Multilingual Education and India

It was a tremendous privilege to give a SAMVAD lecture at NCERT on Multilingual Education. Thank you Dr Sandhya Singh and Rama Meganathan for the invitation and warm welcome. It was good seeing some old friends like Binay Pattanayak there ! The SAMVAD Lecture Series was hosted by NCERT(National Council of Education Research and Training) and is available on their official YouTube channel for public viewing on the 10th of January, 2024.  The presentation  was titled “ MLE developments across the world and the current India policies and National Education Policy 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework 2023.” Some of the main sections of the presentation looked at the Global picture, the Indian scenario in the development of Multilingual Education(MLE), and the current initiatives/resources that are available.  The lecture began by introducing the definition of MLE and the rationale behind using MLE in education. Recent research studies were described which support the benefits o

It was quite energising to participate last week in the Asia-Pacific MLE conference in Bangkok. Having so many educationalists come together to learn about how multilingual education is implemented in different settings was inspiring. There were several presenters from India, but  the presentations from other countries were also quite relevant for the Indian context. The 7th International Conference on Language and Education was hosted by UNESCO in Bangkok from 4 to 6 October, 2023. The conference had 475 participants from civil society, academic institutions, and governments. High-level policymakers from over twenty governments in Asia and the Pacific also attended. The Indian government was represented by Ms. Archana Sharma Awasthi, Joint Secretary in the Department of School Education and Literacy, MHRD. India was quite prominently represented at  the conference. Prof. Tsimpli Ianthi shared on the first day about her research on the value of using multiple languages and experiments

It is always good when things move from talking to action : In Assam new textbooks have been developed and distributed for the early grades that are in line with the New Education Policy. It is good to note that they have been produced in several local languages. Still it would be interesting to learn why certain languages are included while others are  not. According to the ANI Report , the Education Minister of Assam last week officially dispatched vehicles with 87.6 lakh  textbooks in local languages of Assam. The languages included are Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Manipuri, Garo, Hmar, and English for Classes 1 to 3. This initiative comes under the NIPUN Assam Mission for the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) programme from the NEP or New Education Policy with special emphasis on teaching children in their mother tongue so as to promote Multilingual Education.  NIPUN is a flagship scheme under National Education Policy 2020 which seeks to achieve the foundational literacy and n

It is always good when research affirms what we have already observed ourselves: it is beneficial for learners when multiple languages are used in the classroom, particularly if the teaching isn’t in the students’ home language. Macmillan Education India is a key stakeholder in the Indian education arena as they regularly produce resources in both print and digital form in addition to engaging in assessments and  teacher training. In February, they presented the results of a survey they did to understand the effects of multilingualism in the classroom. (See full report. ) Managing Director, Rajesh Pasari, writes in the foreword:  “ Through this study, we wanted to find out more about this linguistic phenomenon in relation to English classrooms. The study analysed the potential advantages and challenges of linguistic diversity which can impact the everyday lives of Indian learners in educational institutions. The report documents the multilingual reality and various teaching practices i

Andhra Pradesh has a long history of engaging with multilingual education among the tribal groups. It is good to note that the latest initiative not only focuses on material development, but also on the training of teachers. Hopefully this will make the program more sustainable than previous attempts . While reading up on this, I discovered an NGO that I was not aware of: It is good to note what NEG FIRE is engaged with! According to the recent report from the Times of India , ‘teacher training modules’ have been developed for tribal languages of Andhra Pradesh. The Tribal Cultural Research and Training Mission (TCRTM) held a two-day workshop for the same at Rushikonda. Mother-Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) has been implemented in 1,350 schools in the state according to this news report. The languages covered by this include the Koya, Savara, Adivasi Oria, Jatapu, Kuvi, and Konda Dora.  They plan to train 1,400 teachers who are already working in these schools.( TOI repo

The Language Learning Foundation has been generous enough to share their  webinar series which discusses the complexities of Multilingual Education in the Indian linguistic context in light of the National Education Policy 2020 and NIPUN Bharat guidelines. These webinars were organised during the month of August - September, 2022 and are readily available resources accessible on YouTube. The webinar links have been provided in the titles below and in the Resources section.  Three webinars were organised. The first two were conducted in Hindi, and the third one in English. The links and details of each webinar are given below. The speakers’ contributions were very valuable as the speakers were experts in their fields belonging to institutions such as Harvard, NCERT, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, UNICEF, LLF, experienced teachers,  and MLE specialists.  Webinar 1: Inclusion of the Children’s Home Languages in Foundational Learning This Webinar discussed the importance of including the children’