Indigenous kids deserve books in native languages

The government's 2017 move to publish and distribute textbooks in five ethnic languages—and its decision that ethnic minority students would learn exclusively in their native languages from the pre-primary level up to Class II (and gradually learn Bangla from Class III)—were welcomed by rights advocates as a long-overdue reform in the education sector. It was then hoped that this would take us one step closer to our vision of an inclusive Bangladesh, with equal rights and privileges shared by all communities. However, five years on, it seems the project is falling through due to a lack of administrative initiatives.

As this daily reported on February 1, 2022, students at many schools in Sreemangal upazila, with a majority of them belonging to indigenous communities, are being taught in Bangla because they never get enough sets of books in other languages. One headteacher alleged that in 2021, they had only received teachers' copies of two textbooks to teach students of the Tripura community. In 2022, they received none.

More concerningly, teachers in areas with a large indigenous population are not trained nearly well enough to teach children to read and write in their respective mother languages. A report from 2020 states how, since 2017, only 38.6 percent of the 4,204 ethnic community teachers in the three hill districts had attended a 14-day training programme on indigenous languages. This begs the question: What use is having textbooks in ethnic languages if they don't reach their intended recipients? Even if or when those books are made available, how can a teacher be expected to educate students properly if they themselves have not received the training to do so? And what are the higher authorities doing about it? Not much, going by the conclusion of our report. Surely, this was a plan that was meant to be followed through for years to come, and not just a "show of inclusivity"?

We believe the government needs to re-evaluate its indigenous textbook plan to make it effective. Teachers must be given extensive training in reading, writing, and usage of these languages that they can impart upon their students. Textbooks in indigenous languages must also be distributed for all subjects, and in the quantities required, on a priority basis. The government needs to follow through with its own plan so that children of ethnic communities are not deprived of the opportunity to study in their own languages.