Education in Mother Languages Improves Student Learning and Sustains Heterogeneous Traditions

ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846
Education in Mother Languages Improves Student

Learning and Sustains Heterogeneous Traditions
EPW ENGAGE
Though India’s Constitution and educational policies promise to provide education in mother
languages, limited efforts have been made to fulfil the promise.
With over 19,500 languages or dialects, India is among four countries, including Nigeria,
Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, that have the highest number of “living languages.”
Languages play a vital role in ensuring that cultural and social practices are preserved,
developed and sustained. Globally, however, the United Nations found that about 43% of
languages spoken are vulnerable to extinction.
Boa Sr, who belonged to the Bo tribe native to the Andaman islands, was the last person
who could speak Bo. In 2010, she passed away, “breaking a 65,000-year link to one of the
world's oldest cultures.” The extinction of the Bo language and her death drew criticism
from linguists and activists who felt that the government had not done enough to preserve
the languages of the native Andamanese.
A sustainable way that languages can be preserved and developed is through a

transformation of education programmes that currently prioritise English and Hindi.
Research establishes that providing education in mother tongues not only reduces dropout
rates, but it also improves students’ learning and performance levels.
This reading list examines the government's multiple efforts to provide education in mother
languages.
Institutional Barriers
Prabhat K Singh identifies that the use of dominant language in educational programmes
pose a formidable barrier for students to attend and perform well. Most of Jharkhand’s 32
Scheduled Tribes (STs) and several ethnic groups have their own language. Singh
recognises that although the Constitution requires the government to provide education for
students from linguistic minority communities, Adivasi students are usually taught in
dominant regional languages and English.
One major reason for children’s low attendance and poor performance in
school is the problem of comprehension, since the language in which they are
taught (Hindi) is foreign to them. This language barrier leads to a high dropout
rate among tribal children, and by Class 5, 50% of them leave school, and by
Class 10, 80% drop out. According to some statistics, out of 100 tribal children,
only 20 manage to appear in high school examinations and only eight of them
pass.
Multilingual Education in Practice

Seemita Mohanty writes that the aggregate literacy level of Odias are far higher than the
Adivasis of the state. This indicates a pattern of systematic discrimination and deprivation
tribals have been made to experience in other states as well. Education, Mohanty argues,
can offer a way to challenge this discrimination and make progress towards equity among
residents of Odisha. Mohanty offers multiple insights based on her qualitative study in
Sundargarh district in Odisha (with STs comprising half the population of the state) of a
“Mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB MLE)” programme. She found that
… by Class III, students were all seen to be becoming well-versed in Odia,

irrespective of whether an MLE teacher was appointed to the school/class or
not. The presence of a MLE teacher itself made the path to learn a new
language relatively smooth for the children—wherever the programme was
functioning well. Otherwise, with the help of local teachers, senior students,
matrons and cooks of the hostels, the headmasters try to ease the language
problems faced by the student(s) in their initial period of stay. Hence within
two to three years, as perceived by the teachers, students become well-versed
in the regional language and develop the ability and capabilities required to
further progress into the more senior classes.
Educational Material and Multiple Languages in a Single Classroom

Ayesha Kidwai writes that education researchers were pleased to notice that the Draft
National Policy on Education (DNEP), 2016 proposed “that the medium of instruction be the
mother tongue or regional language up to class 5 as a mandatory provision.” However,
Kidwai noticed that there was scant information on how this goal would be achieved. A
systematic plan must be made, she emphasises, given that instructional materials up to
Class 5 need to be made, and several languages do not have a script. Moreover, given that
there can be multiple mother tongues in the same classroom, the DNEP is silent on how the
students would be taught.
By not envisaging mechanisms with clear goals enabling choice of language of

instruction and the generation, standardisation, and training of teachers in
instructional material, the report is guilty of having the same unworkability for
which it has critiqued earlier NPEs [National Policy of Education].
Mother Languages in Higher Education

Kidwai also adds that the DNEP 2016 does not offer a systematic plan to encourage the use
of mother languages at the level of higher education. This is important since content
production, teachers’ education, formulation of pedagogy and methods of evaluation all
often take place at the level of higher education. A group of Delhi-based university teachers
identified these lapses and offered suggestions to the government. One suggestion involved
individual universities supporting translation activities.
Any research student who receives full financial assistance/fellowship from the
university/the UGC may be required, as part of the conditions of availing the
fellowship, to produce a translation of a research article into or from English
(or any other language) every year in his/her chosen area of research.
“Othering” Urdu
Ather Farouqui points out that with the rise of the Hindu revivalist movement in the late
19th century, Urdu was increasingly seen as exclusively the language of Muslims. Farouqui
recognises that with the rise of discrimination against Muslims, Urdu “more or less become
a means of religious education.” He adds that, in North India, this is largely because the
public education system has denied offering opportunities to learn Urdu.
Academically, we can devise a formula for the survival of Urdu by introducing

it in school education, and this too can be an ideal position, but we fail when
the question of implementation comes before us. Survival of Urdu is a political
question and demands political will and strategy to address it. One cannot but
see government agencies as the greatest obstacle shamelessly devising new
policies to systematically eliminate this language.
Read more:
The Purpose of Language: Debating the Future of Intellectual Activity in India | EPW
Engage, 2018
National Language Debate: What Does It Mean for Indian Pluralism? | EPW Engage,
2019
On Teaching Sanskrit and Mother Tongues: An Open Letter to Smriti Irani | Sowmya
Dechamma, 2014
Language and Schooling of Tribal Children-Issues Related to Medium of Instruction |
Geetha B Nambissan, 1994
Image-Credit/Misc:
Image courtesy: Modified. Wikimedia Commons/Rohini [CC BY-SA 4.0]

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ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Education in Mother Languages Improves Student

A sustainable way that languages can be preserved and developed is through a

Multilingual Education in Practice

… by Class III, students were all seen to be becoming well-versed in Odia,

Educational Material and Multiple Languages in a Single Classroom

By not envisaging mechanisms with clear goals enabling choice of language of

Mother Languages in Higher Education

Academically, we can devise a formula for the survival of Urdu by introducing

Image courtesy: Modified. Wikimedia Commons/Rohini [CC BY-SA 4.0]

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