Central Institute of Indian Languages

The CIIL, in collaboration with UNESCO, UNICEF and NCERT, will host a Workshop on Multilingual Education with special focus on Tribal Education, during October 25-27, 2005. The Workshop is part of an effort to enable primary education through children’s mother tongues. It will provide a platform where practitioners, scholars and policy makers can meet together and learn from each other. It is expected to result in concrete plans of action to increase the number of languages in the initial stages of education.

The workshop will be practical and leading to action. 50% of the time will be devoted to awareness raising, 30% to discussion and 20% planning. The awareness raising will be through paper presentations on theory, case studies and application. In small groups important issues will be discussed and processed. Planning meetings will take place on state level.

The participants will –

Come up with concrete recommendations for the participating states to begin project development and implementation plans for 6 months to 1 year

Background

India is essentially a multilingual country where linguistic diversity is part of the historical cultural heritage and an integral part of nation building philosophy. This provides a challenge and an opportunity for the education planner. The exact number of languages is a bit of guess work but as per 1991 census, of over 3000 odd names returned as mother tongues, 216 rationalized mother tongues- each of which is spoken by more than 10,000 people- account for over 99% of the population. These are further classified as 114 languages belonging to four distinct linguistic families: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic, all of which have some tribal speech communities, but the last two are predominantly so.
22 of the 114 languages are listed under 8th schedule [which includes two tribal languages-Santali and Bodo] with wide spread usage in several domains and fairly well developed literature not only in the standard variety but in some other varieties too. But the rest 92 are in different stages of development. While all may have history of rich oral tradition, less than half have made a transition to the realm of literacy and formal education. This may be partly because several tribal languages are still to be formally recognised by the state governments in the domain of education, and also, perhaps, partly because like their policy makers some groups within the communities themselves are not too convinced about the need to do so, and among those who are convinced, very few know how to put it into practice. Although education is multilingual, tribal mother tongues are still striving for authentic space.

The UNESCO position paper titled “Education in a Multi-Lingual World” (Paris, October 2002) states that Educationalists all over the world agree that the medium of instruction, at least in the initial stages, should be the mother tongue of the learners .The 2003 UNESCO Asia level Conference on Language Development, Language Revitalisation and Multi-Lingual Education (Bangkok, Nov 6-8 2003), organised in collaboration with SIL International and the Mahidol University, and attended by 15 Indian delegates, reiterated the position and emphasised the growing concern for the same. In the Indian Context, the National Curriculum Framework of NCERT (especially Focus Group report on the teaching of Indian languages 2005) resonates with these principles and with a renewed sense of awakening states that our diversity is to be nurtured and languages are to be seen as a resource to enrich schools, where initial teaching in tribal schools should be in the tribal language. However, it is also recognized that the implementation of this recommendation will have to take place on state level. The authentic place of mother tongue in educational domain is not meant to be subtractive but additive which fosters healthy multilingualism and ensures growth of all languages.

EFA [Education For All] figures show clearly that tribal groups in India are lagging behind in the educational progress. Although education in the mother tongue is considered a right in the Indian constitution and, like in the present, the language policies in the past too have recognized its pivotal role in the formation of multilingual competence, in practice, most education is commenced in what are labelled as the more developed and standardized state or national languages, even when the learners have great difficulty. In the process not only are the tribal children forced to cope with the gap between the school and home languages, their own languages are not always given an opportunity to develop, for it is only usage that develops a language. It is therefore evident that little attention has been given to the tribal population in particular and the linguistic factor has been ignored. We hope this India Workshop on Multilingual Education with Special Focus on Tribal Education would help to clarify the implications of the UNESCO position paper and the recent NCERT recommendations for the EFA process in India and bridge the gap between policy and practice.

As was pointed out, in spite of the consensus in informed circles that the mother tongue is the best medium of instruction there has not been enough done to implement it. It is as if, those in charge of the education programme are either not aware of the linguistic issues or dismiss it as too complicated a matter to tackle. The Tribal Welfare and Education Departments, responsible for implementation, are often not in communication with each other and interaction with NGO’s and scholars who could support the processes is either ignored or limited. The states that show initiative in this regard are struggling. We therefore need to share the plight of different communities and states so that we develop an idea of the problems involved and visualize possible steps to be taken. It is therefore imperative to realize that this workshop will not remain centred around the theme of mother tongue education alone but will move towards the creation of multilingual competence that will enhance performance in all school languages and subjects. This workshop should help us realize that the processes of curriculum development, teacher training, implementation and evaluation are very complex. Support is needed from all well meaning quarters that have no other covert agenda and are moved solely by the idea of responsible nation building with a thrust towards an egalitarian pluralistic social order that will ensure enhanced participation of the tribals.

The workshop will create a platform where practitioners, scholars and policy makers from different parts of the country can meet together and learn from each other. This will result in concrete plans of action to increase the number of languages in the initial stages of education and also visualize strategies for enhanced multilingual competence.

Since policies are made on state level, the workshop primarily seeks to involve state level representatives. A limited number of national level people have also been invited. The aim is to have a balanced audience between grass root workers, scholars and policy makers. The total number of participants on the first two days [25th-26th Oct] will be around 60-70 people of which 30-40 are state level invitees. For the third and final day [27th] high level policy makers have been invited from state as well as national level.
Eleven states with large tribal populations have been selected. Priority has been given to states where initiatives regarding tribal education are already taking place. The states are: Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura & Nagaland [all from Northeast]; Chattisgarh, Jharkhand , Madhya Pradesh, Orissa &Gujrat [predominantly Central India] and Andhra Pradesh from South. As the workshop is being hosted at Mysore in Karnataka, some invitees who are working for tribal education in that state will also figure in discussion and some from neighbouring states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Kerala could also come

The workshop will be practical and leading to action. 50% of the time will be devoted to awareness raising, 30% to discussion and 20% planning. The awareness raising will be through paper presentations on theory, case studies and application. In small groups important issues will be discussed and processed. Planning meetings will take place on state level, which will result in concrete plans.
The workshop should generate an animated exchange of information and experience, which will result in a momentum to move forward.

Inform us of the issues involved in multilingual education in their state and about literacy practices inside and outside the school in different communities
Become aware of the international trends in multi-lingual education and critically evaluate its relevance to local settings
Have a good picture of the NCERT guidelines for the use of the mother tongue in the classroom and linkage devices across curriculum
Take ownership of the present problems and sensitise the planners in turn to the needs and role of community in specific contexts of language planning and to come up with concrete recommendations for the participating states to begin project development and implementation plans for 6 months to 1 year.

The steering committee is to ensure that the issues discussed are communicated to the EFA planning meetings. The steering committee will also monitor the implementation of the action plans, secure funding, and facilitate integration with existing programmes.
Technical support will be given to initiatives that will promote the use of the tribal mother tongues in schools for:
Language analysis and orthography development
Culturally appropriate curriculum that is locally developed, with testing and review
Teacher training in culturally appropriate methods, use of materials, etc.

State level consultations and workshops should be encouraged as a follow-up strategy.
A follow-up on the consultation should take place within a year after the workshop with a smaller group of the state secretaries and the steering committee.

The workshop had input from a wide range of people through a steering committee which comprised of the following persons:

A preparatory Committee was also set up for this purpose from among the members of the steering committee, which met from time to time, to decide on the agenda and formulate the plans

The workshop is being jointly sponsored by UNESCO, NCERT, CIIL, and UNICEF and hosted by CIIL, Mysore.