Shahani Singh
The class for Nepal Bhasa at Jagat Sundar Bwonekuthi Secondary School, the first one to teach the language in the Valley, comprises a handful of ninth graders seated around their teacher. They are the fourth batch to progress towards the SLC exam in Nepal Bhasa. The students, however, attend the session somewhat perfunctorily, as they have chosen the subject by default for their shortcomings in the only other choice the school offers—Optional math.

The group that went for Optional math on the other hand, has a student or two who were torn for choice between the two subjects. “I wanted to take up Nepal Bhasa as well, but my parents wanted me to go for Optional math,” says a ninth grader, whose parents apparently seem to value the knowledge in math more than that inherent in the mother tongue.

Being an option for students with mathematics as the other choice, the trend induced is a reluctance from a majority of the students to take up the mother language option. “Students think that it does not add any valuable skill to increase their employability,” says Nepal Bhasa lecturer Shanti Manandhar, who has taught at the school since its inception in 1991.

During class, Manandhar tries her best to arouse interest among students who have by will or a lack of choice, chosen the subject. “So we traditionally apply cow urine and red mud as antiseptics to clean our houses regularly, but nowadays, of course, a plastic packet full of detergent serves the purpose,” she remarks with a note of sarcasm at modern ways. “We also plant the sacred Tulsi leaf to use as an unguent for repelling mosquitoes and an herb for curing diseases. But the younger generation seldom realise the value behind worshipping its leaves,” she continues.

Her sarcasm, both at the modern age and its ironic ways, elicit nods of comprehension from the students. Perhaps Manandhar has succeeded in having them reflect upon the wisdom inherent in certain practices of traditional life. The students, however, fall into a state of cluelessness when she hurls a surprise test at them.

“Now how is the festival of Gathemuga or Ghanta Karna celebrated in the Valley?” she quizzes. Lost for answers, the students take their chance turn by turn; each failing to recall the rituals after the erection of the effigy of Gathemuga—the depraved and ravaging enemy of Lord Vishnu, whose vanquishment is celebrated early August every year as a symbolic cleansing of accumulated evils in the community. The festival would be one of the most exciting events in the Nepal Sambat calendar with all the public fervour in burning and dragging the effigy to the banks of the holy river. But yielding an average performance in this test for ethnic culture, the ninth graders do enough to make their teacher heave a long, weary sigh.

Language and culture being significantly intertwined, the teaching of traditional culture becomes naturally, a crucial element in mother language education. The subject thus includes short chapters in folklore and festivals, legends and myths, history and literature, including proverbs, poetry, riddles and stories in the respective language. These are compiled and developed with the aid of the government and local resources and persons of knowledge. But the optional status of the subject in the current design of school curricula, and the trend of choice it has induced among a majority of students, has had them, ostensibly, turn blind to the importance of attaining cultural knowledge.

As decreed in the Constitution of 1990, each community is granted the right to impart education to its children in their mother tongue up to the primary school level. Schools like Jagat Sundar Bwonekuthi thus, explain even lessons in science and math to students at the primary level in Nepal Bhasa, along with having the additional subject of Nepal Bhasa in the curriculum. But the continued study of the language has been marred as the subject is an optional one later in grades 9 and 10 and as for the lower secondary years of grades six, seven and eight, it has not been provided. The government has only recently, in this present year, made provisions to develop  the syllabi for these grades, according to Officer Diwakar Chapagain of the Mother Language Department at the Curriculum Development Centre, an auxiliary body of the Ministry of Education.

Whether this task will be realised or not remains to be seen. “We have been advocating the removal of the optional status of all mother languages in the secondary school curriculum for four years. We think that if there were separate groups for the mother language and other technical subjects, it will remove the clash of interests and also make the mother language an exclusive subject of study,” says Krishna Bhakta Manandhar, Principal of Bal Sewa Madhyamik Vidyalaya on behalf of Deepak Tuladhar, Cunda Bajracharya and himself, all advocates of mother language education and faculty members in three of the 22 schools in the Valley that offer classes in Nepal Bhasa.

Till date, however, teachers like Shanti Manandhar have had to make do with self-written textbooks to sustain mother language education through the odd gap in grades six, seven and eight that the government has not bridged for so long. Her book for grade eight is one with a blank cover and brief chapters on various topics stapled together, inadequate in content and the exercises that follow. “I have tried my best to gather support for developing the syllabi for grades six, seven and eight but hardly meet people with the right spirit—what can I do alone?” asks the teacher, in her late 60s now.

Jagat Sundar Bwonekuthi Secondary School may be the only one to have a continuous education in the mother language, as the school’s policy has made Nepal Bhasa mandatory till grade eight, in the course of which the bilingual approach—of using the mother tongue and Nepali simultaneously to ensure proficiency in the national language—is practiced. But such is not the case of the remaining 21 schools. Students there face the odd gap between the primary school years—a time when the brain is most receptive to language—and years of adolescence in grades 9 and 10, when most students already begin to think about narrowing academic interests. This has had an undoubted effect on sustaining interest among students and their families in the subject. “At the Kanya Mandir School, ten students had come to learn Nepal Bhasa but they were advised by their parents to opt for technical subjects such as accounting and math instead,” shares Madan Sen, lecturer of Nepal Bhasa at the Padma Kanya Campus.

Caught in the eternal conflict between securing knowledge that facilitates employment in a perceived job market and retaining mother language idealism, the subject perhaps will only break free once the leeway provided by its optional status is removed. But with the apparent loss of interest among a majority of the students themselves, the more apt question to ask, perhaps, is why learn the mother language at all?

The issue of language is one that comes along with the ethnicity movement that has gained momentum among various ethnic communities in Nepal. And there are the linguistic rights as conferred by the Constitution of 1990 and the UNESCO to secure and protect. But the real significance of learning the mother tongue was perhaps best worded by the anti-nationalist advocate of mother languages, Rabindranath Tagore.

“Because training conducted chiefly through the mother tongue would lighten the load of education for girls, whose deeper culture is of high importance…,” he said, referring to the psycho-social aspect of education whereby full comprehension is ensured when lessons are explained in the language spoken at home.

This applies best for students in remote regions, where Nepali and English may not be the comfort languages of the people. As for the students and parents within the bowl of hills, lessons in the mother language offer an opportunity to connect with the ethnic culture in its most authentic form. The ninth graders at Jagat Sundar Bwonekuthi appeared disconnected with the festival of Gathemuga (Ghanta Karna), and a little enlightened with the knowledge of red mud being a better alternative to plastic encased detergents. Their continued classes with Manandhar will perhaps reveal further wisdoms and knowledge contained within the traditional way of life, best learned in the medium of the mother tongue.

source: Singh, Shahani(2011),"Why learn the mother tongue?", The Kathmandu Post, 29 July 2011

photo: The Kathmandu Post