Language and the question of equity

There is a problem with multilingual education in India, and solving it is imperative to further the best interests of students and communities

L anguage is a major barrier to equity and quality in education in India. It is estimated that one in four primary grade children experiences a moderate-to-severe learning disadvantage on account of her home language being very different from the language of instruction at school¹.

India’s National Education Policy (NEP 2020) recommends that, wherever possible, the child’s home language be used as the medium of instruction until at least grade 5; and that children be taught three languages (including English) at school. It also recommends that a bilingual approach be used wherever possible.

However, given that the recommendations are not backed by clarity or provisioning at either the central or state government level, multilingual education (MLE) remains an elusive and puzzling aspect of the educational landscape². In this context, it is often left to educational NGOs to problem-solve the nature and scope of MLE programmes on the ground.

To get a sense of the range and nature of MLE in the country, the Tata Trusts undertook a landscaping study between February and April 2025. The study included consultations with sector experts, desk research, field visits to select organisations and online meetings with those working in the domain.

The sampling was representative and not comprehensive, and included five large-scale MLE programmes and nine that were smaller in size. Two of these were state-led initiatives — the Andhra Pradesh MLE programme (discontinued since the state’s bifurcation in 2014) and the Odisha MLE programme — the rest were NGO-led efforts. The review was limited to work done with government schools.

A few key findings of the study are summarised here:

1. While experts recommend that MLE be interpreted as a desirable outcome for all Indian children, with the intent that they become balanced bilinguals or multilinguals at the end of their schooling, in reality many of the programmes reviewed focused on tribal language education in the Central India belt. While this is a segment of the population that requires urgent and sustained attention, other segments of the population (for example, inter-state migratory populations; nomadic, coastal, displaced populations; border areas and urban populations) also require attention in terms of MLE provisioning.

2. Most of the programmes reviewed targeted primary-grade students; they did not work with pre-primary students. With more children coming into the ambit of formal pre-primary education, it makes little sense to delay MLE until the primary grade. Otherwise, children learn in unfamiliar languages from the ages of three to six, and are given access to the familiar home language only from grade 1 onwards. Bringing MLE curricula and pedagogy into anganwadis (childcare centres) is a pressing priority.

3. Although NEP 2020 states that children should receive education in their mother tongues (MTs) at least until grade 5 (and even beyond), most programmes reviewed were ‘early-exit models’ that shifted students to the state language as early as grade 3–4, without a plan to further build student capability in their MTs once the transition was completed. The key aim of such programmes appears to be to use MTs as a bridge to the regional language, rather than to retain or build strength in the students’ first languages. The reasons for early exit are multi-fold. First, the pressing matter of large-scale assessments conducted by the end of grade 3 in regional languages makes it imperative to prepare students in the regional languages early on. Second is the prevalent view that earlier access to languages of higher power is in the best interests of students. And, third, is the lack of teachers and curricula to teach subjects in their MTs in higher grades. While the merits of each of these reasons can be argued, even as per the NEP’s own recommendations, it is in the best interests of students and communities if MT-based MLE is made available to students until at least grade 5. It goes without saying that the regional language and English can be taught alongside. The recommendation is to retain MTs as the medium of instruction.

4. Most of the programmes that we reviewed targeted homogeneous language classrooms, where all students spoke the same tribal language (for example, Santhali, Kui or Ho in Odisha). In many of these programmes, the appointed teachers or facilitators knew the children’s MT. We found no examples of programmes that ran in mixed-language settings (where children with more than one MT are present). As such, our domain understanding of how to provide high-quality education to students in urban, high-migration or border areas — where multiple languages exist in a single classroom — is minimal.

5. Within the domain of early education, there is little coordination or integration of ideas between organisations working in the ‘foundational literacy and numeracy’ and MLE spaces. Ideally, these should be continuous and not discrete spaces of thinking and acting, given that almost all classrooms across India include bilingual and multilingual students, and that all MLE classrooms need to be engaged in teaching foundational literacy and numeracy. More attention needs to be placed across early-learning classrooms on developing children’s oral languages and expressive writing capabilities, giving children access to functioning libraries stocked with high-quality books in multiple languages, and on providing schools with teachers who are better prepared in the teaching of early literacy and numeracy.

We cannot solve the problem of quality in education without simultaneously solving for equity. While giving students access to high-power languages — such as regional languages and English — is an essential pillar of provisioning for equity, it is also critical to provide students with access to learning in familiar, known languages during their early years to ensure a firm foundation on which further learning can be built.

Provisioning for high-quality MLE is, thus, not an optional issue in a richly multilingual country like India, but an urgent imperative that we need to be working towards. This requires more systemic support from governments, for example, by drafting MLE policies and provisioning MLE-trained teachers and curricula. It also requires a lot more work in terms of developing programmes for use in early-childhood and mixed-language settings. Collaborations between universities, governments, educational NGOs and community-based organisations are vital in the context.

¹Jhingran, D (2009), Hundreds of home languages in the country and many in most classrooms: Coping with diversity in primary education in India. In Skutnabb-Kangas, T, Phillipson, R, Mohanty, KA, and Panda, M, (Eds), Social justice through multilingual education (pp 263-282). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
²Currently, Odisha is the only state that has a multilingual education policy in place, but even here quality of implementation remains uncertain.