Multilingual Education and India

Creativity comes so much more naturally when we use our heart languages. Creative writing is part of that, and therefore it is good to note the PALASH initiative (Jharkhand) efforts to get the children to write their own books is bearing fruit: One of their books won an international prize. Let's celebrate with them, but also challenge ourselves as only 1 book from India was chosen, while several other countries had multiple finalists.  In a milestone for indigenous literature and mother-tongue education, a Santhali-language storybook created entirely by schoolgirls from Jharkhand has been selected for the IBBY-UNESCO Collection of Remarkable Books for Young Readers in Indigenous and Endangered Languages . Out of hundreds of global entries, this student-led creation now stands among roughly 170 titles representing over 150 indigenous and endangered languages worldwide. Titled "Rimil Aar Chasha Hodo" (The Cloud and the Farmer), the book was authored and illustrated by yo...

  © 2026 Karsten van Riezen What if the textbooks we rely on in multilingual literacy are actually holding us back?  As a teacher, I loved my textbooks: They gave me the clarity and structure I needed. But as we see a new, highly diverse multilingual classroom context emerging, it is time to rethink the role of instructional materials? In my recent  article from Linkedin , I explore the new role of instructional materials in literacy classrooms with learners who speak different local languages. I come to the conclusion that we should focus on 3 interventions and then invite you to your comments on those.  Primer-Centric MLE An important component of traditional Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) programs is the development of a primer in the local language. Such primers are often the anchor around which an entire literacy program is built. Typically, it starts by teaching learners the most common sounds and words in that specific language, builds si...