Tread cautiously on MBBS in mother tongue
Aset of three medical textbooks translated from English into Hindi was released in Bhopal over the weekend with great fanfare. The textbooks form a part of the exercise to introduce Hindi as the medium of instruction for the MBBS course in Madhya Pradesh. The move follows the Central Government’s resolve to implement the New Education Policy, which, among other things, emphasises the teaching of technical and medical courses in Indian languages.
All major competitive examinations like the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for professional courses are being conducted in a dozen Indian languages, besides English. The same is the case with the recently introduced Common University Entrance Test for admission into graduate courses in universities.
Teaching in Indian languages at higher education levels is not entirely novel. Educational institutions across the country offer courses up to the PhD level in different Indian languages. Ayurvedic medicine courses are also taught in Hindi and other Indian languages. A few years back, Tamil Nadu mooted the idea of medical teaching in Tamil. In the past, Osmania University taught medicine and engineering courses in Urdu from 1918 to 1948. The logic of the MBBS course in Hindi, as articulated by the Union Home Minister who released the textbooks in Bhopal, is that students are better placed to develop cognitive skills like thinking, revision, research, reasoning, analysis and decision-making if they are taught in a mother tongue rather than English. Doctors trained in Hindi and other Indian languages may also be better at communicating with patients.
Despite potential advantages, it appears the change is being introduced hastily. The biggest challenge in translating textbooks of technical and scientific subjects is the use of scientific terminology. Should the original jargon in English be retained or translated into Indian languages? From the titles of the three medical textbooks — anatomy, biochemistry and physiology — released in Bhopal, it appears that the familiar medical terminology in English has been retained in the translated books. In effect, explanatory content in textbooks will be made available in Hindi. Hopefully, the language used in translated books is simple, spoken Hindi and not highly Sanskritised Hindi, as feared by many.
In any case, translating medical textbooks is a herculean task and needs to be handled with care by involving both language and subject experts. The quality of the course material for future doctors should not be compromised as these graduates will be dealing with human lives. And textbooks are only one part of medical courses. There are hundreds of reference books, manuals and medical protocols, which are mostly in English and are vital for the training and functioning of a doctor.
For doctors training in Hindi and other Indian languages, further studies and career prospects could be challenging because post-graduation studies, super-specialisation and medical research continue to be in English. It is unclear if all these will also be included in the current thrust on Indian languages in medical teaching, and how this will be done.
Along with textbooks and courseware, it would also require trained teachers, examination machinery and the availability of multi-lingual research journals and so on. The National Medical Commission or state medical education departments should make public any blueprint they may have prepared in this regard.
At present, India has about 600 medical colleges and students are free to get admission to colleges outside their state. Discarding the use of English could make such options difficult. For example, a student with a Hindi medium degree from Madhya Pradesh may find it hard to pursue post-graduation in a college in Karnataka or Maharashtra, where the medium of instruction may be English or the respective local language. For such students, pursuing a foreign degree will be even harder.
While courses were taught in Urdu at Osmania University, proficiency in English was compulsory for all students and textbooks were in English. Even before teaching in Urdu began, a translation bureau was constituted and a translation methodology was developed to deal with scientific terminology. Educational experts from all over India, including Rabindranath Tagore, were consulted. Such planning is lacking in the present case. Wider consultation with all stakeholders, including the student community, too is missing. If textbooks are going to be translated into many Indian languages, technical terms will have to be standardised to ensure compatibility.
The proponents of teaching technical courses in the mother tongue cite the example of Japan, which made great scientific and industrial advances through teaching in Japanese. Osmania University too drew its inspiration from Japan. In the 1920s, Hyderabad’s Director of Public Instruction Syed Ross Masood was sent to study the Japanese model of technical education. China, Russia and Germany have technical courses taught in their respective languages and have developed scientific terminologies too over several decades. The key difference between all these countries and India is that they are largely homogenous societies, while India has multiple languages and cultures.
The Home Minister has also spoken about introducing courses in Indian languages at the Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management as well. In Bhopal, he said 10 states were preparing to impart engineering education in regional languages by translating textbooks into Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Malayalam and Gujarati. Besides problems with terminology and other issues connected with teaching in Indian languages, such engineering courses could erode India’s competitiveness in key areas, particularly its edge in the outsourcing industry. One of the driving factors that helped India make headway in software and IT-enabled services was an engineering workforce familiar with English. India should not take any step that erodes its position in this market, particularly at a time when other countries are catching up and automation is fast replacing routine jobs.
The launch of Hindi medical textbooks is being hailed as a “renaissance and reconstruction” of the education sector. A real renaissance will be the creation of new and original knowledge in Indian languages, and generation of employment opportunities for students trained in Indian languages.
