English has become the preferred language of instruction in all southern states except Karnataka, where more than half of school children preferred Kannada as the language of instruction, according to the Unified Information System of the District 2019-2020 (UDISE) recently published.

Among the states, Jammu and Kashmir has nearly one hundred percent enrollment in English-speaking schools, followed by Telangana where 73.8% of children are in English-speaking schools while the rest prefer Telougou as the language of education. Likewise, in Kerala, only 34.8% of students prefer Malayalam while the rest follow English. 42 percent of children in all states still prefer Hindi as the language of instruction, according to the report.

In 2014-2015, a large majority of school children in Telangana, Kerala and a few other states preferred English as the language of instruction, while in states such as Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Haryana and Punjab , the percentage of children preferring English has recently increased, with almost half of children preferring English as the language of instruction in 2019-2020.

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In Tamil Nadu, the proportion of students preferring English for instruction increased from 42.26% in 2014-15 to 57.6% in 2019-20. The situation is similar in several other states where children prefer to learn in English rather than in their mother tongue.

Haryana saw the maximum increase in the number of children preferring English in 2019-2020 compared to 2014-15. The state saw an increase of over 23% from the 27.6% of children who preferred English in 2014-15.

According to data published by UDISE, Indians strongly believe that the only way to learn English properly is to learn everything in English. It flies in the face of logic and empirical evidence both in India and the world. Children in many countries are now learning English as a foreign language.

Some state governments themselves force children to learn English, such as the government of Andhra Pradesh. Recently, the AP government decided to make English the medium of learning at all university colleges in the state starting this academic year.

The Andhra Pradesh Department of Higher Education believes that the introduction of English-language education at the undergraduate level would improve the career prospects of graduates.

The government of Andhra Pradesh announced in September 2019 that it would introduce English as the language of instruction in all public schools and gradually convert all Telougou schools to the English language while teaching the mother tongue Telougou as a compulsory subject. .

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The new National Education Policy has revived the debate on the mother tongue as the language of instruction at primary level. While educators report numerous studies that show the benefits of mother tongue learning from an early age, English continues to be the preferred language of instruction.