LITTLE progress in the preservation of 40 national minority languages, which the International Mother Language Institute is mandated to do, and the advancement in multilingual education for national minority children, which the Directorate of Primary Education supervises, largely brings up a glaring government failure. The International Mother Language Institute, established in 2010 with an aim to preserve languages, document and carry out research on endangered languages, develop writing systems for the languages in need and compile dictionaries of the languages, has hardly been able to make its mark. The institute has carried out a linguistic survey, beginning in 2013 and ending in 2018, identifying 41 languages in use in Bangladesh. And, 14 of them are endangered. The institute has yet to publish the survey details. And, what is shocking is that the Rengmitca, a critically endangered Kuki-Chin language, had 40 speakers when the institute survey began, but the number of speakers has now come down to six. The Kharia language has only two speakers now.
Eighteen of the languages have writing systems, mostly not in use though, but the institute has failed to develop any writing system for the remaining languages, which is considered a condition to their preservation. On the other front, the government in 2017 introduced textbooks in the first language of national minority children for pre-primary and Class I to III. The initiative, introduced in keeping with the National Education Policy 2010, offered early primary education in five languages. But whilst the government has failed to expand multilingual education for upper primary classes, it has also failed to offer primary education in the remaining languages. Although the production of textbooks depends on the writing systems, which the International Mother Language Institute has failed to ensure, the government has not been able to offer education beyond the five languages seven years since. Whilst there is dearth of teachers to conduct classroom teaching in national minority languages, more so on the plain, the school routines that the government approves hardly have dedicated time for education in the national minority languages on offer. There are some teachers in the hill districts for classroom teaching in the minority languages, but such teachers avoid being posted to villages because of the political situation, which warrants that the government should also ensure political stability in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Education is a way to protect and promote national minority languages and the International Mother Language Institute and the Directorate of Primary Education, or the government for that matter, should put in special efforts in this direction. The task is more pressing with the endangered languages as their death would take away linguistic, intellectual and cultural diversity. In the milieu, the government should also work on introducing Bangla, the state language, in all spheres of national life.
