Multilingual Education and India

Dear multilingual Education friends, Odisha has for several year be one of the front runners for multilingual education. It wants to expand the program and has decided to recruit teacher assistants ("Siksha Sahayaks") for the program. This move is part of a wider initiative to push the responsibility of the education down to the community. More details can be read in the article titled " Siksha sahayaks to be engaged in MLE ". A few quotes: Although the [MLE] programme had been implemented by transferring teachers with expertise in the tribal language to the MLE schools, absence of adequate number of teachers prompted the Government to engage siksha sahayaks for effective implementation of the programme. In fact, the Government has already approved a policy on MLE which calls for continuation of the programme and its coverage to all tribal children. In a latest resolution that seeks

Dear multilingual education friends, Yesterday I read in the Indian Express India speaks...780 ways about the completion of the People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI). They found 780 languages spoken in India. A quote: After what can easily be called the largest-ever survey of languages in the world, spread over four years, involving around 85 institutions, roping in as many linguists, sociologists, anthropologists and cultural activists, and tapping over 3,000 volunteers, the centre has compiled its findings. In the year 2013, shows the 'People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI)', there are 780 languages spoken across the length and breadth of the country. In contrast, the 2001 Census listed just 122 languages

Dear MultiLingual Education friends, UNESCO Bangkok just published the 10th Issue of Multilingual Education E-Newsletter . It has MLE related news-items from all over Asia , a list of resources related to education  and a overview of relevant events. The most interesting event is probably the 4th International Conference on Language and Education: Multilingual Education for All in Asia and the Pacific - Policies, Practices and Processes , Thailand; 6-8 November 2013. There is also a link to the MLE Mapping Data as maintained by the Asia Multilingual Education Working Group with a request to contribute to it.

Dear multilingual education friends, The British Council is pleased to share the link of the videos from the 3 rd International English Language Teacher Educator Conference (TEC) held in Hyderabad from 16 - 18 March 2013. The videos have been uploaded on YouTube and you can view them at this link . There are some interesting presentations such as “ Evaluation Study of MLE of Odisha ” by Lata Pandey from NCERT, “Grounding ELT in an MLE Framework” by Ajit Mohanty from JNU “Importance of Mother Tongue Education for Quality Education” by Pamela Mackenzie from INfD Enjoy watching them and others. From some of the speakers there are presentation available also .

Dear multilingual Education friends, Earlier this month we read about the results of the Sociolinguistic Research that UNICEF facilitated in Jharkhand. Alongside this also dictionaries were developed in the following languages: Santhali, Mundari, Ho, PanchPargania, Nagpuri, Khortha, Kharia, Kurukh and Kurmali. The dictionaries were developed via Mother Tongue Based Active Language Learning (M-TALL) along with Tribal Welfare Research Institute. The Times of India Reports on it here . A quote: Speaking on the occasion Mridula Sinha, principal secretary, Department of Social Welfare, Women & Child Development said: "I strongly believe that children's language skills need to be strengthened and it is our priority and for achieving this goal these dictionaries are launched which will be available at all anganwadi centres and schools to impart education to children. In this respect,

Dear Multilingual Education friends, The Bihar government claims to be the first state to start a language bridge course. Beginning mid-July, teachers in  government primary schools in Bihar will teach class one students Hindi equivalents for words in Bajjika, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Angika and Magahi. To support the implementation dictionaries in these languages are produced also. A quote from the article in The Indian Express : HRD Principal Secretary Amarjeet Sinha said, "As government schools have mostly students from villages, it's important to provide them a comfort level. They hardly speak Hindi. Teachers, with the aid of the dictionary, will help children pick up Hindi words. The dialect to Hindi dictionary will be primarily for teachers but can be referred to students as well. The idea is to minimise number of out-of-school children.

Dear Multilingual Education friends, At least five newspapers reported on the findings of a recent UNICEF sociolinguistic survey in Jharkhand. The study revealed quite interesting findings with regards to the gap between home language and school language. A few quotes: The research was carried out in 72 blocks across the 24 districts of the state, covering 216 villages. During the survey, researchers interacted with schoolchildren, their parents, teachers and village leaders. Over 3,000 kids were profiled during the survey. It was found that mother tongue of over 96 per cent of rural population, including school kids, was tribal or regional languages. While 33 per cent of the children interviewed spoke Santhali at home, 17.5 per cent spoke Khortha, 9.5 per cent Kurukh, 8.2 per cent Nagpuri, 7.6 per cent used Mundari, 6.7 per cent Sadri and 5.