Although English remains the preferred medium of instruction across different sections of school education, the number of Hindi-speaking students in English medium schools at the primary level has dropped from 18.3 percent in 2014 to 18.2 percent in 2018, reveals an All India Survey conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
Titled ‘ Household Social Consumption on Education in India’ the survey points out that over 50 percent of children in nursery and KG who spoke either Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Punjabi among nine other regional languages at home were enrolled in English medium schools.
The survey, which covered 1.13 lakh households and 1.52 lakh students between 2017-18, found that 48 percent of children in the pre-primary section had attended schools in which the medium of instruction was in their native language.
While around 65 percent students between classes 1 to five attended schools in which the medium of instruction was the same as their mother tongue, around 22.3 were enrolled in English medium schools.
Between classes 6 to 8, number of students enrolled in English medium schools grew by almost 2 percent from 19.3 in 2014 to 21 percent in 2017-18. At the secondary level (classes 9 to 10), the number of students enrolled in English medium schools has gone up from 19.3 to 20.9 percent.
However, at the higher secondary level, that is for classes between 11 and 12, the number of English medium students remained stagnant at 29 percent.
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