Mother language lessons of ethnic children falter on systemic flaws

Children of different ethnic minorities in the hill communities received the rights to learn the mother tongue eight years ago, but made no headway due to the lack of proper government initiatives and directives pertaining to implementation.

The initiative has been hampered by a lack of training for teachers, absence of annual evaluation exams, students from different ethnic groups studying in a school, not incorporating into curriculum, no real-life application of the learnings, etc.

Training teachers of these ethnic groups to ensure proper facilitation of the lessons should have been the top priority, but that did not happen in reality.

According to the Khagrachhari Primary Education Office, the district has 595 primary schools that have been receiving books in Chakma, Marma and Tripura languages since 2017.

The government began officially training the teachers five years after the formulation of the books, it added.

In the 2022-23 fiscal year, only 90 teachers - 30 of them Chakma, as many Tripura and the rest Marma - were institutionally trained to teach in their respective mother languages, but that was the end of it, according to government accounts.

The teachers ask that even if those trained teach children in their respective schools, who would provide lessons to the remaining 505 schools.

Chandra Kishore Tripura, assistant teacher at the Noymile Guchchhagram Govt Primary School in Dighinala Upazila, said: “We’ve begun teaching in Kokborok [language of the Tripura community], Chakma and Marma languages since 2017. We’ve received books every year, but have yet to get them this year.”

Complaining about the lack of training for teachers, he said: “No assessment method is in place. No instruction about how or when to teach. We can’t properly teach due to these reasons. We give lessons based on what we know ourselves. The students are still not able to learn through their mother tongue properly.”

According to the Directorate of Primary Education, or DPE, the students from ethnic backgrounds are receiving books in five of their languages in 19 districts.

A joint education cell of DPE’s policy and operation department oversees the programme in 16 districts while the Hill District Councils take care of appointing teachers in three hill districts along with other activities related to primary education there.

Rokhsana Parvin, assistant director of the unified education cell, said: “District councils oversee teachers training in the three hill districts. So they can tell about the training on language of ethnic minorities. Training was recently held at a district. The programme is ongoing in two other districts.

“The NCTB [National Curriculum and Textbook Board] is coming up with their training module. Training for teachers will begin after the PEDP-5 [fifth Primary Education Development Program] begins in the next fiscal year,” she said.

On the issues obstructing ethnic groups’ education in their mother tongue, she said: “The matter is complex. If a teacher receives training in one language somewhere, the school may have students studying in four languages.”

ONE TEACHER, MULTIPLE LANGUAGES

According to the Population & Housing Census 2011, 1.1 percent of the people of the country are from ethnic background, totalling to nearly 1.6 million.

Most of them have no literacy while most communities have no written form for their languages.

The International Mother Language Institute says as many as 14 languages of these groups are currently endangered, though the organisations working on the rights of ethnic groups claim the number is higher.

In an effort to preserve the languages of the ethnic communities, the government took steps to educate pre-primary children on their language.

In 2017, the government began preparing books for the Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Garo and Sadri. But the following five years saw no addition in languages in the curriculum.

According to the government, almost 40 percent of the members of ethnic groups reside in hill regions of Chattogram, while many live in Rajshahi, Sylhet, Mymensingh and several other areas.

The communities, however, do not have large settlements away from Chattogram, so the odds of receiving education on their language outside Chattogram are very low.

Pratibha Tripura, assistant teacher at Manikchhari Hedmyanpara Government Primary School, said: “We’ve not received the books on mother language teaching yet. We got them through the previous years. But a problem with teaching mother tongue is that there’s no trained teachers.

“A school has students from different communities, including Chakma, Marma or Tripura. Our school doesn’t have Marma students, but there are Chakma and Tripura students. I’m a Tripura teacher, so I can teach the Tripura language. But we can’t teach Chakma because we don’t have a teacher for that.”

“Another issue is that the NCTB curriculum doesn’t include native languages of ethnic groups as subjects. No mention of when we’d teach them. We teach students stories and poems in their mother language when we get free time outside the classes.

