Mother Tongue-based Literacy Programmes: Case Studies of Good ...

Orthography DevelopmentDuring early decision-making about the project, ASHRAI faced two primary questions: which Oraonlanguage to focus on and what kind of writing systems to use (neither Oraon language had a writtenscript). To answer these questions, the team rightly decided to leave the selections to communitymembers, themselves, to decide. Accordingly, ASHRAI organized a 3-day workshop in Rajshahi forcommunity leaders, students, teacher/professors, GO and NGO Oraon professionals, and key informationsources from all the districts of Rajshahi. The workshop was facilitated by the Chief Researcher.The participants were very enthusiastic, and actively participated in discussions freely and frankly. Afterreviewing the pros and cons of all the proposals made during the discussion, participants unanimouslyagreed that Sadri should be chosen for developing their mother language-based education and forintroduction into their children’s primary education.Decision on OrthographyDeciding the orthography or script in which the Sadri language would be expressed and written wasa more challenging question. Language is very much associated with one’s emotion, attitude, politicalbelief/ambition, expectation and, above all, reality. Many discussions, arguments and counter argumentstook place during the workshop. However, after elaborate discussions, participants agreed thatdeveloping a new alphabet or using a foreign script would not be helpful for learning nor advantageousfor mainstreaming into the country’s education system. Since the Oraon people had been living withthe Bangalee community for generations and the Bangla alphabet was familiar to them, it was decidedthat it would better serve the children to use the Bangla script for Sandri. This would allow them to learnBangla quicker and acquire competencies in Bangla-based education faster. This decision also made iteasier for the research team to develop curriculum and educational materials in Sadri.Identification of Learning NeedsFollowing the decisions regarding language and script selection, the identification of learning needswas a major issue. The research team wanted to involve the community in determining the children’slearning needs so that age-appropriate graded education materials could be developed according toreal practical need and expectation. Accordingly, the team held meetings with all the various stakeholdergroups, and collected recommendations for best designing the project.The team then held a series of workshops in order to review the collected information and decide aboutthe learning needs. All the stakeholders were invited to participate in this task.Participants reviewed the findings and gave their thoughtful opinion about their expectations foran education programme that would enable their children to acquire competencies similar to thosethat children who that would uphold and allow to flourish their own cultural and traditional practices.Thus, during this workshop, a material development team was formed to act as an extended arm of theresearch team. Teachers, university/college students, a village doctor and educated community leaderswho were willing to spare time and work for development of the educational materials were included onthe team. Later, this team sat with the other workshop participants to finalize the list of learning needsfor further curriculum and material development.[ 34 ]