The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 emphasizes the importance of mother tongue-based education in fostering holistic development and preserving cultural identity. This paper examines the significance of mother tongue in the NEP 2020, highlighting its implications for educational practices and outcomes. Through a comprehensive review of literature and policy analysis, the paper elucidates the role of mother tongue in enhancing cognitive abilities, promoting inclusivity, and nurturing linguistic diversity. Moreover, it explores the challenges and opportunities associated with implementing mother tongue-based education strategies in the Indian context. By critically examining the policy framework and empirical evidence, this paper provides insights into the transformative potential of mother tongue-based education in achieving the goals of NEP 2020.
See Full PDF See Full PDFIndia’s National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) promotes mother-tongue based multilingual education. Welcoming this recommendation, this essay looks at the policy in the context of India’s linguistic diversity, and the already existing provisions for multilingual education. We list some of the conceptual and implementation challenges that the language-education recommendations in NEP 2020 face. The essay also overviews a few promising initiatives that show the way forward for a just, equitable, and sustainable policy for a mother-tongue based multilingual education in a democratic polity like India.
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Out of 3372 mother tongues in India only 22 have official status. There are 613 Tribal communities and they speak around 304 mother tongues. As the UNESCO records go, India has 196 endangered languages, most of them having tribal origin. During this presentation, we propose to concentrate on the decay and loss of tribal languages in India. This will be examined with reference to the existing models of multilingual education policies: three-language-formula (L1, L2 and English) and Mother-Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTBME). The official language policy of Indian Government – the three language formula-- is no less than a muddle because in any Indian society more than three languages coexist. Paradoxically, through the influence of so-called mother-tongue-medium teaching, a tribal child receives instructions only in the national or the dominant regional language instead of his/her mother tongue. MTBME, introduced in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh of India lately has shown considerable decrease in school dropouts among tribal children. It has also made schooling more comprehensible and relevant for them. Thus, it is my considered opinion that MTBME can provide a solution for India’s fractured language policy and can lead to the revitalization/maintenance of the tribal languages of India.
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Oxfam India Policy Brief
India’s linguistic diversity ranks fourth in the world. Over 19,569 languages or dialects are spoken as mother tongues (MTs); of these, 121 were spoken by over 10,000 people in 2011 (and hence reported upon in the Census) and only 22 are recognized and promoted as “Schedule Languages”. Of the latter, only three are tribal languages. In 2015-16, 28 languages were used as the medium of instruction in schools and 69 were used as subjects. Thus, only 0.14% of India’s mother tongues are used as a medium of instruction and 0.35% were taught in India’s schools. This negatively affects the education of India’s 104 million tribal population whose children experience a loss of confidence, high repetition and drop-out rates contributing to the loss of languages, cultures, and knowledge systems. It is estimated that nearly 25% of children in India face moderate to severe learning disadvantage due to the use of an unfamiliar language for instruction. India’s Constitution, particularly Article 350(A) makes governments responsible for providing adequate facilities for instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups. However, this has not been implemented in the full spirit except for some state-specific interventions that address a fraction of languages. The paper examines the existing interventions on mother tongue-based multi-lingual education for tribal learners adopted by various states, examines the challenges of tribal MTB-MLE across the country and makes recommendations to address the same. The introduction of the NEP offers the possibility of a greater push for the introduction of language in education policies by India’s states to address the linguistic rights of India’s tribal communities. The paper calls for the introduction of dedicated mother-tongue-based multi-lingual education policies by states having tribal populations, addressing the implementation gap of the existing dedicated State programmes and schemes for multilingual education, and working with communities, particularly the organizations of the concerned tribal groups, for the revival of the tribal languages and creating demand for the adoption of the concerned language in educational settings.
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Diversity in Indian Culture, Language, and Literature
The mother tongue is vital in framing the thinking and emotions of people. Learning to speak in the mother tongue is very necessary for a child's comprehensive development. Being fluent in the mother tongue, which is also known as the native language, benefits the child in numerous ways. It associates him with his culture, ensures enhanced cognitive development, and supports the learning of other languages (Nishanthi, 2020). According to the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), It is estimated that 221 million primary-aged children from minority language and ethnic communities do not have access to education in a language they know. Majority of this population fall in Africa and Asia. The lack of opportunity in mother tongue literacy is a roadblock for the children and their parents in the indigenous communities in India. This situation gradually leads the speech communities to develop a negative attitude towards their language. The absence of orthographic structuring also causes the death of cultural values over the generations before they are getting written down. Ultimately, this affects the linguistic and cultural diversity of society. Hence, this paper examines the possibilities of mother tongue education at various levels to preserve the socio-cultural and linguistic diversity of the minority/ethnic communities across the country.
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