Rethinking Multilingual Education in Linguistically Diverse Situations in South Asia: What works? And what does not work?

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

South Asia is characterized by its multi-ethnic and multilingual societies, where numerous languages, dialects, and regional variants coexist. Over 30 percent of children in South Asia study through a language they don’t understand (The World Bank, 2021). The situation is further complicated by the high demand for the use of English as the medium of instruction in primary education. Young children in early childhood institutions and primary schools must have a familiar language environment to be emotionally well adjusted, self-confident and learn better.
Language situations are varied and complex and despite the outward appearance of harmonious multilingual settings, there are clear linguistic hierarchies with dominant national and regional languages and the aspirational international language, English. Most of the non-dominant languages are not used in formal domains, including education.
This panel focuses on policies and programs in two countries in South Asia, viz. India and Nepal. Both countries have developed progressive multilingual education policies. In India, more than 30 languages are used as languages of instruction (LoI) and many more are taught as language subjects. The National Education Policy, 2020 and the new National Curriculum Framework for School Education have emphasized the use of children’s first languages as LoIs. However, it is proving to be difficult to operationalize this policy in the complex language situations in most parts of India. Nepal introduced a mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) policy in 2009. However, the government has not paid much attention to the implementation of the policy. Instead, local governments in Nepal are increasingly introducing English as the medium of instruction (Phyak, 2024).
The complex and fluid language situations in India and Nepal, the hierarchical relationships between languages and the aspiration for English medium education make inclusion of children’s first languages in teaching and learning processes a challenging task. The existence of a large number of home languages (for example,700+ in India) also poses a policy and programmatic challenge to make these languages as LoIs. Language mapping surveys in India (Jhingran and Mishra, 2024) have identified a variety of school language situations that require different strategies for multilingual education (MLE). These include: (a) schools where children speak multiple first languages, with or without a common lingua franca; (b) schools where a majority of children share a common first language that cannot serve as the language of instruction (LoI) due to reasons such as the existence of multiple dialects and varied levels of children’s understanding of the less familiar/unfamiliar language that is the school’s LoI; and (c) schools where the teacher does not speak/understand the children's first languages. The panel will explore strategies for inclusion of children’s first languages through a multilingual approach tailored to diverse linguistic contexts.
The first paper, “Multilingual Education in India: Policy context, implementation challenges, and strategic interventions”, examines the strategies and experiences of Language and Learning Foundation (LLF) over the past six years in designing and implementing programs for MLE across diverse sociolinguistic contexts in India in about 5000 primary schools in three states in India. All of LLF’s interventions have been developed and implemented in close collaboration with the state governments. This paper will contribute to the academic discourse on multilingual education by suggesting context-sensitive approaches to educational policy and programs in linguistically diverse settings. The second paper, A “Addressing Linguistic Complexity in Indian Classrooms: Strategies for multilingual instruction” focuses on implementation of MLE in classrooms where multiple children’s first languages coexist presenting significant pedagogical challenges. This paper will present insights, challenges and achievements of the initiatives taken by Room to Read, India in two district-wide programs for multilingual instruction in India, where the local languages and the language of instruction share lexical similarities, leading to a unique form of linguistic fluidity in classrooms. The third paper, “Policy Failure and the Case of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) in Nepal” draws on McConnell's (2015) concept of ‘policy failure’ and Kroskrity's (2004) framework of ‘language ideology,’ to examine the status of the MTB-MLE (Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education) policy in Nepal as an example of policy failure. Rather than engaging local stakeholders - primarily teachers and communities - in meaningful discussions, local governments have shifted towards enforcing an English-medium policy. The analysis is based on case studies from four experimental schools where the government initially implemented the MTB-MLE policy.
The panel will highlight the need for contextually grounded MLE policies and programs that reflect local socio-linguistic realities. It will also provide insights into how strategies for inclusion of children’s first languages can be developed in diverse contexts by understanding language situations and building a consensus around the use of languages in education.
The three invited research papers, the chair and discussants- drawn from academia, thought leaders on multilingual education and practitioners working at scale in South Asia will bring diverse ideas, experiences and expertise for reimagining multilingual education policies and programs in linguistically diverse contexts. The panel’s deliberations will have useful learning for similar contexts in other LMICs.

Sub Unit

• Language Issues SIG

Chair

• Barbara Trudell, SIL Africa Learning & Development

Individual Presentations

• Multilingual Education in India: Policy context, implementation challenges, and strategic interventions - Smriti Mishra, Language and Learning Foundation

• Addressing Linguistic Complexity in Indian Classrooms: Strategies for multilingual instruction - Stuti Jain, Room to Read; Saktibrata Sen, Room to Read india

• Policy failure? Critical insights from mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) policy in Nepal - Prem Phyak, Teachers College Columbia University

Discussants

• Dhir Jhingran, Language and Learning Foundation

• Carolyn J Benson, MLE International