Context: The new National Education Policy lays emphasis on imparting teaching in mother tongue in primary classes. In this scenario, Odisha’s decade-long experiment in multilingual education may come in handy to take up the challenge.

• Odisha has launched Samhati project for imparting its various tribal languages. The project will help save endangered tribal languages.

About Odisha’s Samhati project

• According to the Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA), more than 302 textbooks and 2,500 supplementary reading materials including story books and pictures charts in 21 tribal languages have been developed.
• Under Samhati, all teachers of primary level would be provided functional knowledge of tribal languages. 
• Implemented by: The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Research and Training Institute (SCSTRTI) and the Academy of Tribal Language and Culture (ATLC), Bhubaneswar 
• Of the 21 languages, Santhali — the only language which has been included in eighth schedule of Constitution — is taught in its own ol chiki script while rest of tribal languages have Odia scripts.

Road Ahead

• The tribal languages are used as a medium of instruction in primary schools, these languages need to be standardised because tribal student sees the world through his own language. 
• The mother-tongue based education is a welcome step. There are some civil society organisations in Odisha that have demonstrated promising models of the MTBMLE education system (e.g. Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS)).
• Efforts should be made to develop textbooks in tribal languages in sync with the syllabus of State boards, government textbook norms and National Education Policy.

Additional Information

• Odisha is home to 62 different tribal communities including 13 particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs), making it the State with the most diverse indigenous communities in the country.
• Only six tribal languages — Santhali, Ho, Soura, Munda and Kui — have a written script. These students are a multilingual group unlike mono-lingual groups in regular schools.