HYDERABAD: Using students’ mother tongues alongside English in classrooms can improve participation and learning outcomes, with a UNESCO report documenting a rise in student engagement from 10% to over 70% in a government school in Warangal.
The finding is part of UNESCO’s State of the Education Report for India 2025, titled Bhasha Matters: Mother Tongue and Multilingual Education, launched in Telangana on Friday. The report highlights how mother tongue-based multilingual education can improve comprehension, classroom participation and foundational learning, particularly among children from tribal, indigenous and minority communities.
The report cites an Action Research Mentoring Scheme (ARMS) initiative conducted during 2024–25, in which Telugu was used alongside English in a Class VII mathematics classroom in Warangal. The intervention increased student participation from 10% to more than 70%.
Another study by the University of Cambridge and the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad, across 10 low-cost government schools found a 30% improvement in reading performance following the use of multilingual discussions, translanguaging and integrated English and Science activities.
The report states that children learn more effectively when teaching builds on their existing linguistic knowledge and experiences while gradually introducing additional languages. This approach is also aligned with the National Education Policy 2020, which advocates the use of the mother tongue, home language or local language as the medium of instruction, particularly during the foundational years.
The state has also developed 274 textbooks for Classes I to X, including bilingual Telugu-English and Urdu-English textbooks.