The government move to ensure children from ethnic communities are given early childhood education in their mother tongue is apparently falling flat due to a lack of teachers with a good command of these languages.

As per the government plan, ethnic minority students would learn exclusively in their mother tongue from pre-primary level up to class II and gradually learn Bangla from class III.

With this aim, the government decided to publish textbooks in ethnic languages in 2012. And since 2017, it has been distributing textbooks in five ethnic languages -- Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Sadri and Garo.

This year alone, the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCT has distributed 2,30,130 copies of ethnic language textbooks for 97,594 students.

But it all risks coming to nought as most of the teachers can speak in their ethnic languages but they do not know how to read and write in those languages.


"They need intensive trainings on teaching using the textbooks," said the headteacher of a government primary school in Khagrachhari Sadar upazila.

But the teachers, who don't have thorough knowledge on their language, still do not know how to impart lessons based on the textbooks, said several teachers and education officials while talking to this newspaper.

Only 38.60 percent of the 4,204 ethnic community teachers in the three hill districts have attended a 14-day training on their respective languages in the last three years.