Parkari MT-First MLE Parkari MT-First MLE Program, Sindh Program, Sindh

Province, PakistanProvince, Pakistan

Information from Poonam Paschal, Director, Parkari Community Development Program

Language situation in Sindh Language situation in Sindh ProvinceProvince

• Sindhi is the medium of instruction Sindhi is the medium of instruction in schools in Sindh.in schools in Sindh.

• English is taught as a subject in English is taught as a subject in schoolsschools

• The Sindh provincial government The Sindh provincial government allowed the Parkari community to allowed the Parkari community to use Parkari for instruction in use Parkari for instruction in school, as long students also learn school, as long students also learn Sindhi, English and Urdu and Sindhi, English and Urdu and achieve state learning achieve state learning competencies for primary school.competencies for primary school.

Main features of the Main features of the Parkari MT-First MLE Parkari MT-First MLE

Pilot ProjectPilot Project

First two years of education in the First two years of education in the students’ home language help them build students’ home language help them build confidence in themselves as learnersconfidence in themselves as learners

Sindhi, English and Sindhi, English and Urdu are introduced Urdu are introduced as subjects in Primary as subjects in Primary School, as required School, as required by national standardsby national standards

Two-Track Method Two-Track Method for teaching for teaching literacy emphasizes literacy emphasizes meaningmeaning as well as as well as accuracyaccuracy

Math introduced in Math introduced in KG.KG.

Concepts are Concepts are introduced in the MT, introduced in the MT, then taught in Sindhi then taught in Sindhi and reviewed in MTand reviewed in MT

Child-centered Child-centered approaches approaches build build students’ students’ confidenceconfidence

Children’s own stories, in their MT and later in Sindhi

Each week the teacher sits with each child as they read—a chance to do informal testing of reading ability. Meanwhile, other students read silently

Teachers come from Teachers come from the students’ own the students’ own communities. They communities. They understand and respect understand and respect the local culturethe local culture

Girls are respected and encouraged by teachers from their own community

Graded story Graded story books help books help students gain students gain fluency and fluency and confidence in confidence in readingreading

Classroom library has books in MT and in Sindhi

L1 reading books

Schools follow Schools follow the state the state curriculum curriculum starting in starting in Grade 1, but Grade 1, but continue using continue using Parkari, with Parkari, with Sindh, in the Sindh, in the classroomclassroom

Children using Sindhi math book

Result as of 2007: Children in the Parkari MLE program outperformed Sindhi-speaking children in [internal] Math and Sindhi-language tests at the end of Year 2.