Multilingual Education and India

Jharkhand is a state full of tribal communities and therefore has a rich palette of languages. The state government is implementing the National Curriculum Framework  and has launched the PALASH Multilingual Education Program which aims at enhancing learning outcomes in all subjects by integrating children's first languages in primary education.  Good to note that they are consulting with Language Learning Foundation, UNICEF and other agencies. It will be interesting to watch where it will land in the spectrum between the "pedagogically ideal" and the "political feasible" when it comes to implementation.  The PALASH Multilingual Education Program launched by Jharkhand aims to improve access to education for tribal children by integrating mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE). Tribal children often face educational challenges due to the gap between their home language and Hindi, the medium of instruction in most schools. The PALASH program address

It was quite energising to participate last week in the Asia-Pacific MLE conference in Bangkok. Having so many educationalists come together to learn about how multilingual education is implemented in different settings was inspiring. There were several presenters from India, but  the presentations from other countries were also quite relevant for the Indian context. The 7th International Conference on Language and Education was hosted by UNESCO in Bangkok from 4 to 6 October, 2023. The conference had 475 participants from civil society, academic institutions, and governments. High-level policymakers from over twenty governments in Asia and the Pacific also attended. The Indian government was represented by Ms. Archana Sharma Awasthi, Joint Secretary in the Department of School Education and Literacy, MHRD. India was quite prominently represented at  the conference. Prof. Tsimpli Ianthi shared on the first day about her research on the value of using multiple languages and experiments