Dreams of a minority student: The Mother Language education program

Illustration: TBS

Bangladesh is home to 1.7 million people from ethnic minority groups, classified into 50 distinct communities, each having different cultures and traditions and located across the Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT) and the regions of Sylhet, Rajshahi, Mymensingh and Rangpur. 

In the gazette of the "Small Ethnic Groups Cultural Institutes Act of 2010," the ethnic minority communities enlisted are Chakma, Marma, Garo, Tripura, Santal and so on. They are different from the rest of the country's people, especially in terms of language, which is diversified and also rich culturally and naturally. Since the pre-British era, they have also been living distinctively. 

Owing to social, political and financial limitations, people from ethnic minority backgrounds continue to be some of the most marginalised and vulnerable citizens. Numerous such groups still experience social, economic and political exclusion in addition to having limited access to adequate basic social services and limited opportunity to participate in the mainstream economy, particularly in education.

Students from linguistic minority backgrounds are frequently compelled to start their formal schooling in classes where they are not permitted to use the language of their community and where the language of teaching is one in which they are illiterate.

In 2020, at the beginning of my university life, a teacher asked me, "Do you know how to write in your own language?" 

I said, "No, sir, we couldn't get the opportunity to learn." 

This is a very typical exchange for students like me.

In Bangladesh, approaches to science, technology, engineering, maths and others as well as instructions are aligned with Bangla-speaking norms. These courses rarely take into consideration the unique backgrounds of ethnic minority learners. Because of this devaluing of local cultural, linguistic and community traditions, whole communities are left behind, resulting in learners' exclusion from advanced education and further employment. 

Education in minority people's mother tongue has been neglected due to geopolitical factors and a lack of supervision of the initiatives taken by the government. A lot of our intergenerational students have been alienated from both their culture and their language. The International Labour Organization (ILO) clearly recommends securing education for ethnic minorities in their mother tongue in its 40th Convention, 107-Section 23(1).

In 2017, a major successful outcome was achieved for a group of ethnic minority communities, following the National Education Policy 2010 and Articles 17, 19, 26 and 50 of the constitution, when the government of Bangladesh published textbooks in five languages — Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Garo and Sadri for pre-primary education under the PEDP-4 project.

The PEDP-4 project formally recognised institutes to promote minority education in the country in accordance with UNESCO's main theme of 'upholding the preservation and dignity of all languages of the world and to ensure that every language-speaker gets the opportunity to express oneself and gain knowledge in their own language to promote awareness about cultural and linguistic diversity and multilingualism'.

But what is the scenario for implementing the National Education Policy 2010 for minority language education? Is this initiative becoming successful?

The process of the mother tongue education program began in 2012-13 and it took five years to get teaching materials. But the desired progress has not been too visible. The lack of qualified teachers has been a great concern for a couple of decades. There have been no replacement or appointed teachers to implement the language education program in the plains area (Garo and Sadri). 

On the other hand, the hill tracts region has a comparatively higher number of teachers than the plains area, however, they are not well-trained. The way teachers are appointed is also not well planned, for example, a Marma teacher is appointed in a Chakma school while a Chakma teacher is in Tripura. In some areas, a Bangali teacher has been appointed to teach a minority language school, not knowing how to read or write in that minority language. 

Teacher training has not yet been sufficiently provided through the government process. Occasionally, Hill District authorities provide some special allocations to teachers and schools, which is not a permanent solution. The supervision, initiatives and plans from the Upazila Resource Centre (URC), Primary Teacher Training Institutes, etc. have not yet been implemented at the grassroots level. Authorities have not yet provided training manuals, making teachers unable to stay up-to-date.

The pre-primary level is taught only in these five languages for now, in spite of having other ethnic languages that are extremely endangered. 

As per the plan, the program was supposed to start primarily in six languages: Chakma, Marma, Kakbarak (Tripura), Santal, Garo and Sadri. However, due to internal debate over Santal's script, this language was left off the stage. In the second phase, Mro, Manipuri, Tanchangya, Khasi, Bam, and Maya Manipuri will be introduced, and Chak, Koch, Kuruk, Hajong, Khumi and Khiang, are planned to be introduced in the third phase. At the moment, we remain stuck in those five languages, as the process is progressing slowly.

Language protection is not possible with only formal education. If a language is practised personally, with the family and socially, then it cannot disappear. However, the scope of access to practice is limited due to a shortage of minority language-based literature and government patronisation of co-curricular activities in schools as well as communities.

School closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic have exposed and deepened pre-existing educational inequalities among the most vulnerable and marginalised learners in Bangladesh.

The government is determined to implement the SDGs in 2030, especially focusing on the SDG-4 goal of quality education, resulting in a reforming of the curriculum. But it has not modified the existing curriculum to be culturally and socially responsive, with reading materials and published training modules as well as other supportive materials. Most teachers do not know about the policy.

Clearly, there are political, economic and logistical challenges to mother-tongue-first education programs for children in non-dominant language communities. Rengmitcha (a language with a mix of Mro and Khumi languages) is currently spoken by only six people who are all over sixty. With their deaths, the language will disappear from the world.

The initiated program, as well as upcoming plans related to minority languages, are falling behind because of the limited scope of practice, the influence of other dominant languages, a lack of affection for one's own language, as well as the patronage of transcription, including orthography.

To help meet the challenges, the government should provide technical support to language communities, agencies and institutions, as well as to non-government organisations, in planning and implementing strong and sustainable mother tongue-based multilingual education programs in both the formal and non-formal systems. 

The Hill District Parishad must be powered autonomously to implement programs relating to Mother Language Education (MLE) as per the Chittagong Hill Tracts-1997. It's mandatory to be transparent in selecting teachers as well. We never let a language disappear just to keep pace with globalisation. International Mother Language Day is not only to celebrate Bangla, English and other dominant languages but also for endangered ethnic languages.

A marginalised student's dream is to learn in his own mother tongue. 

Sketch: TBS

Shantimoy Chakma is a final year student at the Institute of Education and Research, University of Dhaka. 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.