NO TESTS FOR ASSESSMENT

Teachers think the lack of tests to evaluate what students learned through the year discourages the students from learning their language seriously.

Assessment tests, however, are expected to be introduced this year.

Pratibha said: “A student is not assessed on the mother language they are taught. Be it written or oral. If the skill of mother language was evaluated, students would’ve been keen to learn it, they would find encouragement. The parents would be interested as well.”

Jaleswar Tripura, assistant teacher at Noymile Guchchhagram Government Primary School, said lessons on Tripura language began in 2017 but without any “government activities”.

Although the language was being taught, there’s no method to evaluate the students, he clarified, so they were not very keen to learn it.

“The government only supplies books, but makes no arrangements for trainers or assessment,” he said.

Md Shafiqul Islam, Khagrachhari District Primary Education officer, gave hopes of a solution to the crisis.

“We got books on mother language in Khagrachhari hill district. The books were sent to different schools. But there’s no training for teachers. I’ve discussed with authorities so they arrange for teachers’ training.

“There was no provision for exams in the previous curriculum. But the curriculum has been revised. Tests are included in the current curriculum and it will be arranged by the teachers.”

HOW MUCH ARE CHILDREN LEARNING?

Prachurja Dewan, a sixth grader at the Khagrachhari Government High School now, received the book on mother language when was a third grader.

“But it was not taught well in our school then. I don’t remember anything now,” Prachurja said.

Prachurja’s mother Nipa Dewan said: “The schools did not teach the books on mother language. Besides there are no books on mother language in fourth and fifth grade. Are the children supposed to remember the alphabet they learned so long ago?”

Both Chaihlapru Marma and Kranuching Marma, students of the school, received their books when the government introduced it while supplying pre-primary books in 2017. They read the book until third grade.

They had learned the alphabet of their mother tongue in Bihar as children. Both said that they still remember the alphabet because of school and Bihar.

Nagui Tripura from the same school said: “We were taught our mother language once a week in school. I can still write the numbers in Kokborok.”

Parki Chakma, assistant teacher at Khagrachhari Mahajanpara Government School, said: “I didn’t know the Chakma alphabet myself. I learned it in a five-day training.”

“I used to have the students read books in their mother language twice a week. But their routine has no mention of when we’re supposed to give the lessons. How then am I supposed to teach them? The routine doesn’t have that for two years, and I’ve ended up forgetting as I haven’t taught for a long time. Only I received training from my school.”

IRE OF PARENTS

Local guardians said their children have no clue about the alphabet of their mother language.

Ganesh Tripura, a resident of the Dighinala Upazila’s Noymile Gucchagram area, said: “We don’t get to teach that much even if there are books in our mother language. The books are left at home. No assessment exams are held on mother language. Although we can speak [in our language], but with no knowledge of the alphabet, we can’t practice at home.”

Kabita Tripura, another resident of the village, said the same thing.

Bikash Chakma, who lives in Khagrachhari District Sadar, said: “Chakma have their own alphabet. But even Chakma school teachers don’t know the alphabet, so they can give lessons.”

“Its not possible to teach children their mother language without training. And that’s why the students can’t recognise the alphabet. It’s the same with Marma students.”

WHAT AUTHORITIES SAY

Samabesh Chakma, an education officer at Khagrachhari Sadar Upazila, said: “As many as 25 schools are located in my cluster. A guideline to teach mother language once or twice a week has been provided to them.”

“But the routine has no mention of these lessons. Teachers can’t teach if they don’t know the Chakma alphabet even if they are of Chakma background. Teachers need training.”

Another assistant officer of district primary education Kanika Khisa said: “The significant problem with teaching mother language is that the routine provided by NCTB or National Primary Education Academy sets no timeline for lessons on mother tongue.”

Shafiqul said: “A guideline to teach every subject for 35 minutes has been provided. We received training on giving lessons in our mother tongue once. We’ve also requested for regular training at a meeting of the directorate.”

[Additional input by Rumman Turjo; Writing in English by Syed Mahmud Onindo]