Bilingualism in Pakistan

Pakistan is a multi ethnic and multi lingual country with six major provincial languages: Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Siraiki, Balochi and Kashmiri. While the ethnic languages are dominant in the respective provinces, Urdu serves as the national language of Pakistan, while English is the language spoken in official circles. According to historian Stephen P. Cohen, the dominance of English in the elitist class is a remnant of British Raj, and is reflected in the Anglicized structure of the Pakistani bureaucracy and the officer corps of the army. “The so called ‘British generation’ dominated the army from till 1971” (Cohen 1994).By the end of 1950s, this civil-military bureaucracy formed a complex that came to control the pillars of state. “This elitist class had a stake in the continuation of English … because it gave their children and them a competitive edge over those from tradition Urdu medium background or madrassas. More importantly, it was the kind of cultural capital which had a snob value and constituted a class identity marker” (Rahman: Language policy, multilingualism and language vitality in Pakistan). The elite invested in a parallel system of education, namely the Cambridge O’ and A level schools, which incidentally was also a remnant of the Raj. Over the years, these schools have given their students access not only to the higher echelons of state but also given them an edge in the corporate world of multi nationals companies over their Urdu-medium (or public schools) counterparts.

LANGUAGE AND SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN

Four parallel systems of education are prevalent in Pakistan. The first is the system of privately run religious charity schools or madrassas where the language of instruction is Arabic. These schools have their own regulatory bodies and are run along sectarian lines. Second is the “elitist” privately run O’ and A’ level system which the Cambridge board in UK oversee. Third is the state-run Urdu medium board, in which the language of instruction of subjects other than English is Urdu. And the last is the state-regulated English medium board in which the language of instruction of subjects other than Urdu is English.

These systems of education are segregated along the lines of status and class, with the poorest going to the madrassas which provide free food and lodging, or state subsidized Urdu schools – both of which provide highly sub standard education. But linguistically, students of these schools are highly competent and have a good command over their language of instruction. Compared to this is the system of privately and publicly run English medium schools, where the economic background of most students is medium or lower medium social class. Students from such families face a conflict of language at school and home. People of poor socio-economic background usually have to struggle with their cognitive process, where their brains are ‘taught’ to think in English, yet the language spoken at home is usually Urdu (or any of the several provincial languages). Since the language of instruction is highly unfamiliar, especially at early ages, it causes an alienation between school and home, poor educational achievement and poor acquisition of the foreign language itself.