahatma Gandhi English-medium schools, started by the Congress government in 2019, have become very popular among the public at large, as the applications received for admissions in each academic session were many times more than the seats available. From a modest beginning of one school each in the then 33 districts, as many as 3,355 schools have been opened across the State.
Following the budgetary announcements, the schools are being set up in the villages and towns of the newly carved districts as well. While an internship programme was launched last year for improving fluency in English among the teachers, the State government has also entered into collaborations to help the students improve their English speaking, reading, and writing skills.
Mr. Khera affirmed that English education was the most important among the seven guarantees offered by the Congress. “With 98 lakh families sending their children to English-medium schools, a new balance is being created in the society… The poor are getting empowered and their next generation is set to get new entitlements,” he said.
“The Congress government has invested in the next generation. I do hope that the people here will invest in making a new Rajasthan by bringing Congress [back] to power,” Mr. Khera said. The Congress would ensure that the sons and daughters of those working as labourers and peasants, selling vegetables and pulling carts get the best of English education, he added.
The Congress leader said the guarantee was emotional for him on a personal front as well, since his parents had sent him and his siblings to an English-medium school in their childhood even when two square meals were not available at home.
The State government’s Education Department has shifted teachers from the pool of its regular academic staff who were willing to join the Mahatma Gandhi schools to create a separate cadre of English-medium teachers. Private teachers have also been appointed as guest faculty to overcome the shortage of teachers.
The Congress government as well as the academic experts have affirmed that the English education would dramatically increase the scope for the State’s youths for employability in the globalised world. The Mahatma Gandhi schools, which had only I to VIII classes in 2019, have been adding one class every year to accommodate the promoted students.
Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat had recently criticised the Congress government’s move to promote education in English, while pointing out that the new National Education Policy had laid emphasis on the study in the mother tongue of students up to the primary level. Mr. Shekhawat, elected to Lok Sabha from Jodhpur, said there was not a single school in the State where the teachers were proficient in English.
