"The experiments in multilingual education in early schooling with transitional courses from home language to school language have shown that children become cognitively engaged in literacy skills through their mother tongues gainfully," stated Dr Lalit Kishore who did an NCERT-approved study on transition from Rajasthan's dialect Dundari to Hindi as the school language which was later adapted for CULP's bridge schools and Maa-Bari Schools in the state. He adds, "Multilingual education in early schooling creates inclusive and equitable classrooms".
The NCERT[1] also endorses the use of mother tongue / home language(s) of children as the medium of learning in schools since multilingualism confers definite cognitive advantages and also addresses the linguistic diversity of India that poses both complex challenges but also a range of opportunities.
The Education Department of Rajasthan has decided learning of three languages at foundational stage of education as a pilot project that include mother tongue education along with learning of Hindi and English from 2022-23 session, as informed Rajasthan Patrika[2] on the occasion of International Mother Language Day-2022.
Earlier, Lok Jumbish[3] Project in the state had tried a local dialect education project in Baswara with the technical support of Eklayva NGO of MP.
Coordinated by UNESCO[4], the UN proclaimed International Mother Language Day is observed on 21 February each year since 2000. It is held by UNESCO that the cultural and linguistic diversity is the backbone of sustainable societies and there is a need 'to preserve the differences in cultures and languages that foster tolerance and respect for others.'
"Multilingual and multicultural societies exist through their languages which transmit and preserve traditional knowledge and cultures in a sustainable way," puts forth UNESCO.
UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay in her message for this year said, "Technology can provide new tools for protecting linguistic diversity. Such tools, for example, facilitating their spread and analysis, allow us to record and preserve languages which sometimes exist only in oral form. Put simply, they make local dialects a shared heritage. However, because the Internet poses a risk of linguistic uniformization, we must also be aware that technological progress will serve plurilingualism only as long as we make the effort to ensure that it does".
UNESCO has highlighted the following concerns regarding the neglect of local dialects which happening to be the mother tongues of many communities
-Linguistic diversity is increasingly threatened as more and more languages disappear.
-Globally 40 per cent of the population does not have access to an education in a language they speak or understand.
It has been suggested that for early grades the 'mother tongue-based multilingual education' was extremely useful for cognitive development of children. According to this blogger , Kishore, properly designed and transacted multilingual education has the potential for cultural linkage of education, creation of inclusive and equitable classroom, enhancement of communication Skills, better working memory, better executive functioning of children and respect for incidental and folk ways of learning.
[1]NCERT
[2]Ab 'Aapni Bhasha' mein padelan taabar, 2022/2/21
patrika.com
[3]Kishore, L, (2010). The Case of Lok Jumbish Project: An Ex-post Facto Secondary Analysis and Qualitative Study, New Delhi: NCERT https://ncert.nic.in/pdf/annualreport/Annual%20Report%202009-2010%20(English).pdf.
[4] UNESCO.
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