English as a Medium of Instruction in Indian Education: Inequality of Access to Educational Opportunities

The issue of language suffuses Indian education. This takes two forms. First, there is the question of how many languages students should learn at school and college. The second is the question of the language in which education should be imparted. Against this background, this paper uses data from the National Sample Survey data from 2014 and 2008 to examine the use of English as the medium of instruction in Indian education: the advantages it confers in terms of broadening subject, and hence career, choice and inequality between India’s social groups in access to education in English. In terms of social group, there was a clear hierarchy with the probability of studying in English being highest for students from the non-Muslim upper classes and lowest for students from the SC. The majority of pupils studying in English attended private unaided institutions. Compared to educational institutions in their entirety, private unaided institutions catered disproportionately to students studying in English than they did to students studying in Hindi or other languages