Multilingual Education and India

Happy International Mother Language Day! -Studies in Assam & Webinar Today, as I was running some errands, I noticed a lot of action on the roadside. As someone was talking passionately through a microphone I assumed it was a political rally. But then I heard one phrase coming back again and again: "Matri Bhasha". Of course, I thought, today is International Mother Language Day! That gives me a  good excuse to highlight a new initiative in Assam. It is also a good reason to recommend a webinar multilingual education later today. February 21 is the International Mother Language Day. The day is to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism around the world. The theme of the year 2022 is “Using technology for multilingual learning: Challenges and opportunities”.

  With the New National Education Policy requiring the first grades to be taught in the mother tongue, we see an increased interest in the issue of language in the classroom. However, many teachers and policymakers have a hard time understanding what multilingual education is all about. I found this excellent lecture by Dhir Jingran online. From my perspective, its strength is that it deals with both the theory as well as the practice. As a former government policymaker, grass-roots level researcher, and NGO founder, Dhir knows very well how complicated the realities on the ground are and yet he provides a clear way forward.

Panel of secretaries recommends to make English a compulsory Copyright: Financial Express Earlier this month a panel of secretaries from the Group on Education and Social Development has recommended to make English a compulsory subject in all schools beginning from class VI, and to start at least one English-medium school in each of the 6,612 blocks in the country. This news was reported in the Indian Express and the Financial Express a couple of weeks ago. I had hoped by now a few more details would have come out, as the panel aims for its implementation by this April. However the newspapers remain silent about it. The panel claims that this recommendation is in line with the three language formula by that it still allows the medium of instruction be the mother tongue, while English will have to be added as either number two or three. The advise goes against the RSS recommendation of last October that suggested that "the medium of instruction from elementary to higher...

Report on research on reading acquisition in AP and Karnataka                          ...

                                  Nepal reports positive effects from local language classes Only a few months ago the Nepal press reported negatively about the multilingual education programs. But this time is different . The article Start of native language classes ups enrolment states : "According to the District Education Office (DEO), the use of native langua...

Pre-primary education in tribal language in Kerala Tribal children at an anganwadi in Attappady. Photo: K. K. Mustafah       The Hindu reports that  The Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KSCPCR) is planning an educational package for tribal pre-primary children in their own language.    The article titled Pre-primary education in tribal language states: "Anganwadi teachers will use languages of different tribal ethnic groups to impart pre-primary education. The curriculum has been prepared, and it includes details of the origin, history, cultural diversity, and social life among different tribal groups " The given rationale reads: “When these children begin their education, at the pre-primary stage in the anganwadis near their settlements, they find themselves lost. The language used for instruction and communication here is frighteningly strange. The process flows on to the primary level too. Majority...

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Last Month the government of Odisha made a significant move in the expansion of the multilingual education program. The Times of India reports: "In a bid to extend the mother-tongue based Multilingual Education Programme (MLE), the state government has decided to use mother tongues as medium of instruction for the first five years in primary schools. In these classes, Odia will be taught as the second language from Class II and English will be introduced as a language subject from Class III."   Usha Padhee, secretary, school and mass education department, Government of Odisha affirms the long-term benefits of multilingual education. It seems that the Odisha government is the first one to take the education in the Mothertongue really serious. Mr Usha Padhee, secretary, school and mass education department states: "Continuing primary education for the first five years of school in the mother tongue will have several long-term benefits like sustained a...

Dear multilingual education friends, Usually newspaper articles report on something new starting. This time Republic in Nepal reports on a failing project. The article Multilingual education fails to attract students in Jhapa points out that due to book supply challenges and resistance from the parents, several MLE classes have stopped.  It would be interesting to investigate further what is going on there. If you know any background on this, please put your comments on the MLE-India blog just below this entry. A few quotes: In Jhapa district, more than three dozen schools had been conducting classes in around half a dozen local languages, including Rajbanshi, Limbu, and Santhal. However, many of these schools could not implement the mother-tongue based education after stakeholders criticized the use of local languages as the medium of instruction. It seems one of the problems was with the teache...

Dear multilingual Education friends, Next week on Monday the 27th there will be a webinar on " Using an Additional Language as the Medium of Instruction: Transition in Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education " The Webinar will be led by Dr Agatha van Ginkel who I happen to know as we both speak the same mother tongue: Dutch! Dr van Ginkel has a wide experience on as well the grassroot level as in national and international level projects. Highly recommended! Note in the below announcement that you need to sign up as the space is limited.

