Practise Bangla at all levels of education

Apart from being the state language of Bangladesh, Bangla is also the fifth-most spoken language in the world. Around 320 million people worldwide speak Bangla. 

Bangla has a rich history and an unparalleled collection of literature. From Kazi Nazrul Islam to BishwaKabi (Poet of the world) Rabindranath Tagore, many of the greatest literary geniuses enriched Bangla with their literary contributions. 

Bangla is also the only language for which people laid down their lives. Even Unesco declared the 21st of February as International Mother Language Day in 1999 commemorating this sacrifice. Demands have also been raised to make Bangla the official language of international organisations like the United Nations. 

Despite all of these achievements, Bangla is losing its identity day by day. And one major contributor to this issue is the trend of practising foreign languages to compete in the international job market. Another equally important contributor is the reluctance to adopt Bangla in an official capacity in education, administration and business.

After independence, initiatives were taken to ensure the use of Bangla at all levels. Bangla Academy was established in 1955 to promote new research, literary practice and promotion of Bangla. All the post-independence governments have declared that Bangla should be practised universally. 

Laws were also enacted during the tenure of various governments to achieve this goal. But due to the non-enforcement of the law, anti-Banglaism is evident at most levels of the country. 

Given this, two orders with rules were issued from the High Court to ensure the use of Bangla at all levels. But despite all this, the use of the Bangla language at all levels could not be ensured. 

If this continues, Bangla will one day be in a crisis of existence, the people concerned think. Therefore, experts advise ensuring the correct practice of Bangla at all levels of education from primary to higher education. Because those who do not know the correct application and usage of their mother tongue or Bengali language, cannot acquire proficiency or scholarship in any other language. 

Rather, one can become proficient in any other language by first mastering his mother tongue. Therefore, all Bangalis must be careful about the correct pronunciation, correct usage, appropriate application and correct spelling of the Bangla.

We need to understand that there is no substitute for teaching or learning in our mother tongue. Students can easily master that subject if they get an education in their mother tongue. Unlike the mother tongue, other languages do not have a basis for such ease of intelligibility. 

The mother tongue can be the most efficient and potent medium of literature and culture and also the vehicle of history and tradition. Therefore, the use of Bangla should be ensured at all levels of education. Generation after generation grew up nurtured in vernacular languages. 

Even the country's head of government has been giving speeches at the United Nations in Bangla. But the example of how neglected this language of our soul and life is in our land is spread everywhere. 

But when we open the textbooks of our schools, we see a lot of misspellings and wrong sentences for children. Most of the teachers at the primary and secondary levels do not have standard Bangla pronunciation skills. As a result, our new generation is learning the mother tongue from schools with wrong pronunciation and wrong spelling. 

Today, the Bangla language has become a hotchpotch of Hindi-Urdu-English under the influence of various media including FM radio and TV. Many Bangla-speaking parents in the city are speaking in English at home to improve their child's English conversation skills. But it also means that the children are not learning Bangla properly.

Government offices, courts, school-college-universities, hotels and restaurants use English in Bangla letters or Bangla in English letters everywhere. This trend is constantly increasing. 

Today, English dominates the naming of TV dramas and films. Laws are being passed to control media content in this country, but there is none to oversee the misuse of Bangla in popular media. A few years ago, the West Bengal government of India made it mandatory to write Bengali on all billboards in the state. We also did it in the eighties but could not implement it. 

In our neighbouring country Nepal, a few years ago, their government and the Ministry of Education issued an order in official notification to abandon the names of all educational institutions in foreign languages and keep them in local languages. 

There, if the name is not changed within two months of issuing the order, it was also said to be punished with cancellation of affiliation. If the 'Eastern school' can be a Himalayan school, then in Bangladesh about 105 private universities, all but a few of which are running under English names, can be given Bangla names if the government wants (ministry or grant commission can propose). A country and nation that prides itself on International Mother Language Day must have a state-mandated policy to encourage language learning.

The level of education in Bangladesh is divided into primary, secondary, higher secondary and higher education levels (undergraduate and postgraduate). Another level is recognised as Pre-Primary in the National Curriculum. There are three classes at the Pre-Primary level in privately owned commercial educational institutions: Play, Nursery, Pre-KG and KG, each of which is named in English. 

Madrasahs also have classroom names in Arabic (Ebtedayi Awal, Dakhil, Aleem, Fazil, Kamil etc.) and English medium schools are named in English (Standard One, Two, Three, SSC, HSC, O'Level or A'Level etc.). 

Although Bangla books are compulsory at primary and secondary levels, the practice of Bangla is severely disrupted at higher education levels. On the other hand, English version or English medium schools have Bengali textbooks, but their medium of instruction is full English. 

Cadet colleges in Bangladesh are also taught in English medium. Many government high schools also teach English books other than the prescribed textbooks. Unfortunately, economics, commerce and science departments in both public and private universities have adopted English as the primary medium of education. 

Therefore, to sustain the honour and tradition of our mother tongue, it is necessary to ensure correct pronunciation, grammar and spelling of Bangla in related texts within the curriculum at all levels of education. It is essential that this practice transcends beyond textbooks to include teachers, students and parents as well. 

Even Bangla versions of books written in foreign languages should be taught to collect data, including making the practice of Bangla compulsory by setting specific marks in each section at the higher education level. If Bangla is given priority in the development of professional skills and its study is made compulsory at all levels of education, only then will it be possible to preserve its dignity in the world.

Dr Md Mahmudul Hassan is the Principal of Daffodil International School (DIS), Dhaka and President, Federation of English Medium Schools (FEMS)