If
you remember, it was not too long ago we claimed with chest-thumping pride that
we are enjoying competitive advantage in ITeS sector all because of the
nation’s English language proficiency. Well, it is time to go in for a
reality-check. This comes in the form of an article entitled Despite big leap, India’s English
proficiency is just moderate: Survey by A Dhar in The Hindu of October 27, 2102 [1].
Only
through this article I came to know that there is an index – please don’t sigh “another
of those damned indices!” – named English Proficiency Index (EPI). This is the
second edition of this index and India is placed at 14 out of 54 countries. In
the first edition India was at 30 out of 42. You see, India truly did leap high
between the first and second editions. Something to write home about? Let me
see.
The
index apparently ranks countries “by comparing the average [English] language
ability of adults”. I have at least one point to make. How does one go about
averaging language ability? The article tries to answer this query: “[T]hrough
a unique set of data gathered from 1.2 million adults using free English tests
over a period of three years.” The answer is merely mechanical and is deeply
unsatisfactory.
What
does the test test? As expected, I got the second occurrence of “test” in the
above duly red squiggled – the suggestion was “Delete Repeated Word”. (As an
aside, why was the first occurrence not squiggled?) But the question is not
wrongly worded, as you can readily see. Will the test test one’s ability to
discern such non-nonsensical sentence constructions? I have my doubts. How would
a right answer adjudged wrong affect the average score?
What
I understand is that the tests from which the data are culled, classified and countries
ranked come in three parts. “Two tests are open to any Internet user for free.”
Ouch. It does not matter how proficient in English you are, if you are not a
Net user you will not be able to contribute to this process of averaging out.
To me this did not sound all that valid a filter. What more, the third test is
also, “an online placement test …” So, you are a Netizen or you do not exist,
as far as EPI is concerned. Given that many of the nations taking part in this
assessment exercise, like Pakistan, Bangladesh and India too, have somewhat
meager Net penetration, the averaging out cannot but be a farce.
It
is written in the article, “EPI says …” What does this mean? I take it to mean,
“The results show that …” But, it could also be that the organization behind
EPI says the things the ellipses fills in for, like “…better proficiency in the
language [English] goes hand in hand with higher income, more experts [?],
easier environment for doing business, and more innovation.” Obviously the
results cannot point to all these things, as they are interpretational. Then,
it must be the organization behind the test that is saying all this.
Then,
I am not wrong if I want to know what that organization is. Alas, there is no
clue in the article except an abbreviation “EF”, like in “EF English
Proficiency Index”, “EF English tests”, “EF English score”. OK, I have a Net
connection and I could have at least googled this. But, no, I will not. If the
writer is so casual in her writing, shows contempt towards her readers (the
implicit attitude, “I don’t care whether you understand what I have written”),
and the editor is equally nonchalant, well I would be darned if I were to take
the effort. I can only hope that this news item is not part of the “EF English
tests”. I would have failed.
There
are other interesting points. Malaysia and Singapore score the highest. I do not
know how Singapore can be a valid comparison for anything with India, China or
even Malaysia – a city state with a large, or even a medium sized country. The
statement is in the context of how English can be the lingua franca of the
country. Well, it can be, no doubt, but only after the class and regional stratifications
are very severely attenuated.
What
I am saying is, if a Tamil laborer can be reasonably confident that in his
social milieu in, say, Uttar Pradesh, English will serve him well, only then will
he learn English. If he thinks it will be better for him to learn Hindi to a
level of reasonable and effective proficiency, mainly through his daily
interactions, then that is what will guide him. I will be very interested in
knowing how many emigrant laborers in the Gulf have learned the languages of
the countries they are working in and to what level of proficiency.
The
above should be taken as response to what the article says: “The correlation
between English proficiency and exports per capita has an interestingly sharp
dividing line. Countries with low and very low proficiency have uniformly low
levels of exports per capita.” There is an implied arrow of causation in this,
from English proficiency to increased exports.
If
you wanted an example for the phrase, “putting the cart before the horse”, you could
not have done better than citing this. It is because there is no export market
for the local produce, the foreign language proficiency is low. True, one will
have trouble in business dealings, but an entrepreneur, indeed even a laborer,
driven by survival instincts will pick up fast on getting his thoughts across,
even if it has to be conveyed in a foreign tongue. This is what marks
successful entrepreneurs, successful people.
The
article makes one valid point. Lack of English proficiency in English among the
educated professionals is a drag on themselves – access to resources and
collaboration with foreigners. True. But, it does not appear the test captures
this nuance. True too, the tests are Net based and one would expect the
educated to flock to it. Yet, this is a point that needs to be made strongly,
backed up by numbers.
OK,
now to conclude. Why a post on this obscure topic and news item? For one thing,
I am tired of writing on serious stuff. The second point is I am getting tired
of our chest thumping about our proficiency in English. Third, I am tired of indices
and I truly could not stand this EPI. So this tired and tiresome post.
I
can only hope that you got tired of this post before you reached the end. Then,
I can be blame-free.
Raghuram
Ekambaram
References
3 comments:
Raghuram, you've really succeeded in making a thesis out of nonsense :)
Yes, precisely that, Matheikal. Doctor Mehra too said pretty much the same thing. It is because and only because I get so irritated with all these indices so devoid of context. The reporter needed to file something and she filed nonsense. And, I needed to post a blog and I made a thesis out of that!
The reporter and I are even steven :)
RE
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