ABSTRACT
There are still many regions of Asia and Africa where the status of English-medium instruction (EMI) is yet to be fully explored due to paucity of data and gaps between policy planning and ground realities, which often involve administrative hurdles. Today, in multilingual South Asia, English is perceived as the language of power and upward social mobility (Baumgardner, 1996). It also serves as a common language between groups that do not share the same language. However, political efforts to replace it in South Asia by projecting a dominant local language on the linguistic landscape are always on the horizon given the socio-economic inequalities that the presence of English has caused in the society (Rukmini, 2019). While countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had made Sinhala and Bangla their sole official languages in 1956 and 1987, respectively, India continues with Hindi, and Pakistan with Urdu, as their official languages alongside English. Nonetheless, in the case of higher education, English remains the most important medium of instruction in South Asia. Anyhow, the extent of use of English at universities in India and Sri Lanka varies, and the similarities and differences can be better understood in the light of their respective demographic and sociolinguistic profiles, and their histories of educational policies and planning.
