The Language Dilemma in Sindh’s Schools
English intelligence, Urdu identity and Sindhi sentiment: Who is the learner?
Abdul Basit Sarohi
I am not against the English language; I can read and write it, just as I do Urdu. Urdu gives fluency, English gives access, but Sindhi, the language I think in, provides cognitive clarity that stands above all.
Language in education is never just a medium. It is a message. It tells a child who matters, whose voice is valued and where power truly lives. In Sindh’s schools, this message is confused, conflicted and often cruel. And the learner is quietly paying the price.
On paper, our ambition is clear. English. It is presented as the language of progress, opportunity and global relevance. Parents desire it, policymakers promise it and private schools sell it aggressively. English has slowly shifted from being a tool of learning to a symbol of escape. Escape from poverty. Escape from marginalisation. Escape from being left behind.
But ambition without foundation becomes a burden.
Most children in Sindh enter school thinking, dreaming and speaking in Sindhi. It is the language of home, soil, stories and belonging. Yet the moment they step into a classroom, this language begins to shrink. Sometimes subtly. Sometimes openly. Sindhi is tolerated, not respected. It survives as a subject, not as a medium of thinking.
Very early, the child learns a painful lesson. Your mother tongue is not the language of intelligence.
Between English ambition and Sindhi identity stands Urdu, functioning as an unofficial bridge. Teachers explain concepts in Urdu. Textbooks remain in English. Students respond in broken mixtures of all three. This juggling of languages is often celebrated as bilingual or trilingual strength. In reality, it produces confusion rather than clarity.
The consequences are visible in almost every classroom.
Students memorise English answers they do not truly understand.
Teachers translate instead of teaching.
Examinations reward recall, not comprehension.
Confidence weakens and curiosity slowly disappears.
So we must pause and ask honestly. Who is the learner in this system.
Is it the child or the policy document.
This dilemma is not about rejecting English. That would be dishonest and impractical. English does open doors, but only when the mind behind it is trained to think. A child who cannot understand science in Sindhi will not suddenly understand it in English. Language cannot replace cognition.
Research and global experience are clear. Children learn best in their mother tongue during early
years. Concepts understood deeply in one language transfer more effectively into another. What Sindh needs is not a language war, but a language strategy.
Early education must be rooted firmly in Sindhi as the medium of instruction, not reduced to a symbolic subject. Urdu and English should be introduced gradually, systematically and meaningfully. They should be added as languages, not imposed as replacements for identity. Teachers must be trained to teach concepts, not merely shift between languages mid sentence.
More importantly, we must confront the silent hierarchy we have created.
English represents intelligence.
Urdu represents acceptability.
Sindhi is reduced to sentiment.
This hierarchy damages more than academic outcomes. It damages self worth. When a child’s first language is treated as inferior, the child learns an even harsher lesson. You are less.
Education reform in Sindh will remain incomplete as long as language policy is driven by elite aspiration rather than learner reality. We cannot build confident thinkers on borrowed tongues and confused foundations.
The real question is not whether our children should learn English.
The real question is whether they are allowed to understand before they translate, think before they imitate and belong before they perform.
Until the learner becomes central, not ambition, not ideology and not market pressure, this language dilemma will continue to quietly steal from our classrooms.
And no reform can afford that loss. |