Mother Tongue based Multi Lingual Early Childhood Education in tribal areas of Odisha India- campaign by Odisha Adibasi Manch

1. ODISHA ADIBASI MANCH
AN APEX BODY OF TRIBALS HAVING ITS PRESENSE IN 22 DISTRICTS OF ODISHA
Campaign at State level
by Odisha Adibasi Manch
on
Mother Tongue based
ECE in Tribal areas in 10
districts-27 blocks-2700
villages

2. ADIBASIS IN ODISHA
62 TYPES OF GROUPS
23% POPULATION
2nd
HIGHEST POPULATION AFTER
CHHATTISGARH
13PARTICULARLY
VULNERABLE TRIBAL
GROUPS[PVTG]
30 LANGUAGES SPOKEN
32 LANGUAGES LOST
OLNY TWO TRADITIONAL LIPIS-
OLCHIKI & SORA SAMPENG

3. Goal of the Campaign
• To implement mother tongue based Multi-lingual quality early childhood education in the existing
govt. ICDS and CBCD centers of tribal pockets of Odisha for successful transition of young tribal
children from preschool to primary school.
Specific Objectives
• Modified ARUNIMA should have a section for the mother tongue based multi lingual approach in
tribal area.
• Tribal women only should be selected as Awganwadi Worker(AWW) in the tribal areas (Please
refer to the Supreme Court ruling on this).
• The State Government should demand for bringing the children of below 6 years under the
purview of Right to Education Act
• To upgrade Mini- ICDS centers in to Main ICDS centers in tribal area.
• To strengthen the present Early Childhood Education component in existing ICDS centers and if
needed, appointment of additional AWWs specifically for this purpose.
• To prepare Local context TLM as per the need of Mother Tongue based ECE in every center.
• Advocacy from palli sabha, gram sabha/panchayat to state level for policy changes in ECE,
promoting Mother Tongue Based ECE and Multi-Lingual approaches in existing ICDS centers of
tribal area of Odisha.
Project Start period-April-2012

4. Activities[8 months]
• Launching of the campaign in the presence of newly elected PRI members and OAM
Convenors
• Intensive Orientation of Block and District Convenors about the campaign.
• Baseline survey done to assess the situation. Campaign strategies are developed on the
basis of the data analysis.
• 24 Block level sensitisation workshops involving 2562 participants including BDO, ABDO,
CDPO, GPO, PRI members, ICDS Supervisors, AWWs, local CBOs, NGOs, etc
• 4224 palli sabha resolutions taken and sent to Governor, CM and WCD Secretary by
registered post.
• 48551 post cards sent to the above persons demanding MT base MLE in AWCs.
• State level workshops-2-setting out strategies and plan of action. Alliance building.
• Continuous Lobbying with MLAs and Ministers and bureaucrats[Tribal Minister, WCD
Minister, Tribal MLAs, Tribal Secretary, WCD Secretary, Chief Secretary, OPEPA Director
and Chief Minister and giving them memorandum].
• identified community resource persons and experts to develop a context based primer in
tribal language mainly in Saura and Kui. Primers developed with help of PREM.
• Worked as a part of the documentary on ECE campaign .
• Facilitated the media campaigns at block, district and region.
• Worked as a part of NACDIP in influencing Draft ECCE Policy, lobbying with Central Tribal
minister, Parliamentary affairs minister, party heads of other political parties, Rajya Sabha
MPs, Lok Sabha MPs, etc

5. Major Achievements
• Govt’s decision to implement MTMLE using 10 tribal languages in Phase-I
and 19 languages in phase-II in 25000 AWCs in tribal areas.
• Govt’s decision to modify Arunima-the ECCE guide book in the light of our
demand to make it tribal context specific. OPEPA becomes the nodal
agency.
• State govt’s highest education authority-OPEPA includes PREM/OAM in its
team of experts for curriculum and other T&L materials development.
• Several mini-ICDS centres are upgraded to main ICDS centres.
• In tribal areas, AWW appointment is from local tribal community.
• Mainstream media create space for this campaign. Wide coverage from all
bylines-block,dist,state,centre. Live Talk show in electronic media.
• Most of the suggestions from NACDIP/OAM incorporated in WCD
feedback format.
• Concerned ministers, many MLAs, ZPs and PRI members sensitised on MT
based MLE. Developed and strengthened an institutional relationship.

6. • To include rest of the languages in the purview of recent Govt
decision which has to be implemented in spirit.
• To upgrade all Mini-ICDS centres in to Main ICDS centres in
tribal areas.
• Appointment of additional tribal AWW specifically to look
after ECE. Capacity building of these AWWs in MT based MLE.
• Special training for existing non-tribal AWWs to work in tribal
areas, including knowledge of tribal dialect;
• Further sentisation of policy makers-MLAs and MPs in the
state.
• To advocate for meeting the minimum quality standards as
prescribed in ECCE daft policy within a time frame.
• We have to strengthen the existing ICDS system and make the
AWC function. There is no short cut to it…
THE WAYS FORWARD….

7. Palli Sabha-the crux of the
campaign
Explaining about the Resolution
and Post Card campaign
BLOCK LEVEL SENSITIZATION WORKSHOPS

8. NATIONAL WORKSHOP
STATE LEVEL WORKSHOPS

9. With Tribal Minister, GoO With WCD Minister, GoO
OAM State Convenors with
Chief Secretary GoO With OPEPA Director, GoO

10. Second time meeting
Chief Secretary, Tribal
Commissioner and Tribal
Minister to have PRI
members and MLAs
sensitisation/convention

11. With Sri A V Swamy,
Rajya Sabha MP
With Tribal Minister, GOI
Memorandum to Sri V Narayana
Swamy, Minister, PMO
With Dilip Tirkey, Rajya
Sabha MP
With Sri Raja Swain,
MLA

13. INVEST IN YOUNG TRIBAL CHILDREN