Dear Multilingual Education friends, It is once again that Odisha is in the news with regards to the need to use the mother tongue of the children in the school. This time the initiative to raise a voice was taken by Save the Children (Good to see you name among the speakers, Sanjeev!) and Sikshasandhan. In the context of RTE  a state level consultation on Language, Tribal Education and Right to Education was held in Bhubaneswar last month. A few quotes from the Odishadiary website: A serious attempt should be initiated to explore the existing gaps to address the problems faced by the linguistic minority children, concerted advocacy efforts should be made by civil society groups, education activists and the government for the necessity of having a state level multilingual education policy (Dr Sanjeev Rai) Government has taken some initiatives in this regard meanwhile, but it needs to be exped...

Dear Multilingual Education friends, At least five newspapers reported on the findings of a recent UNICEF sociolinguistic survey in Jharkhand. The study revealed quite interesting findings with regards to the gap between home language and school language. A few quotes: The research was carried out in 72 blocks across the 24 districts of the state, covering 216 villages. During the survey, researchers interacted with schoolchildren, their parents, teachers and village leaders. Over 3,000 kids were profiled during the survey. It was found that mother tongue of over 96 per cent of rural population, including school kids, was tribal or regional languages. While 33 per cent of the children interviewed spoke Santhali at home, 17.5 per cent spoke Khortha, 9.5 per cent Kurukh, 8.2 per cent Nagpuri, 7.6 per cent used Mundari, 6.7 per cent Sadri and 5....

Dear multilingual education friends, Madia children in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh now have the opportunity to learn different subjects in their mother tongue. This used to be impossible in the past due to the double burden of learning various subjects in unfamiliar languages such as Marathi in Maharashtra or Hindi in Chhattisgarh and learning either language in each state. So the following statement makes sense to them now. “Language (Madia) becomes a major issue in early years of education as it is not just a medium of communication but a link to the entire culture and values of a race.” For the entire article for Madia medium MLE school in early stage in Lok Biradari Ashram School, click the below link. Nurturing one's own language

Dear Multilingual Education friends, A group of writers in Karnataka submitted a petition to the supreme court in favour of mother tongue medium education supporting the state government's rule on this regard Are you interested in this in more detail, control click on the following: Times of India: Writers pitch for mother tongue A quote from the petition: " Children can learn better in their mother tongue and it's the appropriate medium. Even Mahatma Gandhi had echoed the same view. Nobody has opposed English. English can be taught as one of the subjects at primary level. ”

Dear  Multilingual Education friends, Is three years of mother tongue medium education long enough? There is a report ( “ The Kom Experimental Mother Tongue Education Pilot Project. Report for 2012 ,” by Stephen L. Walter and Kain Godfrey Chuo) on the Kom Pilot project in Cameron where children from 12 different schools were educated in their mother tongue, Kom, for three years and joined the main stream school grade 4 onwards. The research compares these students with their comparison group with English medium education while they are grade 3, 4, and 5. Here I quote some of their main findings and suggestions. The three year period of the intervention ...

Dear multilingual Education friends, “ Shrimp ’ s back gets broken when whales fight. ” This is an idiom from Korean, meaning when there is fighting between powerful men, weak people could be a scapegoat of the fighting unless they are very careful. This metaphor seems to fit well in this big fighting between English and Hindi and many other local languages which could be scapegoats of this fighting. The English whale seems to be winning the game as there are scare materials available in Hindi for tertiary level education in Delhi and even many government schools in Karnataka will use English as a medium to compete with English medium private schools. Sumanyu Satpathy, linguist at the University of Delhi, wrote an article on it in the Hindu. A few quotes: “The domination of English and Hindi is turning Indian education and culture into a depre...

Dear MultiLingual Education friends, The Guardian had last week an article on the role of English in the Indian education system. A few quotes: "More and more across India, parents are forsaking educating their kids in their mother tongue in favour of English. Despite warnings from educationalists that a child's cognitive development is affected by early schooling in an unfamiliar language, there has been an exponential increase during the last decade in English-medium schools in the country. The latest data compiled by the National University of Education, Planning and Administration (NUEPA) shows that the number of children studying in English-medium schools has increased by a staggering 274% between 2003 and 2011, to over 20 million students." "When the standard of teaching in a regional language school is good, the difference ...