ABSTRACT

India is a multilingual country where 1,652 languages belonging to five different language families are used (National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), 2006a). English, however, enjoys the position of power and prestige, and knowledge of English results in a huge socioeconomic divide. One of the major reasons that English is not equally accessible to the country’s majority is the government’s inconsistency in official declaration and behaviour vis-à-vis English. Currently, there is no integrated national policy that governs the teaching of English in schools and colleges across India. The great challenge is providing English language education to a population of over one billion with limited resources. However, this basic need of the people must be satisfied, as economic opportunities available in English are not available in the regional languages. The educational system of the country needs to undergo a radical transformation if the goal of providing equality through education is to be met.