Advocacy for Mother tongue education

Today I gave an interview for a video documentary on Multilingual Education sponsored by PAJHRA an NGO working for the upliftment of the Adivasiya commuinty in Assam. I stammered a lot in front of the video camera. I did not feel that I said everything I wanted to say about the necessity of mother tongue education for the children of linguistic minority communities. But the positive of the day was the interview of Dr. J.B. Ekka who is an IAS officer currently posted at the Income tax department on the same topic. He said that learning through vernacular medium or the mother tongue is not at all a handicap for a child of linguistic minority group in terms of excelling in the long run academically. In fact, when such child is put into an English medium classroom he finds himself in an alien environment right from the medium of instruction which is English to the dress, companions etc. It prevents him to open up and think and express himself freely which affects this cognitive development adversely. He put forward his own example by saying that he himself is from a vernacular medium school. But it did not in anyway prevented him from being successful in life. Infact he feels that being educated through the language he spoke at home gave him the extra edge over other students to acquire educational concepts with better understanding.

It is really important that people like Dr. Ekka who are considered to be successful in life in terms of academic and professional excellence, express such views which can definitely open the eyes of a lot of parents and community members and other people in understanding the benefits of Mother tongue education for children.

A busy work schedule ahead...

This year I have been successful in getting two grants.

The first one is from Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) where I applied for a grant to conduct two workshops for the Singpho MTB-MLE programme. One of the workshop will be on development of reading materials for the two new education centers in the community. The second workshop will be on the training the teachers of these two centers in teaching the children through their mother tongue.

I have recently been informed by Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP), UK  that my application for a grant to conduct a project on the documentation of the Oral literature of the Tai Khamyang community in Assam has been successful. Tai Khamyang is one of communities in Northeast India who are facing serious threat of extinction in terms of their language. At present there are only 40-50 old members of the community who can actually speak this language. Most the younger and the young adults have become proficient either in Assamese language which is the state language. So during the life of this project I will be documenting as many audio and video recordings of their oral tradition and literature including songs, stories, rituals, narratives etc as possible and will try to transcribe it and archive it in proper format at ELAR.

Medium of Instruction in Schools

My article on Medium of Instruction published in The Assam Tribune on the 3rd of May, 2013. The article is written with an aim to disseminate the information and my personal opinion on the use of the language as the medium of instruction in the schools.

All good signs

After a long time again in here. Back to the Singpho school. After the completion of one year this school now has become a center for pure exhibition of Singpho culture by the youngsters. It is soothing to see how much these young members of the community are motivated to learn and preserve their culture.

Paving the way...

The North east India Multilingual Education Symposium was held at Don Bosco Reach out at Ulubari, Guwahati from October 23rd to November 1st, 2010. This symposium was a joint venture of the Department of Linguistics, Gauhati University and the Summer Institute of Linguistics, International to promote and advocate the cause of Multilingual Education for the linguistically disadvantaged communities in the Northeast India. The symposium was participated by a wide range of participants ranging from global literacy experts from different countries all over the world to university students who are presently working with different tribal communities, along with the members of some of the those communities. Participation of members of government agency like SCERT helped bringing practical issues regarding implementing such Mother Tongue based Multilingual (MTB-MLE)Education Programme through government system in this region. A number of interesting presentations of case studies of MTB-MLE in communities like Singpho, Amri-karbi, Bodo, Rabha etc added a new dimension to the overall success of the symposium. This symposium focussed at presenting a big picture on the necessity of Multilingual Education for the linguistically disadvantaged group of children. Participants from different background went through some theoretical understanding along with some interesting practical sessions. This symposium was really a dream come true for the MLE activists in NE India.

Helping hand from Vancouver

In an unique instance of noble venture, some of the school going kids in Vancouver Island in Canada decided to use some of the money they saved to send some gifts in the form of schools supplies to their brothers and sisters at the Singpho Pre-Primary School which is being run at Ketetong at Margherita subdivision of Tinsukia District of Assam, India. Moreover the church congregation of St. Andrews Anglican church provided a financial assitance towards the renovation of a building to be used as the school building for the Singpho school. Members of an internaitonal NGO Fertile Ground Mr. Kel Kelly and Mrs. Peggy Cartswell along with their local facilitator for Assam Ms. Pompy Ghosh recently visited the school and delivered the gifts to the students and the donation to the community. The students of the school also staged a nice show by singing Singpho songs and dancing Singpho traditional dance.I really appreciate this noble endeavour by the small children from the Vancouver Island to support their counterparts in the Northeast India. I hope this venture paves the way for a lovely bond between the children of two different countries.

Working towards Education for All

In an effort to promote the Mother tongue based Multilingual Education Programme for the linguistically disadvantaged tribal minority children, a Singpho Pre-primary school has been set up in Ketetong, of Margherita subdivision under Tinsukia district in Assam in September 2009. The school aims at basic literacy skills to the Singpho children in their own mother tongue. Later it will help them to transit to the mainstream education through a transitional programme. This is the result of five years of hard work in the form of conducting baseline surveys on the community,conducting awareness raising about the necessity of MT education, training the community members to write small attractive story books in their own language which are being used at the school, preparing a culturally appropriate curriculum for the children, mobilizing resource for setting up of the school etc. This school is being run collaboratively by the Singpho Multilingual Education Programme Committee along with Department of Linguistics, Gauhati University, Summer Institute of Linguistics International.