Fascination with English-medium schools no less than suicide: NCERT chief

NCERT Director D P Saklani has lamented that parents remain fascinated by English-medium schools even though many don't have trained teachers, saying it is "no less than suicide" as government schools now provide quality education.

In an interaction with PTI's editors at the agency's headquarters here, the chief of the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) said the practice of cramming content in English has led to knowledge loss among children and distanced them from their roots and culture.

"Parents are obsessed with English-medium schools, they prefer to send their children to such schools even if there are no teachers or they are not trained enough. This is not less than suicide and this why the new (national) education policy has stressed upon teaching in mother tongue," he said.

"Why should teaching be matrabhasha adharit (based on mother tongue)? Because till then we will not understand our own mother, our roots, how will we understand anything? And .