The first day of the two-day special conference held in the run-up to the G20 Education Working Group Meeting saw education secretaries of Maharashtra, Assam, Jharkhand and Gujarat share their experience in teaching foundational literacy and numeracy in a multi-lingual set-up. Teaching in mother tongue is one of the main stay of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020. The policy promotes teaching of basic literacy and numeracy in mother tongue whenever possible. In Jharkhand, state Education Secretary Ravi Kumar said languages such as Santhali, Bengali and Odia are widely spoken in the state and that the state has started imparting education in 12 languages. “It is important to teach students in their mother tongue, otherwise the disconnect between the student, teacher and parents hampers their learning," he said. Thus, in an English medium school, a child whose parents are not familiar with the language taught in schools would not be able to understand the progress of their ward. A child will find it difficult to grasp what is being taught in school if it is not in the mother tongue, a language that he/she would use to converse with parents at home. In the third academic year of the implementation of NEP, Ravi Kumar said there has been a dip in dropout rates and increased learning among school students. Assam’s education secretary also spoke about the experience of preparing books and teaching children in their mother tongue.
