SHUBHANGI SHIFA
Ranchi, Dec 28: K Ravikumar, Secretary of School Education and Literacy emphasised the importance of home language or mother tongue-based education of the children.
During the second day of the ‘Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education’ conference held by the Jharkhand Education Project Council in collaboration with UNICEF, Ravikumar said that by including the mother tongue of a child in the teaching-learning process, it may be easier to teach the children a second language as well.
Saktibrata Sen from Room to Read shared the main points from the work done on multilingual education in government primary schools in the Barwani district of Madhya Pradesh and the Sirohi district of Rajasthan. She further shared the planning on multilingual education based on the amendment made in Jharkhand as well.
Dr Dheer Jhingran from Language and Learning Foundation while sharing his experience of working on mother tongue-based multilingual education in government primary schools of Bastar district of Chhattisgarh emphasised that Jharkhand should work on it for at least the next three to five years. “There is a need to work on multilingual education in a systematic manner,” he added.
Along with this, teachers and other officers from different regions of Jharkhand discussed in small groups how to work on topics related to multilingual education such as the capacity building of teachers, reading material, learning-teaching process, and community participation. Discuss what needs to be done and share your ideas and strategies.
On the third day of the conclave, representatives of Room to Read, UNICEF, State of Chhattisgarh, NCERT, Ranchi University, Central University and other educational institutions will share their experiences on ‘Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education’ and work on further strategy.
Dr Avinav Kumar, State Program Officer and Sunisha Ahuja, Education Specialist UNICEF Delhi along with Parul Sharma, Education Specialist UNICEF Jharkhand, Shakti Bratasen, Room to Read and Bhagyalakshmi Balaji, Room to Read and Dr Dhir Jhingran from Language and Learning Foundation were also present on the occasion.
