Multilingual Education and India

Languages matter: global guidance on multilingual education (UNESCO) In 1953, UNESCO published "The use of vernacular languages in education," a historical report advocating for the use of mother tongues in education. It was an influential document in promoting multilingual education. Over the years several other publications followed and this year a fresh report came out: Languages matter: Global guidance on multilingual education . It is good to note that in this report India is mentioned several times with positive examples. Let's hope that also this time the report will help to move us all a bit closer to the desired situation where children can learn in a  language they are comfortable with before transitioning to a dominant language. As this was the 25th anniversary of the International Mother Language Day (21st February, 2025), UNESCO released a report, Languages matter: Global guidance on multilingual education which expresses the urgent need to include multili...

A joint conference between government, civil society and universities is always good for cross fertilisation. The   British Council focused the yearly School Education Conference this year on multilingual pedagogy and practice in school education. At these conferences a significant number of teachers attend: a good way to interact with the multilingual classroom realities! The School Education Conference 2025, held on February 4, 2025, in collaboration between the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the British Council, was a pivotal event focusing on "Enhancing Multilingual Pedagogy and Practice in the Classroom." The conference aligned with India's National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE), emphasizing the transformative role of multilingual education in fostering inclusive and effective learning environments. Conference Highlights: Theme: The central theme revolved around integrating multil...

This week is the International week of Sign Languages. When I watched a few years ago the Oscar winning short movie " The Silent Child ", it made a big impression on me: everywhere in the world many deaf children grow up without a language at all. What a tragedy!  In recent years more attention has been given to sign languages. Including in India. Still we have a long way to go! The International Day of Sign Languages , observed on September 23, promotes awareness of sign languages in ensuring equal rights for the deaf community and the last week of September is observed as the International week of the Deaf . This year’s theme  for the International Day of Sign Languages highlights inclusivity and accessible communication for all. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 63 million people in India have significant auditory impairment, which is roughly 6.3% of the population.  The National Education Policy 2020(NEP 2020) recognizes the importance of prom...

It was good to attend the conference on “Language Education in Multilingual Contexts”  at the English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad. Such a large amount of abstracts that were sent in that they had to set a limit on the number of attendees and presenters. This shows that multilingual education is presently a hot topic. Good!  “Translanguaging” was the buzzword of the conference. Prof Ajit Mohanty commented that it seems like a ghost: Everybody talks about it but nobody has seen it. Fortunately,  Dr Sangsok Son used a helpful metaphor that made the concept more concrete: the mixing of languages in the classroom is like spinning a top. Overall it was good that after several years there was an India-based language conference again! (see overview ) The English and Foreign Languages University of Hyderabad (EFLU) Department of Materials Development, Testing, and Evaluation organised a two-day, International Conference on Language Education in Multilingual Con...

Always good to see classroom level research done in India, particularly when it focuses on the language issue. The focus of this research is on the influence of multilingualism on reading performance. It is a small study but good to note that it shows how  teaching in a familiar language has positive effects, and also that children who do not speak the majority language need extra support. TESOL Quarterly (Wiley online library) recently published a research  article titled the “Effects of Mother Tongue Education and Multilingualism on Reading Skills in the Regional Language and English in India.” The research  examined how mother tongue education and multilingualism  influences the reading skills and reading comprehension of 1272 Indian primary school children from low income homes. The study took place across three sites in India, namely Delhi, Hyderabad, and Patna. The main aim of the study was to assess if there was a relation between mother tongue education/mult...