The Cultural Committee of Students Life Committee (SLC) celebrated International Mother Language Day online on 21 February. The event was inaugurated by Prof P J Narayanan, followed by an invited talk Dr. Ellen-Rose Kambel on Valuing all languages in education: the example of the Language Friendly School.
Dr. Ellen-Rose Kambel is the director of Rutu Foundation a non profit organization based in the Netherlands which is committed to promoting intercultural multilingual education worldwide. A human rights lawyer by training, Dr Kambel co-founded the Language Friendly School, a quality label and network for schools welcoming all languages of their students.
World-over, mainstream education systems are predominantly geared around one or two languages, usually those with the most economic power. For parents this often means that they have to choose between giving up the family language and providing their kids with the best opportunities for the future. Can we imagine schools where parents don’t have to choose? Where all languages are valued and welcomed? This is the goal of the Language Friendly School (LFS), a fast-growing global network which now includes schools in five different countries. In her presentation, Dr. Ellen-Rose Kambel shared insights on how inclusion of mother tongues positively impacts students’ motivation and their cognitive development.
This was followed by a panel discussion between Dr. Anuj Lugun (a Jharkhandi Indian poet and writer who espouses indigenous renaissance and intense rebellion against fascism and oppression. His activism for political and social justice earned him the title of Tribal Poet, Dr. Nazia Akhtar (Assistant Professor at IIITH. Her research interests include literature and history of Hyderabad, partition studies, women’s writings and comparative literature) and Dr. Sumandeep Kaur (a feminist and literary scholar, writes and lectures in Punjabi on women’s rights and other contemporary political issues. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Panjab University, Chandigarh) The discussion was moderated by Prof. Harjinder Singh.