6 - Quality, Equality and Language Ideology

Summary

‘Top students always take optional maths. We do not get quality students in Nepal Bhasa.’ Kavita Shrestha, Nepal Bhasa teacher of Grades IX and X often lamented, ‘Most students chose optional maths at the first instance and only when they fail, they would opt for Nepal Bhasa.’ Since optional maths requires skills in solving complex mathematical questions, the students who chose optional maths are considered the ‘one who can study’ (padhna sakne), that is, the smart ones. The students, who choose mother tongue, were written off as ‘one who cannot study’ (padhna nasakne), that is, the not-so-smart students. This binary of smart students versus not-so-smart students, based on the subject they choose in their final exams, secured students certain imaginaries of competence.

By foregrounding the power-laden process through which the social value of ‘quality’ is produced, I direct attention to the complex relationship between the discourse of quality and minority language education. The discussion here draws on the idea of language ideology to illustrate that the social prestige of language choice is closely intertwined with the discourse of quality education in Nepal. The concept of ‘language ideology’ is used here to discuss the ‘socially, politically, and morally loaded cultural assumptions about the way that language works in social life and about the role of particular linguistic forms in a given society’ (Woolard, 1998). In the following sections, I will highlight the ways in which ‘language ideology’ foreshadowed the perception of quality in education. I will also discuss how students constructed the imaginaries of competence by repurposing the perceived indicators of ‘quality’ such as high scores in national-level exams, proficiency in English and continuation of higher education in good colleges. Given the wider context where mother tongue education is considered as low-quality education, this discourse of quality education helped the students and the school to secure ‘imaginaries of competence’. Through this process, the school attempted to shift the ‘language ideology’ that rendered mother tongue as potentially low-quality education.