MOTHER TONGUE AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF TRIBAL STUDENTS

Abstract

Language is an important part of children’s cognitive, emotional and academic development. For tribal learners, the mother tongue is the basic language through which they understand their culture, environment and social experience. But learning and academic progress is stymied in many Indian schools, especially in tribal areas, where the medium of instruction is different from the pupils’ mother tongues. This present study is an attempt to study the effect of mother tongue on academic achievement of tribal students. The study is based on tribal communities of Anuppur district of Madhya Pradesh. This study used the descriptive survey approach. Data was collected from hundred secondary tribal students using stratified random sampling. The findings suggest that pupils taught in their mother tongue in early school years perform better in terms of comprehension, classroom participation, confidence and academic performance than those taught in a foreign language. Further, the study highlights the recommendations of National Educational Policy (NEP) 2020 and need of Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE). The study found that tribal language education in schools can improve student performance, reduce dropout rates and create inclusive education for tribal students.