UNESCO Makes A Strong Case for Mother-Tongue Instruction

Context: UNESCO released its flagship report “Bhasha Matters: The State of the Education Report for India 2025”, strongly advocating mother-tongue based instruction in India.

• The report calls for a national mission on Mother-Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) to improve equity, learning outcomes and linguistic inclusion.

About UNESCO Makes A Strong Case for Mother-Tongue Instruction:

Key recommendations of UNESCO (India Education Report 2025)

1. National mission on MTB-MLE: Establish a coordinated national framework with strong Centre–State institutional alignment.
2. State-level language-in-education policies: Operationalise clear MTB-MLE policies adapted to local linguistic realities.
3. Teacher capacity building: Recruit and train teachers with multilingual competence; reform pre-service and in-service teacher education.
4. Learner-centred pedagogy: Design flexible language pathways responsive to students’ linguistic backgrounds.
5. Community and indigenous knowledge integration: Institutionalise community participation and local knowledge systems in schooling.
6. Multilingual learning materials: Develop quality textbooks, assessments and resources in multiple languages across grades.
7. Gender-responsive approach: Embed MTB-MLE across middle, secondary and alternative schooling with gender sensitivity.