An Endeavour to Enhance the Reading Skill of Tribal Children through Revival and Usage of Indigenous Adivasi Languages in Mayurbhanj District, Odisha

The State of Odisha situated in the eastern part of India consists of 30 districts, of which Mayurbhanj is the largest one. The percentage of tribal population in this district is around 60%. Mundari, Santali and Ho are the main tribal languages abundantly spoken by the tribes of Mayurbhanj. But, Odia is used as the state language in the government schools. Most of the teachers of these schools belong to Odia background. Multilingual situation exists in the classrooms. The non-availability of tribal teachers and the existence multilingual situation in the classrooms negatively impacted the reading skill of the tribal children. Keeping this in view, some project objectives were fixed, and innovations were tested. In order to materialise the project objectives, some strategies were adopted, which are as follows. • Developing School as an enabling system • Developing Teacher as a Catalyst • Creating Reading Culture in the community • Linkages and Networking with System and Functionaries The above strategies involved certain activities to revive and promote the beliefs, values, morals, ethics and languages of Indigenous Adivasi culture. Abundant use of tribal oral languages in the classroom both by the teachers and the children, development of bilingual tribal books and their uses in the schools gradually created a stimulating environment for the tribal children, which ultimately led to improve their early reading skill.