Pune: After receiving flak from the parents, teachers and educationists for changing the way numbers are read in Marathi in the school curriculum, Balbharati has now squashed the controversy clarifying that the old system has not been replaced.
”We have not removed the old method of pronouncing numbers from the textbooks, but only added a second one as an option,” said Balbharati Mathematics Committee Chairperson Mangala Narlikar, as she responded to the ongoing controversy over the introduction of ’read it as you write it’ method for pronouncing the numbers in Marathi.
Narlikar has also alleged that people have run false propaganda by stating that the textbook has replaced the old method of reading numbers.
“I feel that when we add new words or new methods to the original language, they enrich the language and not ruin it,” she said.
The first day of the school, this year, brought questions and confusion from teachers, parents and educationists, as the Mathematics textbooks which are a part of the new curriculum introduced for class II, introduced an alternative method of reading numbers above 20 in Marathi.
For instance, while 21 is traditionally read as ‘ekvees’ in Marathi, the new method will teach the students to read it as ‘vees ek’, which could be exactly translated in English to twenty one.
The reason behind this was stated by the Balbharati to be the difficulties that the children face while reading and pronouncing compound words, commonly known as ‘jodakshare’ in Marathi.
However, after having faced flak for ruining the original method of reading numbers in Marathi, Narlikar has clarified that the old method has not been replaced.
Narlikar said that the students would still be learning to read and pronounce the numbers as all the students have been traditionally.
“We have only introduced a new method alongside. The students will be taught both these methods. Our only aim is to leave the choice open ahead of the children to select the method that they are comfortable with,” she said.
However, several experts have criticised the new method and said that it would end up killing the heritage of the language.
“All their claims are baseless. I feel like the new method is only a way to make things easy for the children of English medium, who are introduced to the Marathi language and Marathi numbers quite late. The new system introduced by the Balbharati is similar to how the numbers are read in English,” said Anil Gore of Akanksha Math Classes, who is also fondly known as Marathi Kaka.
He also added, “The way words exist in any language has a lot of cultural and geographical relevance to it. If the next generation grows up reading Marathi like how it suits English, we will lose out a linguistic legacy. Also, the children at that age have the aptitude to grasp as many new things as are taught to them. So by giving them a chance to learn to read the numbers as we all have learnt, we are actually undermining them.”
