It has been reported recently by the state government that Uttar Pradesh is about to witness the establishment of 1000 new English-medium junior high schools across the state.
Looking at the need of English-medium schools in the state, it was decided that 1000 new English-medium upper primary schools would be set up for Classes 6 to 8, said Sarvendra Vikram Bahadur Singh, director, basic education, on Thursday.
Along with that, 5000 more English medium primary schools will also be set up across the state.
The Basic Education Department has announced that every block will witness the establishment of an English-Medium junior high schools, while for the blocks where additional demand for English-medium schools has been received, an additional school will be established.
The decision originated looking at the English medium primary school children who wish to pursue their further education from Class 6 to 8 in English medium.
Back in 2015, it came to notice that the basic education department had converted a few primary schools into English-medium institutions. After the NDA government took over in 2017, the basic education minister Anupama Jaiswal announced the establishment of 5,000 English medium primary schools, looking at the number of students who wish to pursue further education in English-medium.
“In Lucknow alone, there are 44 such schools where over 6,200 students are enrolled,” said Amar Kant Singh, Basic Shiksha Adhikari, Lucknow.
An official informed that in conversation with the principals and students, it came to notice that kids do not want to get transferred to Hindi-medium learning.
“Their parents can’t afford to send them to private English medium schools in Class 6, as the fee is very high,” said Hariyali Srivastava, assistant teacher at primary school Gejha.
Chhavi Agarwal, the assistant teacher of another primary school, said, “Similar requests are pouring in from my students too.”
Kajal Kumari, a student of English medium primary school Gejha in Gautam Buddh Nagar said, “We are happy that government was so thoughtful and decided to open up 1000 English medium Junior high schools.”
“Switching back to Hindi will not be easy. We have been requesting authorities to please do something so that we may continue to study in English after passing Class 5. After a lot of hard work, we developed a comfort level in English medium learning. Now, if we go back to Hindi learning, it will undo whatever we learned over the past few years.”