Research report on mother tongue education released

LAHORE:An NGO has released its first research report on Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) proposing how Pakistan can incorporate "mother tongue-based multilingual education" into its education system.

The report highlighted the dire need to take into consideration children’s language and cultural context during their school experiences. The study finds that using familiar languages when children are young and then gradually introducing foreign languages maximizes comprehension and fluency. Mother tongue refers to the language that children first learn at home and come to school understanding. Multilingual refers to the expectation that children will learn several languages during their education – in Pakistan, these are regional languages like Sindhi and Pashto as well as Urdu and English.

The report reflects three years of work in Tharparkar, interviews with over 130 practitioners, policymakers and academics worldwide and cataloguing of language policies in similarly diverse countries.

In early 2020, both The Citizens Foundation and Thar Foundation schools implemented this research-based MTB MLE model in over 21 classrooms in Tharparkar starting with pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. Students in these classrooms will transition through fluency in three or four languages over the course of their education: from diverse mother tongue languages (Dhatki and Sindhi) to the regional language (Sindhi), then the national language (Urdu), and then to an international language (English). Unlike a lot of research that precedes this study, TCF does not just insist on mother tongue, instead, it provides pragmatic recommendations for how Pakistan, and countries like it, can provide mother tongue-based education in contexts to students.

animals breeding: The use of modern technology for the breeding of elite animals with high genetic traits is commendable; these views were expressed by the Secretary Livestock Punjab during his visit to Sahiwal Division. During the visit, the secretary visited livestock institutions and semen production unit in Qadirabad and called for the modernization of semen processing techniques. Director Sahiwal Division and Deputy Director Semen Production Unit Qadirabad gave a detailed briefing to the Secretary Livestock on performance. He also inspected the veterinary hospitals and issued instructions to field staff for better service delivery.

Secretary Livestock said that the quality control system should be further integrated for the supply of quality semen to livestock farmers. He also visited a private semen production unit in Sahiwal where he was briefed about modern semen processing laboratory. He appreciated the performance of the team of private semen production unit on the first successful IVF experiment.

Secretary Livestock also directed to start a short training programme on modern breeding techniques. The purpose of the private sector visit was to promote public-private partnership and emphasize on the utility of using modern technology in this sector.