Nagaland Government Schools Prefers English as the Medium of Instruction

A recent survey conducted in the Nagaland government schools have states that Nagaland prefers English more over their mother tongue. The survey, titled “Survey on School Based Statistics in Nagaland”, conducted by State Council of Educational Research & Training (SCERT) has shown that majority of the government schools based in the state prefers English as the most comfort language.

For the Nagamese students, English is even ahead of their mother tongue and so is for the teachers of the schools. This is not the case with the capital city of the state as the rest of the districts too showed a similar result in a more or less ratio.

A study conducted in the government schools in Mokokchung district showed that out of 175 schools, 159 schools’ students and teachers responded in favour of using English as a most used language. For these schools, English is the most used medium of communication, followed by their Mother Tongue in 9 schools. In 7 other schools, the medium of instruction was Nagamese. A similar sort of trend was witnessed in the districts like Dimapur, Kiphire, Kohima and Phek.

But the survey results are a bit contradictory in Tuensang district wherein out of 170 schools, 52 schools use Mother Tongue as a primary teaching medium. Although 96 schools use English they consider it as an adopted medium of instruction. 22 schools use Nagamese as the medium of instruction. Zunheboto district too such similar results in the survey.

The survey and its result in the Nagaland state plays a crucial role as the north-eastern state along with a few of its neighbouring states of the region are seen using English the most. Although these states have their own mother tongue, they are found to be more comfortable in communicating with people in the English language only.