Across the wall

Those who have seen Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor will remember those scenes where the kid emperor is being taught English by the blue-eyed Peter O’ Toole in an atmosphere of stiff upper lip protocol. That was a little more than half a century ago. Today, that teacher could well be an Indian.

The Beijing Olympics has brought a boom time of sorts for Indians. The Chinese’s need to be able to speak English before the mega event begins later this year has led to a frantic search for English teachers. All it takes is a one-month crash course on the internet and you get a certificate that allows you to teach English anywhere in the world.

Officials of the Teaching English as Foreign Language course confirm that they get more than 100 applicants a day. Already, more than a 1000 Indians have moved to China to teach English. Clearly, we have successfully managed to leverage our skills in English into a marketable commodity and are making the best of China’s shortcomings here.

This is the kind of export that India is very good at — sending skilled manpower out to the world. China woke up to the value of learning English as a second language only in the last two decades, after it became an economic superpower. Till five years ago this Indian mastery of English, at least at the generic level, was considered a major advantage.  Many pundits in India had called upon policy makers to ensure that India holds on to that advantage if it wants to compete with China in attracting foreign investment.

But China is not sitting idle. It has announced an ambitious plan not only to include English as a language of learning across primary schools but also wants to develop a curriculum entirely in English, much like India. This entire programme will no doubt mature over a generation. But in a manner now typical of the Chinese where they set impossible goals and achieve them routinely, they will eventually overtake India in this area also. Until they do, Indians can be part of this process and benefit from it.

That is, in fact, one of the demands of the free market, just as the free market has made it possible for Indians to teach in China in hordes, something unheard of a few years ago. Such movement of people across borders is a sign of the times. And it will only increase. Concomitantly, more foreign professionals will come to India. If we want to go out to the world, we must learn to invite the world to us as well. Herein lies the first lesson in globalisation. And it’s written in English.