Multilingual Education and India

Dear MLE friends, “ The medium of instruction had statistically significant effects: if at least half of schools offer the opportunity to learn in a home language, attendance rises by approximately 10% (Smits et al., 2008).”  And some more interesting statements below.

Dear MLE friends, Orissa Primary Education Programme Authority ( OPEPA) in collaboration with UNICEF, Orissa organised last October a National Conference on Tribal Education with Special Focus on Multilingual Education . Attached is a report which gives a summary of all the papers presented. These presentations are very relevant as several of the people who presented are well aware of the grass-roots situation. 55 pages of experiences, reflections and suggestions!

Dear MLE friends, Some of you might be interested in the below announcement.

Dear MLE friends, May the below mentioned sponsor can fund some research on MLE? Check it out!

Dear MLE friends, This morning I read in The Hindu about an attempt by the   Adivasi Academy (Prof Ganesh Devy) to document the language and culture of 5 tribal groups in Gujarat . Good to note that this is getting newspaper coverage.

Dear MLE friends, The National Multilingual Education Resource Consortium (NMRC) from JNU is producing a newsletter with quality articles on MLE. The latest newsletter is no exception on that. It does focus on the "as far as possible" phrase tagged to the mother tongue reference in the Right to Education act.  Some topics: Prof Anvita Abbi : "Don't kill my Mother (tongue)" Sara Poehlman: "Mother Tongue Instruction 'as far as practicable' as Child's' right" Sara Poehlman: "Story telling for effective language transition in Assam Tea Gardens" Sikshi Manocha: "Witnessing the change" (a powerful testimony on the impact of MLE in the Saora community in Orissa) Check it out yourself at http://www.nmrc-jnu.org/nmrc_img/NMRC%20Newsletter%204th%20Issue.pdf (Note: 4.5MB!)

Dear MLE friends, UNESCO Bangkok released last week their latest publication on L1-based education. The book includes case studies from about 19 initiatives in Asia, Africa and Latin America . There is also a study on India written by Dr Barkataki of the  State Resource Centre in Assam . The book can be downloaded from the net. See details below.

Dear MLE friends, In this mailing list most attention has gone to primary education. However, also for adult education the language issue is vital for success. It is therefore good to note that next week the Directorate of Adult Education is organising a two day Seminar-cum-Workshop in collaboration with the Central Institute of Indian Languages on "Imparting Literacy through Non scheduled Languages"(ie. languages other than State/National Language).

Dear MLE friends, The below mentioned website for teachers was launched in 5 languages: English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil and Telegu. It has several interesting articles and has potential to put some articles on MLE on. Thanks, Troy , for passing it on.

Dear MLE friends, A corpus of material in the local language is necessary for any Multi Lingual Education (MLE) project to succeed. In the attached articles it is announced that Central Institute of Indian Languages will take up a major translation project into all “eight schedule” languages.

Dear MLE friends, The below mentioned brochure makes a clear link between Language Development and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). For those of us active in the NGO world and government this might be useful.

Dear MLE friends, Most of the articles, research papers and newspaper clippings in this list are building a case to support MLE. However, there are also other voices. Some claiming that the tribal people themselves do not want it. Attached is an article making that claim. This brings out an important question: it seems that at this point the academic and NGO world is quite convinced that a multilingual approach will be best for the children on the long run, but have we been able to interact sufficient with the tribal communities themselves on this? Have we been able to find leaders who really represent the voice of the people themselves?

Dear MLE friends, Some good news from Jharkhand: chief minister Madhu Koda made tall promises for the betterment of the tribal and regional languages. Read on…

Dear MLE friends, Below some news on the demand for a special academy for development of tribal languages in Hyderabad . See reference below.