Early Literacy and Multilingual Education in South Asia

Early Literacy And Multilingual Education In South Asia was published in March 2019 by the UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA). It was written by Dhir Jhingran, an expert in language and learning, with the guidance of Urmila Sarkar, regional education adviser and Sanaullah Panezai, education specialist at UNICEF ROSA. The observations in the study are based on secondary literature concerning literacy and education in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It provides guidance towards building policies and strategies which could improve early language learning, literacy and multilingual education across various regions with different sociolinguistic backgrounds in south Asian countries. Highlighting the benefits of introducing children’s first language as the mode of instruction in schools, the study states that children are likely to understand subjects better if taught through the medium of their first language than through a second or unfamiliar one. It also emphasises the importance of early literacy development among children and the need for multilingual education programmes that make education accessible for all children. This 120-page report is divided into six chapters: Understanding early language and literacy (Chapter 1); Learning outcomes and factors for low achievement (Chapter 2); Language and language-in-education situations (Chapter 3); Typology of school-level sociolinguistic situations and language-in-education approaches (Chapter 4); Mother-tongue-based multilingual programmes: Case studies from India and Nepal (Chapter 5); Recommendations for children’s language and literacy learning in primary grades (Chapter 6).