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BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh government has decided to focus on teaching school students in their mother tongue and the local languages to start implementation of the New Education Policy (NEP), 2020. Curricular reforms remain the top priority of the school education department as far as implementation of the NEP is concerned. A Multi-Lingual Education (MLE) Cell will be formed in all the districts to develop an inventory for the local language. The MLE cell will map different languages and dialects in the district. It includes assessing the number of students speaking a particular language and listing various dialects in order of the largest and smallest population.

Stories, songs, poems, puzzles, proverbs

The MLE Cell will design strategy to collect and collate stories, songs, poems, puzzles and proverbs in the local languages and dialects in digital and other forms. Based on mapping, the MLE Cell will develop a perspective plan to ensure use of the mother tongue, or home language, as the medium of instruction.

The MLE Cell will also identify and select teachers of different dialects for use in the development of the local teaching-learning material (TLM) and training courses as an inventory of experts. Priority will be given to Korku, Baiga and Gondi teachers and languages. The selected panel will develop teachers’ material for art, health and physical education.

Joyful learning

The district units will also prepare modules for joyful learning — one of the key factors in the NEP, 2020. These modules too will be converted into local dialects. To accomplish the implementation of the NEP 2020, teachers of Classes I and II will be given special training in Foundational Literacy and Numeracy. The school education department has made the plan in a manner that 100% teachers of the aspiration districts are trained first.