The ‘New National Education Policy-2020’ emphasizes on teaching in mother tongue in primary classes. However, when this provision is viewed in the context of the diverse language base of the tribal people, the task appears to be quite difficult.
In such a scenario, Odisha’s decade-long experiment in multilingual education can prove to be important.
The most important aspect of ‘Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education’ (MTBMLE) is that it helps in saving the endangered tribal languages.
Key points
The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Development Department of the Government of Odisha has started a project named ‘Samhati’.
It will address the language issues faced by tribal students in the elementary classes.
Under this the department plans to cover about 2.5 lakh students in 1,450 primary schools in the state.
Implementing Agency: The project is being implemented along with Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Research and Training Institute (SCSTRTI) and Tribal Language and Culture Academy (ATLC), Bhubaneswar.
Multilingual Education: Under the Code, it has been decided that functional knowledge of tribal languages and ways of communicating with tribal students will be provided to all primary level teachers.
There are 21 different languages spoken among the tribal community of Odisha. Of the 21 languages, Santhali is the only language that has been included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
It is taught in its old ‘OlChiki script’, while the rest of the tribal languages have Odia scripts.
Only six tribal languages- Santhali, Ho, Saura, Munda and Kui have a written script.
These students are a multilingual group as opposed to monolingual groups in regular schools.
Way forward:
A tribal student sees the world in his own language. Mother tongue based education is a welcome step. There are few civil society organizations in Odisha that have demonstrated promising models of MTBMLE education system (like Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences).
Tribal languages are used as medium of instruction in primary schools, there is a need to standardize these languages.
Efforts should be made to develop textbooks in tribal languages as per the syllabus of State Boards, Government Textbook Norms and National Education Policy.
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