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English Medium Education in India: The Neoliberal Legacy and Challenges to Multilingual Language Policy Implementation

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Neoliberalization of English Language Policy in the Global South

Part of the book series: Language Policy ((LAPO,volume 29))

Abstract

A parallel education industry largely unaddressed in national language education policy framings, English medium education (EME) in India thrives and is buoyed by the neoliberal constructs of the individual/institutional agency and responsibility for economic success. Most studies on Indian English language education place the inequities perpetuated by neoliberalism as a construction of the elite classes who act as gatekeepers for English, but the issue is far more complex. The chapter argues that the economically stable middle class babysits English and keeps the neoliberal rhetoric alive through investment in EME. It discusses other factors that allow a neoliberal construction of English, such as the absence of national consensus on an 'official' language or on diversity of lingua franca(s) to negotiate life beyond community and state, the role of teachers and the nature of ELT pedagogical practices prescribed by national curricular frameworks. In short, the chapter critiques the overt and implicit ways by which English medium education (EME) in India promotes and sustains the neoliberal regime and provides continual resistance to the implementation of a healthy multilingual education policy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For more details, see De et al., 2002; Jones, 2018; Nambissan, 2003, 2012a, b; Tooley & Dixon, 2006.

  2. 2.

    This is among the few regulations that private (English medium) schools aspiring for affiliation to school boards are expected to follow; but because of the lack of accountability, many schools are able to evade this directive. In fact, the popular Bollywood movie Hindi Medium (2017) captures the nuances of the social implications of this reservation policy for parents aspiring to educate their children in an English medium school.

  3. 3.

    Less than 0.02% of the Indian population claim English as their MT and approximately 10% know English through formal education (Mohanty, 2019).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English Language Teaching, Gauhtai University, Guwahati, Assam, India

    Padmini Boruah

  2. Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Dehli, India

    Ajit Mohanty

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  1. Padmini Boruah
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Correspondence to Padmini Boruah .

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  1. Department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Ali Jalalian Daghigh

  2. Department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Jariah Mohd Jan

  3. Department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Sheena Kaur

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Boruah, P., Mohanty, A. (2022). English Medium Education in India: The Neoliberal Legacy and Challenges to Multilingual Language Policy Implementation. In: Jalalian Daghigh, A., Mohd Jan, J., Kaur, S. (eds) Neoliberalization of English Language Policy in the Global South. Language Policy, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92353-2_4

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