Mother Tongue Based Early Childhood Multilingual Education
It is now well proven through empirical research that children learn better in and through their home language, mother tongue. Mother tongue instruction is crucial in early childhood education. Children learn through and in their language effectively and eagerly.
The mother tongue based education is also an effective mean to revitalize the endangered languages.
Keeping in view the significance of the mother tongue education Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT) established the first mother tongue (Torwali) based multilingual education school in August 2008 in Bahrain, the main hub of the Torwali community. Prior to that Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT) prepared course books in Torwali for early childhood education. This school was named “Mhoon School” [Our School]. Since then IBT has been expanding this initiative to other areas of the Torwali speaking land. So far it has established 06 such schools in different localities—Bahrain, Kedam and Chail.
Recently the names of the schools were changed to ILM (Innovative Learning Model) Schools.
Under this initiative the children learn to read and write Torwali in the first year along with math, cultural studies, Islamic studies and social science concepts in Torwali. Later on, the next year, the children are transitioned to Urdu and English.
So far over 400 children of the Torwali community benefited from this program. The initiative is on-going and soon we are going to establish such schools in other localities as well.
