In 2023, the 24th edition of International Mother Language Day is being observed on February 21 with the theme on 'multilingual education - a necessity to transform education.' The observance is meant to promote respect for linguistic and cultural diversity of the country and multilingualism in schools.
"Multilingual education, in early childhood should be through the mother tonguage or home language which is essential for for access to, accomodation in and inclusion of diverse children in the process of learning. There is a need for courses to develop thinking skills through classroon instruction in with gradual transition to standard language and other languages," Says this blogger in various training programmes in alternative education.
The UN's position on multilangual education is as follows
International Mother Language Day recognizes that languages and multilingualism can advance inclusion, and the Sustainable Development Goals’ focus on leaving no one behind. UNESCO encourages and promotes multilingual education based on mother tongue or first language. It is a type of education that begins in the language that the learner masters most and then gradually introduces other languages. This approach enables learners whose mother tongue is different from the language of instruction to bridge the gap between home and school, to discover the school environment in a familiar language, and thus, learn better. Multilingualism contributes to the development of inclusive societies that allow multiple cultures, worldviews and knowledge systems to coexist and cross-fertilize...Multilingual education based on mother-tongue facilitates access to and inclusion in learning for population groups that speak non-dominant languages, languages of minority groups and indigenous languages.
There is a need to create short story and poetry books in various home languages since that promote reading habits and assist cognitive development such as reasoning and information processing as well as to make sense of what they see in accomopnying visuals and word-images which support their cognitive development. You may see the accompanying video link to know about the significance of developing reading skills of children in their formative years.
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