Multilingual Education and India

2015 Mother Language Day Every year after Feb 21st, the International Mother Language Day, it is fun to surf the internet to see what is done in India to celebrate the languages that the children speak at home.   This year the United Nations has put the spotlights on the educational aspect of celebrating the mother tongue: " International Mother Language Day is a moment for all of us to raise the flag for the importance of mother tongue to all educational efforts, to enhance the quality of learning and to reach the unreached. Every girl and boy, every woman and man must have the tools to participate fully in the lives of their societies – this is a basic human right and it is a force for the sustainability of all development " ( UN Source ) The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has send a notice to the English medium schools affiliated with Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to mark the occasion with celebrations and contests. The notice r

Dear MLE friends, The project managers of the Toto mother tongue based multilingual education project in West Bengal have become very creative in their fund raising. Instead of looking for big donors, they are collecting funds via crowd-sourcing. Look at their promotional website and video to learn how they do that. Besides that, the approach the project is taking is also of interest. Lissa Davies writes "... We have been using Karla's heritage playschool book as our template curriculum. We have since, developed our own curriculum and TLMs, which we are thinking of putting  into a publishable document, given that there must be other communities out there, especially in India, whereby they face the same problems we have faced. " 

Dear MultiLingual Education friends, B elow is  the invitation and abstract submission call for 4th International Conference on Language and Education which is held from 6 to 8 Nov, 2013, in Bangkok , Thailand. This conference is hosted by 14 national and international organization this year such as UNESCO, UNICEF, Room to Read, SIL International, etc. Notice that submission deadline of participant’s abstract is by the end of this month and registration deadline is by the end of Aug. (See message from UNESCO below, which includes a list of speakers) Please visit the conference website for detailed information. It will be good to have a good representation from India there!

Dear MLE friends, Global Partnership for Education has uploaded 700+ education photos from around the world on a photo gallery on Flickr. There are 96 photos of schools from different parts of India such as Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, etc. To download those, click the next link. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gpforeducation/sets/72157632763865771/ Please don’t forget to give credit to the photographer and GPE ( Global Partnership for Education ) and enjoy watching the photos. 

Dear multilingual education friends, In Assam some good pilots are going on and the press has found them. Last week the attached article appeared in a newspaper in Assam. Interestingly the article highlights that from the boy they feature his English has become better. It seems that is an important point for advocacy because it is English that the society values most. A quote: "Kisun, however, is an exception. He is the only one in the family who attends an Adivasiya school and can read and write English" "'Earlier when I was studying in the LP school in the village, I could not understand English or follow any of my lessons. However, after coming to Adivasiya school, I can read and write English to some extent. I have also learned my own language better now.'" The article then continues to explain more about the school, the pilot project and the brother MLE efforts in the country an

Dear MLE friends, In April it will be two years since the the Right to Education (RTE) Act was introduced. Forward Press Magazine published a critical article on the progress made thus far:  A Fundamental Wrong: Education for too Few . The author, Suzana Andrade, makes an interesting comparison with Finland were they also implemented a major education transform several years back: "In 1971, Finland's government realised that the only way to modernise its economy and compete in an increased competitive world was to transform its basic education. According to a recent article in The Atlantic magazine, the secret to Finland's success is that the goal they pursued was not excellence, but equity". On India: "Today, though the policies and rhetoric have changed, the underlying worldview remains: our society continues to prioritise a few and exclude the rest".