Even though technologically we are advancing, youngsters especially seems to be lagging behind in use of quality language and the SMS and Facebook culture has given rise to a different form of ‘English’ altogether.
Literacy is the foundation of school education but in our country the term ‘literacy' is used almost exclusively in the context of adults. This is not surprising, given the embarrassingly large share of India in the global count of adults who can neither read nor write.
Years spent by children in primary schools do not necessarily make them literate. Many who acquire a tenuous grip on literacy during those years fail to retain it in the absence of opportunities to read, compounded by elimination from school before completing the upper primary classes. Even in the case of those who acquire lasting literacy, schooling fails to impart the urge to read as a matter of habit. Those who learn to perceive reading as a means to expand knowledge and awareness are a minority.
Sensational surveys of children's poor performance in reading tests throw little light on the deeper problems that the teaching of reading suffers from. Reading has never been encourages even in schools so to say. English chapters and words are translated and taught in Hindi. Until such erroneous methods are not addressed in an institutionalised manner, real education will remain ineffective.
Today the entire state is worried about the quality of its students; it is more or less a lost cause as foundation itself is shaky. In an anti-clockwise direction, focus is more on higher education instead of building strong foundations. How do we expect our high schoolers or collegians to perform when their educational understanding has been compromised in their growing period?