Education in mother-tongue?
The Europeans, Chinese and Japanese learn in their mother-tongue and that makes them more innovative while we lag. Should we move to mother-tongue based education with English as additional language?
There is a good amount of discussion, a movement towards education in regional languages in India. The basis of this movement is that research-based studies indicate a possibility that children learn faster and better in their mother-tongue.
Now social science research is not easily replicable and is not even complete. But arguments are made about economic growth in China while learning in Chinese. Japan, Russia and European countries are also shown as examples.
I am not so sure.
China is not a good example
China has different dialects every 8 miles just like India. With the advent of communist party, there is an imposition of Mandarin almost universally. Hong Kong and Southern areas speak Cantonese and other dialects quite distinct from mandarin. However, the education in China is chiefly in mandarin. In a way this also not specifically education in mother tongue.
Japan may be wrong example too.
Japan is more equivalent to an Indian state rather than the entire India. Hence there is quite a bit of uniformity in Japanese teaching styles.
India had Sanskrit Education
Indian states too spoke various languages from time immemorial. Thus Sanskrit was imposed non-mother tongue on Indian students of the past. I doubt if Sanskrit was always spoken all over India as a mother tongue. Nevertheless the similarity in the languages and cultural roots being in Sanskrit made it easy for the students to learn and be educated in Sanskrit.1
Education rooted in local culture may be more important
Rather than language itself, it may be critical that education comes from local culture and local teachers. Thus, teaching in English may be as good as teaching in Sanskrit if the English language is aligned with our culture.
In a way English does distance itself from Indian culture. It is rooted in a culture of "rain rain go away" whereas Indian culture celebrates the coming of rains.
Indian population dealt with this structural dissonance by bending English to their style rather than bending to the English style. Rama Bijapurkar noted this in her book titled "We are like that only." This is a phrase that bends English to Indian context.
This is not new or unique phenomenon. Singapore imposed English on its population and the result was Singlish - a mix of Chinese, Malay and English.
But this is serious issue.
The language of learning does affect the culture of the population. Our thought models are defined by language and culture.
At times, I do find myself unable to express something in English what I can sense through my cultural lens. So I wonder if, at the margin, does language limit our thoughts or constrain our idea? Or does it merely inhibit the expression of our thoughts or ideas? May be culture is very different from language and we shall always possess more than one lens to view the world. There are no right answers.
But Sanskrit may be the answer again! But converting to Sanskrit will be a big step. It has to be done in a phased manner. How should we move to a Sanskrit based education? Let me know.
One may consider Latin as a similar case. However, did latin make the European culture or did European culture make latin remains a question.
We already have education in mother tongue. The problem is people want English medium education for their children because it will help them get jobs more easily. Even if someone has studied in Indian medium for 12 years, they start to struggle and lose confidence once they get to higher education, which is mostly in English. The government offered indian language programs in engineering and medicine and there were no takers. The textbooks are garbage, the profs have no track record, it is doubtful there will be campus placements of same quality.
I see even people in documentaries about rural India add English every few words, so it feels like the horse has bolted and what is the point shutting the barn door now. But maybe we can yet do this.
One thing i thought of was YouTube videos teaching technical subjects in Indian languages. This should be for supplementary learning, like a lot of YouTube videos. Then after a while, take the help of these creators to write good textbooks in those languages. A program for education is a much later stage thing downstream of all of this.