This might seem at first to be a non-question. The role of schools is to provide children with skills for later life and higher education is an essential element of each child's development. The UAE has opted for an English-medium tertiary education system, so surely it is the responsibility of schools to produce students with the language skills to take degree courses taught in English.
This policy rests on a belief that a highly educated bilingual community with good English-language skills is essential for success in the modern globalised economy. It also reflects a belief that the cutting edge of knowledge is published in English and only students who have studied in English will have access to such knowledge. At present, because the standard of English achieved by students in public schools is in general inadequate for university, the Ministry of Higher Education spends roughly 25 per cent of its budget on university foundation programmes in English. This has brought pressure on schools to improve the level of English teaching, and is one of the principal motivations for such programmes as Madaris Al Gaad (Schools of Tomorrow) and the Public-Private Partnership project in Abu Dhabi, aimed at doubling exposure to English by teaching maths and science in that language.
There is no doubt that language proficiency is a factor of the time devoted to learning and using it. However, I doubt that just doubling exposure to English will achieve the necessary gains required. In addition, the consequences for the Arabic language need serious consideration. Let's take, as an example, Singapore, which has opted for English as the medium of instruction throughout schools. This produces many (but by no means all) students proficient enough in English to continue at university, but it means that their first language ("mother tongue") is taught as a school subject, much in the way that English might be taught as second language.
The consequences for mother-tongue literacy are serious, particularly since the requirement for a mother-tongue qualification for entry to university was dropped. This year, for the first time, a majority (55 per cent) of children entering primary school reported English as their first language. After just over 30 years of English-medium education, English is in effect the first language of Singapore.
The move to English-medium education is also taking place in the UAE. More than 40 per cent of Emiratis send their children to private schools, largely so that they can go straight on to English-medium degree programmes. But what effect will this have on the children's Arabic? One of my students carried out research comparing the written Arabic skills of 13-year-old Arabic-speaking children in a private English-medium school (a "bilingual" group) with those studying in a private Arabic-medium school. The written output of the bilingual group was appalling; they were hardly able to string together 150 words in half an hour, much of it with unacceptable spelling and grammar.
The socio-linguistic and socio-political consequences of a move to more English-medium instruction really need to be seriously researched and considered in a wider context than the narrow goal of university entrance. The way forward may be to continue with English as a curriculum subject as part of a rich offering of different subjects to develop the rounded citizen. The goal should be to enable the school graduate to perform general social and life functions in English and provide a base for later development for those who require it. By making the goals more achievable, the curriculum can concentrate on activities that encourage the use of English through interesting, enjoyable lessons, rather than the cramming for university entrance examinations such as the Common Educational Proficiency Assessment, which is the case at the moment.
As regards cost, which seems to be one of the main motivations for increasing the presence of English in public schools, surely it would be more cost-effective to concentrate resources on the selected group of students who need an advanced level of English for study, rather than diluting the same resources throughout a school population with mixed motivations and goals. To add to this, there already exists a highly competent and experienced group of teachers working at the foundation level of the different tertiary institutions, and these institutions now have a wealth of experience in improving students' English skills. This expertise represents a great deal of investment over the years, which would be squandered if the foundation programmes were disbanded in favour of increased language learning in schools. These programmes can also be closely related to the specific subject skills required by the different institutions, something that cannot be done in general school English classrooms.
Thus, I believe the arguments are clear on both the social and financial levels for the maintenance of foundation language programmes in higher education institutions, along with the development of a school curriculum that concentrates on the production of well-rounded, well-balanced citizens. Within such a programme, English should not be given priority to the detriment of Arabic. Mick Randall is a former dean of education at the British University in Dubai
