The School Education and Literacy Department of Jharkhand has been taking continuous initiatives to provide education in mother tongue and tribal languages to the school children of the State.

Mother tongue is the first language learned by children, which connects them to family, community and cultural traditions. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has also highlighted the influence of multilingualism, local and regional language. Keeping this in mind, the State Council of Ministers has identified 15 tribal and regional languages such as Santhali, Ho, Mundari, Kurukh, Kharia, Malto, Bhumij, Birhor, Asur and regional languages such as Odia, Bengali, Panchpargania, Kudmali, Khortha and Nagpuri for teaching programs.

Currently, under the multilingual education program, mother tongue and tribal language based education is being given in six districts of the State. With the support of UNICEF, the multilingual education program MTB-MLE was started in 259 schools of the State. Under this, children were being educated in five tribal languages such as Mundari, Kurukh, Ho, Kharia and Santali. This year it has been expanded to 1041 schools. The six districts in which this program has been started include 24 blocks of Gumla, Lohardaga, Simdega, Khunti, West Singhbhum and Sahibganj and this program is being run in schools from class three to five in these blocks.

Bilingual textbooks of Mathematics and Environmental Studies for class three to five have been developed in five tribal languages. Under the MTB-MLE program difficult words of Hindi and tribal languages have been included in 30,000 English textbooks for class three to five for selected schools. Along with this, tribal language based activities have also been included in these textbooks. All five tribal languages have been included in the storybooks of four levels of the Barkha series. Apart from these, flash cards and teacher's guides have also been translated into these five tribal languages.

There is a plan to expand the multilingual education program in 15 languages identified by the State Council of Ministers, such as Santhali, Ho, Mundari, Kurukh, Kharia, Malto, Bhumij, Birhor, Asur and regional languages such as Oriya, Bangla, Panchpargania, Kudmali, Khortha and Nagpuri. Under this, this year the target has been set to develop teaching and learning materials in these 15 languages, create training models, create resources for linguistic skill development, and create evaluation technology.

For the successful operation of a multilingual education program in the State and training of teachers, a state-level tribal language lab has been formed in the Jharkhand Educational Research and Training Council. In this, special training is being given to teachers in the above mentioned 15 languages. Tribal Language Cell and Museum have also been set up in JCERT for the development of education in tribal languages. Books and teaching learning materials of 15 tribal and regional languages will also be produced in the Tribal Language Lab.