A ‘KISS-BvlF Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Early Childhood Education learning laboratory’ was inaugurated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the KISS here on Sunday.
Patnaik reinforced his commitment of making quality early childhood education in mother tongue a reality for 1.4 million tribal children of the State.
The Early Childhood Development Programme through Mother Tongue based Multilingual learning (MlE) is the first programme of its type in India. This is instituted by the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) in its premises in collaboration with the Bernard van leer Foundation (BvlF).
Founder of KIIT and KISS Dr Achyuta Samanta said, “It is imperative that a State like Odisha whose population is immensely diverse in linguistic and cultural characteristics and with one-fourth of its people belonging to the 62 tribal communities to have a policy on mother tongue-based multilingual early childhood education. The inauguration of the multilingual language lab at the KISS is a step forward towards achieving quality early childhood education.”
“We are just a few steps away from making mother tongue-based early childhood education a reality for 1.4
million tribal children in Odisha,” said Ido Mandal, State convenor, Odisha Adivasi Manch.
India Representative of Netherlands based private foundation Bernard van leer foundation (BvlF) Dharitri Patnaik said, “Pedagogy is crucial when we are dealing with young children in their
formative years as that is what creates a foundation for further learning.”