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Odisha Impact Study: ECE Pre-test Findings

Funded by: Bernard van Leer Foundation

Conference on Early Learning: Status and the Way Forward

Session III: Challenges of Multilingualism and Home-School Divide – Role of Early Learning

September 25, 2013

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Company Sensitive, Internal Use Only—Updated December 2011

Topics Covered in Presentation

Importance of Mother Tongue

The Context and the Study

Research Design and Sample

Study Findings Related to:• Languages used in the ECE settings • Parental Involvement

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Importance of Mother Tongue in Early Years

Home-school continuity is enhanced when same language is used in both contexts.

Academic performance and self esteem were enhanced among 6 – 8 year old children educated in their mother tongue (Ball, 2011)

Reading, learning outcomes, school enrollment and retention were improved in settings using mother tongue (Pflepsen, n.d.)

Mother tongue education reduced social inequalities such as poverty, gender, race/ethnicity, caste or religion (UNESCO, 2006)

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Why Mother Tongue?

Approx 8.1 million tribal population in Odisha (Census, 2001)

There are 62 tribal groups including 12 primitive tribal groups in Odisha with 22 tribal languages (Mohanty, Panda & Pal, 2009)

1.4 million tribal children under the age of six years in Odisha (BvLF, 2013)

Language barrier and exclusion of mother tongue and culture at ECE centres and school (Ball, 2011)

Poor school learning, high push out rates, high rates of school failure, capability deprivation and poverty among tribal groups (Mohanty, 2008)

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Study Objectives

To measure the impact of the mother tongue based interventions by tracking children right from the ECE centres till they complete Class II with respect to their enrollment, retention and performance.

To examine children’s progress as a function of differing early exposuresExperimental group: PREM, ICDS+PREM centres and Control group: ICDS centres

To analyze the interventions in terms of process / strategy.

To suggest measures to enhance the impact of the interventions.

Expected Outcomes for BvLF

Increased awareness about the need for the quality preschool education among policy makers, educators and media; and

Policy makers and others will access and use the research data to advocate for policies on early childhood and native language in preschools.

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Study Area: District and Blocks Kandhamal - Daringbadi block, Raikia block (KUI language)

Rayagada - Gunpur block, Padmapur block (SAORA language)

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Sample Frame and Selected Sample of ECE Centres

Districts Blocks PREM ICDS+PREM ICDSTotal

Sampled Centres

Kandhamal Daringbadi 93 (21) 28 (4) 240 (15) 40

Raikia 10 (2) 3 (0) 98 (6) 8

Rayagada Gunpur 53 (13) 20 (2) 108 (8) 23

Padmapur 17 (3) 8 (1) 76 (3) 7

Total 173 (39) 59 (7) 522 (32) 78

Sample Frame and sample in parenthesis

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A Glimpse of the ECE Centres

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Research Design and Methods Quasi Experimental Research Design

Mixed methods: Quantitative and Qualitative

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Findings: ECE Pre-test

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Enrollment of Children

Enrollment rates was the highest for ICDS (22.7) and lowest for PREM centres (14.6)

Mean number of children absent was highest in ICDS (6.7) and lowest in ICDS+PREM centres (3.0)

Highest mean enrollment was for girls in ICDS+PREM centres (12.6) and lowest for boys in PREM centres (5.4)

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Majority of the children were from Scheduled Tribes in all the three types of centres

Highest percentage of Scheduled Tribe (ST) children were in PREM centres (86.6%) and lowest in the ICDS centres (66.3%)

ICDS centres had a heterogeneous representation of social classes among children

Social Class of Enrolled Children

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Languages Used by Children & Adults in the Household

The mother tongue of the highest percentages of children (37.5% and 39.7%) and adults (36.4% and 40.2%) was Kui and Saora.

Odiya was the most commonly spoken language by children (85.7%) and adults (78%)

Only 11.3% of children and 33.1% of adults could understand but not speak Hindi.

Children

Adults

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Mother Tongue of the Facilitator/ AWWs and Helpers

75% of AWWs from ICDS+PREM and 72% from ICDS reported Odiya as their mother tongue.

PREM facilitators were more likely to report Kui (53.8%) and Saora (38.5%) as their mother tongue.

All PREM helpers and half of the ICDS+PREM helpers reported Kui as their mother tongue while the highest percentage of ICDS helpers reported Odiya as their mother tongue.

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Spoken Languages Recorded during Observations

Nearly 86% of the ICDS centres spoke Odiya for the majority of the day.

The highest percentage of PREM centres spoke Saora (42.2%) and almost equal percentages spoke Kui and Odiya (28.7 % & 28 %) for the majority of the day.

In ICDS+PREM centres, the top two percentages of centres spoke Odiya (51.1 %) and Kui (32.6 %).

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Training and Materials for Mother Tongue Approach 71.4% of facilitators from PREM centres had received training in the mother tongue approach compared to 58% from ICDS centres

62.9% of facilitators/AWW from PREM and 66.7% from ICDS+PREM reported using flash cards in mother tongue. 63.3% of facilitators/AWWs from ICDS centres reported books/story books.

Between 33-37% of facilitators/AWWs provided examples of other materials, namely, posters, mud toys, pictures.

Interestingly, the top reasons for job dissatisfaction reported by facilitators/ AWWs were inadequate/ irregular salary, inadequate play materials and insufficient resources.

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Opportunities for Parent Involvement

75-84% of facilitators/AWWs reported having weekly/monthly meetings

26-50% reported offering opportunities for voluntary services

21-50% organizing fairs/ festival celebrations

12-16% mentioned no opportunities for involving parents.

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Opportunities for Community Involvement

50-71% reported that community encouraged parents to send their children to centre

47-75% reported community advising on issues of the centre 38-75% reported providing volunteers for the centre 29% from PREM centres only reported providing space for centre 25-32% reported support from community in developing aids

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Stakeholders Views on Mother Tongue

Unanimous support across functionaries for mother tongue

based education along with focus on learning other

languages.

Many of the staff shared the intervention program challenges in making mother tongue approach acceptable, training their facilitators and getting resources in mother tongue

Government functionaries were not very aware about the approach, or regarding any policy provisions

Mixed responses from parents and community on mother tongue education.

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Recommendations

Programs should continue to ensure that staff speak the languages of the families and children served

Programs need more access to mother tongue based educational materials.

Programs could consider creating materials from inexpensive and indigenous materials , developed/donated by community members.

Additional training and refreshers on the mother tongue approach needs to be provided to centre staff so that it is implemented with fidelity and can have the maximum positive impact on children.

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Recommendations

Programs need to be aware of parents’ interest in being involved in centre activities and continue to encourage and strengthen this partnership.

BvLF and PREM should continue doing more outreach about their work especially with Odisha government functionaries.

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Questions

For further details contact: Dr. Anubha RajeshICF International [email protected]

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Documents

internal use onlyupdated

company sensitive

mother tongue education

mother tongue ball

importance of mother

exclusion of mother

mother tongue pflepsen

tribal children