Languages for learning: a framework for implementing India’s multilingual language-in-education policy

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a framework for multilingual language-in-education policy implementation, offered as a critically constructive response to India’s recent National Education Policy 2020 (GOI, 2020). Rooted in India’s existing educational language policy, our linguistically inclusive ‘Languages for Learning’ (LFL) framework is, we believe, structurally flexible, socioculturally feasible, economically viable and academically relevant. It aims to foster equity and also to ensure first language support and cognitive independence. Before presenting the framework, we critically review the multilingual policy guidance offered in NEP 2020, then lay out a theoretical foundation for the LFL framework based primarily on current translanguaging theory, and also discuss the history of India’s much maligned three-language formula (TLF), which forms the core of language policy in India. The framework itself is presented with reference to specific contextual challenges in India that may also serve to indicate its relevance for other multilingual contexts around the world. As such, the LFL framework is offered as a more multilingually-appropriate alternative to the reductive construct of ‘Medium of Instruction’, which itself originates in the monolingual habitus of historically outdated language-in-education policy theory. We invite critical evaluations of the utility of our framework, both for India and other multilingual contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Language-in-education policy
• languages for learning
• multilingualism
• translanguaging
• India

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Many Indian schools have two or more language ‘sections’, each with a different primary medium of instruction (e.g., Marathi- and Hindi-medium sections in many towns in Maharashtra).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Santosh Kumar Mahapatra

Santosh Kumar Mahapatra works as an Assistant Professor at BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus, India. He teaches courses on academic English and critical pedagogy and supervises PhD students working on teacher development and language policy.

Jason Anderson

Jason Anderson is a teacher educator, author and researcher with 25 years' experience supporting teachers and educators primarily across the Global South. He is currently working as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Warwick, UK.