“UNESCO supports bilingual and/or multilingual education at all levels of education as a means of promoting both social and gender equality and as a key element of linguistically diverse societies.” United Nations Literacy Decade: Education for All, International Plan of Action Resolution A/56/116 Literacy for All will be effectively achieved only when it is planned and implemented in local contexts of language and culture… Literacy policies must recognize the significance of mother tongue in acquiring literacy and provide for literacy in multiple languages wherever necessary. (p. 4) 3. Educational provision for minority language communities: the real picture Because many minority language communities live in remote and inaccessible regions of the world, it is often the case that schooling in any form is unavailable. The “right to education” is in practice still denied them. Where they do have access it is usually only to “non-indigenous” forms of education. Within these programmes tribal or indigenous culture may be misunderstood or ignored, or even depicted in negative terms. The language and culture of the classroom is unfamiliar; curriculum materials, classroom interaction and instruction are all in a foreign language and teaching methods are unrelated to cultural learning styles. 3.1 Results of Non-Indigenous Education As the World Bank (2004) points out: Fifty percent of the world’s out of school children live in communities where the language of the schooling is rarely, if ever, used at home. This underscores the biggest challenge to achieving Education for All (EFA): a legacy of non-productive practices that lead to low levels of learning and high levels of dropout and repetition. An education system which does not take into account local culture and language is characterised by low intake, high repetition and high drop out rates. The dropout rates are high because education has little perceived relevance; achievement levels are low because concepts and competencies are difficult - or impossible - to learn in an unfamiliar language. The following graph shows the retention rates and yearly dropout rates for scheduled tribes in Orissa: 27% of children drop out before class 2 and 42% drop out before class 6. Only 21% are remaining in school by 7th grade.