Mother Tongue-based Literacy Programmes: Case Studies of Good ...

Karitas for Santal, SIL Bangladesh for Bishnupriya and so on. Indeed, it appears that awareness of MLE isincreasing daily, and it is expected that the Government will come forward to take appropriate action inthe near future.That said, in May 2006, a study was carried out by Interaction (a private education organization) to assessthe situation in Naogaon District. The study revealed that about 80 percent of Adivasi children dropout of school due to: (1) linguistic problems, (2) cultural problems, (3) discrimination between Adivasistudents and other students, and (4) poverty.In this context, it should be mentioned here that some NGOs - including ASHRAI - are operatingschools in the Naogaon region. These schools conduct classes in the Adivasi people’s language for theAdivasi population. The enrolment rate, attendance, dropout rate and rate of pass of these schools aresatisfactory. Thus, it would certainly appear that the language in which classes are conducted makes adramatic difference in the quality and consequent outcome of education provision.Again in the workshop on 18 August 2006 on popularizing MLE in Rajshahi, Professor Chittaranjonthanked ASHRAI for its Mohoti Uddyog (noble effort) for developing Sadri language and offeringeducation to the Oraon children in mother language.As Bijoy Minj, an ARP school student stated, “I like to go to my school as the books are in Sadri, mylanguage, and my teacher also speaks my language in the school.”It is hoped that the positive effects gained so far will influence the national-level policy planners, andthat the day will soon come when mother tongue-based education for minority ethno-linguistic groupswill be standardized throughout the country.Impact on Learner EnrollmentIn May 2006, ASHRAI published an assessment report which found that of seven districts, 27 upa-zilasand 1,372 villages in Rajshahi, 67,162 children of ages between 6 to 12+ were found to be enrolled inGrades 1-5. Of them, 31,788 children dropped out in the same year. Of these dropouts, 13,952 wereAdivasi children (49% boys and 51% girls).As for the ARP students, all 25 children who began the project in 2003 at Agholpur village are still carryingout their studies in the school in Class-IV. Thusfar, only one girl has dropped out of Class-III (which wasstarted in Idolpur village in 2004) due to her marriage, and only two boys in Class-II have dropped outfrom the 2005 Agholpur group (their mothers left parents houses to live with their husbands followingresolution of conjugal disputes). There have not been any dropout cases in Chpai Nowabgonj andJoypurhat district schools. This clearly indicates that dropout from Sadri schools is almost negligible.Research on Effectiveness of Mother Tongue EducationAshrai’s Action Research Project aimed at improving the level of learners’ achievement through educationin their mother tongue at the primary levels. With a financial grant from UNESCO Bangkok ,the projecthas developed a multilingual learning model that has encompassed all the elements of teaching andlearning. The major activities of this project were to prepare appropriate materials and teachers’ guides,supplementary materials and teachers’ training. The hypothesis was that with appropriate learningmaterials and mother tongue instruction, learning achievement would increase in time.[ 43 ]