[MLE] UNICEF report on Early Literacy and Multilingual Education in South Asia

Final Report “Early Literacy and Multilingual Education in South Asia” 

A few months ago UNICEF published the final report on their research on Early Literacy and Multilingual Education in South Asia. The study is based on literature review on early literacy and multilingual education, surveys of students’ literacy achievements in primary grades, analysis of sociolinguistic situations, and policy and programme documents. That 100 page report is worth noting!

[MLE] NCERT study ; "States realize English is what people want"

Dear Multilingual Education friends,

As a follow up on the NCERT study National Study on Ten Year School Curriculum Implementation the Times of India published this week an article titled States realize English is what people want. A few quotes

It's not just parents across India who are confused about the time and importance to be given to education in English and the vernacular; the latest data from NCERT reveals our education establishment is just as perplexed, with very little uniformity in the way regional languages are treated.

Almost 30% states devote [only] six to seven periods a week in Class V for teaching the local language, the study says.

English seems to be scoring. Introduced towards the middle of elementary school, it is now offered at the Class I level in 26 states, making it clear that most states have realized that that is what people want.

"While they (parents) may know they are abandoning their heritage by putting their children early into English-medium private schools, they are sanguine about this, choosing to survive in the present milieu over being the reluctant custodians of local languages that have given them precious little in terms of livelihood in return for loyalty."

[MLE] Report on Language in education in Nepal; with reference to MLE in India

Dear Multilingual Education friends,

The report "Language issues in Educational Policies and practices in Nepal: A critical review" draws an interesting conclusion. It builds a strong case that just doing MT for the first couple of years ("early exit") does not work. The 50 page report is published by Australian Aid.  A quote:

" ... children are not able to develop strong competence in their mother tongues until there are taught through L1 for the first 8 years as in Ethiopia. To promote quality education in Nepal, it is mandatory to promote teaching in children’s first language (be it Nepali or other local languages) for the first six years (at least) (ideally 8 years). The Ethiopian evidence shows that children learn English better when they have strong competence in their first language. "

Some other recommendations are:

• Enough materials in local languages should be prepared before the implementation of the programme.

• Community participation and involvement of other stakeholders should be ensured in all stages of the programme.
• Eight-year long MTB-MLE provides a strong foundation for children’s learning and help them achieve better in all subjects including second and foreign language.

• Decentralized decision-making process, with effective inspection and mentoring, helps for the effective implementation of the MTB-MLE. As Ethiopian case suggests there is no single uniform model of the programme in different states. It depends upon the need of the different regions.
  
•  Teachers’ capacity in mother tongue teaching is one of the most important factors for making teaching and learning of MT effective
  

[MLE] ASER education report 2011 for the first time includes language data

Dear Multilingual Education friends,
ASER does each year an independent assessment of the status of primary education in the country. ASER 2011 reached 558 districts, 16,017 villages, 327,372 households and 633,465 children. This year I somehow missed reporting on it in January. Here is a key finding you might find interesting:

Nationally, reading levels are estimated to have declined in many states across North India. The All India figure for the proportion of children in Std V able to read a Std 2 level text has dropped from 53.7% in 2010 to 48.2% in 2011. Such declines are not visible in the southern states.

However for this mailing list the most interesting thing is that this year for the first time the survey included a question on language:. The instructions read: “ Ask the child or any adult in the household which language is spoken at home, by the family members” (Full instructions copied below.) The summary of the result is:

A quarter of all rural children attend primary schools where the medium of instruction is different from their home language

I looked at the data per state. Some interesting figures:

STATE	Home Language is Different From School Language (%)
Nagaland	100%
Chhattisgarh	99%
Manipur	98%
Arunachal Pradesh	96%
Jammu & Kashmir	95%
Himachal Pradesh	89%
Rajasthan	77%
Uttarkhand	67%
Jharkhand	61%
Bihar	53%

(The full table is given below)

[MLE] NCERT Evaluation Report on MLE Project Orissa

Dear Multilingual Education Friends,

The evaluation report by NCERT's Department of Elementary Education on the Orissa MultiLingual Education projects under SSA/OPEPA is now available on-line at the TCF-SSA website*. These are some highlights from the summary:

• Overall, results suggested that children in MLE schools (treatment group) received significantly higher achievement scores than children in non-MLE schools (comparison group). However, scores for several Tribal languages showed that students of non-MLE schools did as well or even slightly better than students of MLE schools.
  
• Other positive impacts noted by the stakeholders included: increased self-respect and self-confidence among children; increased interest in school; increased participation in learning; and increased use of the tribal languages. There were also perceived changes in enrolment, better retention rates, and lower drop-out rates in Multilingual Education programme schools due to the programme intervention; however, there were some variations according to tribal language.
• The positive unintended outcomes of the program identified included improved relationships among teachers and among students and increased motivation and eagerness among students.
  
• Unintended negative outcomes identified included increased drop-out rates for children from other castes, reduced participation of disabled children and a preference for the Oriya language over the mother-tongue.
  
• A systematic method of monitoring of schools needs to be developed. The monitoring and supervision needs to be an ongoing process from State/District/Block and Cluster Resource Centres.