Indigenous children growing up in remote villages of hilly Bandarban often find it difficult to adjust and adapt to formal education when they go to primary schools around the age of six.

"Language is one of the main barriers," said Vanramnuam Bawn, a teacher at Swicha Karbari Para Government Primary School, 12 kilometres from the district.

Citing examples of his students who mostly come from the Marma ethnic group, the teacher said most of them are not usually exposed to Bangla unless when the ice-cream seller visits the village about once a month.

"Most of them do not understand when instructions are given in Bangla. Some do not even get a good grasp of the language even after they complete primary level," he added.

Home to 12 ethnic linguistic communities, the hill district, where transportation and market accessibility are not as well developed as the rest of the country, has one of the lowest literacy rate of 35.86 percent.

Laila Apnan Banu, education officer, Chittagong zone of Unicef, explained how children in Bandarban also do not get much educational support from the family.

"Awareness among the parents is low and in most households both the parents remain busy working in jhum cultivation. As a result, they often cannot help their children with their studies," she said.

Under this circumstances, the Integrated Community Development Project funded jointly by the government and Unicef and currently executed by the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board is trying to change the education scene.

Since its launch in 1996, 3,800 para centres, which work as service delivery points for information on community development, nutrition and education, have been built so far at different villages in 25 upazilas of the three hill districts.

The centres built on community-provided land are also used as the venues for pre-primary schools for children aged between three and six.

Out of the 1,000 para centres located in Bandarban, multilingual education programmes currently in three indigenous languages -- Marma, Tripura and Mro -- have started at 208 centres early this year on a pilot basis, informed the Unicef education officer.

At the para centre of Empu para, a Mro-majority village situated on a hill on the way to Nilgiri in Bandarban, students were seen learning rhymes and names of objects in Mro language.

As reporters visited their small wooden green classroom on the hill, they greeted them with chuckles and curiosity and then sang the national anthem of Bangladesh.

The usual shyness, which many indigenous children feel when they meet strangers, was absent among the kids.

"The main objective of these pre-primary classes is to make children ready for the formal education system and facilitate their social interaction," observed Banu.

Children learn the national anthem, rhymes and names of different objects and are acquainted with the mainstream alphabets in a congenial, playful environment.

"I sent my daughter here because it will be easier to get her admitted to the primary school later on," said Chinglao Khiang, father of four-and-a-half-year-old Belly Par, while waiting outside the centre for recess.

Chungkung Mro, a para worker who also works as a teacher at the centre, said the Empu para centre started in 2009 with 17 children and four of them had later gone for formal education.

Empowered with vocabulary and social skills, the indigenous children growing up in remote hills of Bandarban find it easy to start their journey in the apparently larger world outside and adapt themselves to a setting in which an alien language and culture rules.