English OK, but do learn Japanese, Chinese: CM to kids

Narendra Modi, the school master, ended up marketing Chinese and Japanese to children of schools and colleges who had been instructed to listen to his two-hour address and question-answer session on television sets across thousands of schools and colleges in Gujarat on Teacher’s Day.

With infrastructure found woefully inadequate, primary school students were allowed to go home, while their seniors assembled at public auditoriums in Ahmedabad in the hope of getting the promised chocolates as an incentive. Reports from the districts suggested that authorities struggled to put together these programmes in educational institutions.

Hurriedly managed television sets for the show failed at some municipal schools while in colleges, students preferred to hang around on the campus than listen to Modi.

In an address which may not have reached the targeted 15 million students studying in 55,000 schools and 1,200 colleges, despite the strict instructions issued by the education department, Modi said, “Asia is becoming increasingly important in the world. Here, too, Japan and China are set to become the main engines of development. There is need for more children to start learning Japanese and Chinese in order to interact with the businessmen of the respective countries.”

His statement was taken in the light of denial of visa by many western countries, including the USA and those in the European Union, forcing him to turn his eye towards the Far-East.

Agreeing that Gujarat lags behind in English speaking skills, Modi said, “We have started courses to train one lakh students per year. In today’s world, computer knowledge is not possible without English.”

But, he hastened to add, “The best education was always in the mother tongue. Besides, why should we not learn other Indian languages like Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.”


Source:- timesofindia.indiatimes.com/