Promising results from a grassroot NGO: MLE pupils do better in Maths and English
© Abhishek Scariya Visiting local NGOs sometimes reveals hidden gems. When I was at the Asha Kiran Society in Southern Odia last week, they talked about a study they did six years ago to compare children in their MLE classes with children who had only regular school inputs. While studies of these may not be at the quality of a scientific paper, they do help us by providing a peek into the positive impact Multilingual Education has. Here are some learnings from their internal report. The COVID-19 pandemic caused disruptions to global education, forcing primary school students to endure six to eight months without proper classes or structured educational inputs. This provided Asha Kiran with an opportunity to do a unique study - to check for ‘retained learning’ - after 6 months of no formal educational inputs! In November 2022 the Asha Kiran Society in southern Odia conducted a small, quasi-experimental study to see whether the children who had gone through ...