Gujarat fails to promote English 5 years after starting to teach via satellite

By Rajiv Shah

Latest data collected by the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), prepared by elite NGO Pratham, has suggested that Gujarat’s five-year efforts to push English among schools has miserably failed. Released on January 13, 2015, the top study has found that just about 9.8 per cent of the children in rural Gujarat, studying in class V, could read English sentences, which is the lowest scorecard compared to the rural areas of all other major Indian states, but Madhya Pradesh (9.6 per cent). The all-India average on this score is 24 per cent, and Kerala tops with a whopping 68.5 per cent.

The ASER study has further revealed that 26.7 per cent of class VII children in rural Gujarat could read English sentences, as against the all-India average of 38.8 per cent, and just two states’ rural children of class VII perform worse than those of Gujarat – Chhattisgarh (21.5 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh (18.3 per cent). The best performing state on this score, again, is Kerala, with 80 per cent of class VII children found to be reading English sentences.

The survey further finds that, of those who could read English sentences, just about 54.8 per cent of rural Gujarat’s class V children, and 69.8 per cent class VII children, could tell the meaning of what they were reading. This is against 62.2 per cent of children of class V and 66.3 per cent children of class VII children telling meaning of English sentences out of those who could read them at the all-India level.

Poor report card of English in Gujarat comes despite the state government's what seemed in 2009 to be valiant efforts to promote English, "setting aside" the RSS’ ideological reservations towards encouraging the language. The Modi government in 2009 declared it was all set to spread teaching of English in Gujarat's schools with the help of the Educational Satellite of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

At that time, it was declared that more than 20 million children studying in 22,000 government schools of Gujarat would “benefit” from the programme to learn English. The programme had found opposition from Vidya Bharti, the education wing of the RSS, which was opposed to the propagation of English over Gujarati. Modi had then insisted that English had to be “conquered” first if Gujarat had to emerge as a global player.

In fact, the Gujarat government in 2009 launched a Rs 600-crore project to provide a 42-inch LCD or plasma screen TV sets to directly telecast English lessons to be given by teachers from Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Application and Geo-informatics (BISAG) in Gandhiangar. At that time, already, some 5,000 schools had wide-screen TV sets. Rest of the schools would have to be provided the sets in due course.

Modi’s website, www.narendramodi.in, pointing towards the importance of English, said three years later, in 2012, that to “increase” the knowledge of the English language among Gujarati youth, the state government had started SCOPE (The Society for Creation of Opportunity through Proficiency in English) programmes. “Over two lakh students have acquired proficiency in English so far through this initiative”, it declared, adding English speaking was a “requirement of a Gujarati student”.

Comments

Snehal Harshe said…

I am glad to see this brilliant post. all the details are very helpful and good for us, keep up to good work.I found some useful information in your blog, it was awesome to read, thanks for sharing this great content to my vision, keep sharing.

July 14, 2021

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

India’s green energy push faces talent crunch amidst record growth at 16% CAGR

By Jag Jivan* A new study by a top consulting firm has found that India’s cleantech sector is entering a decisive growth phase, with strong policy backing, record capacity additions and surging investor interest, but facing mounting pressure on talent supply and rising compensation costs .

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Beyond sattvik: Purity, caste and the politics of the Indian kitchen

By Rajiv Shah A few week ago, I was forwarded an article that appeared in the British weekly The Economist . Titled “Caste and cuisine: From honeycomb curry to blood fry: India’s ‘untouchable’ cooking”, it took me back to what I had blogged about what was called a “ sattvik food festival”, an annual event organised by former Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad professor Anil Gupta.

Search This Blog