Using mother tongue in foundational education

• The recently launched National Curriculum Framework (NCF) has recommended that mother tongue should be the primary medium of instruction in schools for children up to eight years of age.
• The thrust on mother tongue has been a feature of education policies and curriculum frameworks over the years.

New NCF recommendations

• Evidence confirms the importance of teaching children in their mother tongue during the foundational years and beyond.
• Since children learn concepts most rapidly in home language, the primary medium of instruction would optimally be the child’s home language in the Foundational Stage.
• English can be one of the second languages taught at that level.

Recommendations of previous education policies

• First education policy
• Based on the recommendations of Kothari commission
• Observed that regional languages were already in use as the medium of education at the primary and secondary stages.
• Steps should be taken to adopt the same at the university stage as well.
• Did not contain any specific instruction on mother tongue.
• Special emphasis on English and other languages
• Second education policy
• Introduced in 1986
• Silent on the use of the mother tongue as the medium of instruction at the foundational stage.
• 1992 Programme of Action
• Based on a review of the 1986 policy
• Said that at the preschool level, the medium of communication should be mother tongue.
• New National Education Policy (NEP)
• Introduced in 2020
• Said that wherever possible, the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, will be the home language.

NCFs

• Detailed guidelines based on which school syllabi undergo revisions.
• In it, the role of the mother tongue is specified more clearly from the beginning.
• NCF 1975
• Said that “so far as possible, primary education should be in the mother tongue”.
• In case when mother tongue was also the regional language, the medium of instruction at the elementary and secondary stages should be the regional language.
• When they were different, the mother tongue should be the medium in the first two years of primary education, and the regional language should then take over.
• NCF 2000
• The medium of instruction ought to be the mother tongue at all the stages of school education.
• NCF 2005
• Language of interaction and communication in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) would “normally be the child’s ‘first’ language, or home language.
• Added that English has to be introduced early as a second language, either in Class I or at the preschool level.

Constitutional provisions