Multilingual Education and India

It was inspiring to listen to Dr Subir Shukla at the Lead India webinar recently. Subir challenged us that we tend to spend far too much energy and time on the 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘤 dimensions of  multilingual education: developing textbooks, solving orthography issues, creating certificates, etc. We should spend more energy on the 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘤 dimensions: using the languages of the children to connect with the children, to draw them out, to let them engage. That makes more difference in the learning results than getting the curriculum in the "right" languages. If that is the case, we might need to change the narrative around what MLE is about . Let us explore what Subhir had to say! At the September 2025 LEAD Community of Practice meeting, Dr. Subir Shukla challenged a persistent misconception about Multilingual Education (MLE): that MLE is seen as a project but should be more than a project or program — a part of the education system as a whole. While acknowledging the t...

What could be more fun than reading a book authored by someone you know and about a topic you know about? The latest book by Dr. Mahendra Mishra focuses on Multilingual Education (MLE) in Tribal schools in India. I particularly liked the chapter on implementation as I remember so well how Dr. Mishra worked with our SIL colleagues Steve and Vicky Simpson, developing "Community Calendars" and "Theme Webs". It was around 2007 that I visited the project and saw the theme webs on the walls and the tribal teachers enthusiastically developing “big books”. That process is described on page 100 of the book which puts it literally and figuratively at the centre: This book is not just about the language issue in education but particularly shows a passion for the culture and folklore in which the children live and make that part of the teaching, books, and activities. In the concluding paragraph of that chapter Mishra writes "The community took a keen interest in sharing ...

In my report on the Multilingual Education Conference in Bangkok in 2019, I mentioned a presentation from Anjela Taneja from Oxfam. I was very glad to note that Anjela has now taken the time to turn her findings into a paper so that we can all benefit from it. Upasana Lepcha has written below a helpful summary of the paper. Oxfam India has released a comprehensive paper on Multilingual Education (MLE) The Right to Mother Tongue-Based Education in Tribal India: A Comparative Perspective by Anjela Taneja. The paper  examines already existing Mother-Tongue-Based-Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) programmes in India for tribal populations. It brings to light the gaps and challenges facing MTB-MLE and makes recommendations on how to overcome them. The first part of the paper addresses the severe underuse of the mother tongue as a medium of instruction in India and how this is especially crippling for the tribal children. Although tribals  constitute 8.6 percent of the total popul...

Odisha is often ahead of the game in comparison with other states when it comes to Multilingual Education. That is no surprise, given the heavy investment in that state by people like Prof D. P. Pattanayak, Prof Ajit Mohanty, and Dr Mahendra Mishra! It is good to note that, in the latest initiative, attention is given not only  to the language , but also to the relevance of the content for the children. The New Indian Express reports that tribal children in Odisha will be taught their indigenous knowledge systems such as their indigenous rituals, cropping methods, and much more along with their mother tongue. The multilingual approach will include their indigenous language along with the state language, Odia. These two initiatives come from the  Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribe  Development, Minorities and Backward Classes Welfare department under the guidance of the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020 .  P. Patel from the  Academy of Tribal Langu...