International Network for Development

focus on education

Focus on Education

INDIA

Imagine being taught in a language you don’t know – or don’t know very well. Imagine trying to do business or fill in forms in this different language – when your own language isn’t even written down.

This is what it is like for more than 60 million tribal people who live in the central region of India, in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and others; and for many more living in North East India.  Each state has its own official language; for example, in Andhra Pradesh (AP) it is Telugu, in Orissa it is Oriya, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh it is Hindi and Maharastra, Maharati.  Each also has its own script.  Telugu, Oriya, Devanagiri scripts.  In each state there are scores of other languages which are not scripted.  In AP, for example, there are 33 tribal languages; in Orissa there are 62 tribes with 150-200 dialects, Chhattisgarh has 23….

See Ethnologue: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IN

For children of these tribal groups their experience of school is often very negative as the language of instruction is the major state language; a language which they have rarely or never heard.  Most of the tribal children, when they start school, know nothing of these languages and certainly do not understand enough of the language to do well at school. Twenty five percent drop out in the first year; up to 80% have dropped out by 8th grade, very few go on to higher education, and many more never go to school at all.

Teachers often say that tribal children are unable to learn; but it is not children who are failing education – the system is failing the children.

The teachers, where they are from the majority group, do not speak the tribal languages or understand the tribal cultures.  Those who are posted to the tribal villages do not like to stay where there are few facilities and often do not attend classes.  Where teachers from the tribal communities are employed, training is limited, the curriculum is too dense and there are no suitable local materials.

One strategy to overcome these difficulties is MLE: Multilingual education, providing a strong foundation in the mother tongue and a good bridge to new languages.  This requires a specialised locally developed curriculum which starts in their mother tongue and with the child's known environment and culture, gradually adding other languages over the whole period of primary and into secondary schooling.  Children's knowledge of and ability in the language(s) of wider communication should be developed well before these languages are used as the media of learning, and even then the mother tongue should always be used to ensure comprehension.  Special skills are required in language development and in preparing a culturally appropriate curriculum, using teaching methods more appropriate to a tribal child's development, and knowlege of best practices in language learning.

In 2004, the Government of Andhra Pradesh's Educatiaon and Tribal Welfare Departments agreed to work in eight of the tribal languages and the first multilingual education project in India began.  These eight tribal languages were written down using the Telugu script and a primary education project using these languages is in the process of being developed.  It was piloted in 10 schools in each of the eight languages; the following year this was increased to 20 schools in each language group with more being added each year (55 schools in the Koya area and 105 among the Gond).  Now using textbooks and supporting materials (literature, games and other activities) for grades 1 to 3, in their mother tongues, the children in these schools are learning to much more easily.  The interaction in the classroom between the teacher (also from the same community) and the students has been transformed and children are learning to skills of reading and writing, learning concepts in maths, science, social studies all in their own language and taken from their culture and environment.  Some are now beginning to learn Telugu, the second language: we await to see whether their ability in the second language outdoes those who learn only in the second language.  Seeing the children's involvement in their own learning and the activity in the classroom, I do not doubt its success!  

Koya children at one of the MLE schools	Gondi teacher and children using a mother tongue big book