The Routledge International Handbook of Language Education Policy in Asia 2018056677, 9781138955608, 9781315666235

Table of contents :
Cover
Endoresement Page
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Part I: Overview
Chapter 1: Language education policy in Asia: An overview
1 Introduction
2 National languages
3 English
4 Indigenous languages
5 Foreign languages other than English
6 Summary
References
Chapter 2: Minority language learning in mainland Southeast Asia
1 Introduction
2 Myanmar
3 Thailand
4 Indochina
5 Malaysia
6 Singapore
7 Ethnic Chinese immigrant languages
8 South Asian immigrant languages
9 Guest workers and refugees
10 Case study – Lisu
11 Conclusion
References
Further reading
Chapter 3: L1-based multilingual education in the Asia and Pacific region and beyond: Where are we, and where do we need to go?
1 Introduction
2 Definitions and their implications
3 Analysis of challenges to mle policy and implementation
4 Ways forward in the Asia and Pacific region and beyond
Notes
References
Further reading
Part II: East Asia
Chapter 4: Language policies in education in the People’s Republic of China
1 Introduction
2 Putonghua
3 Minority languages
4 Foreign languages
5 Conclusion
References
Further reading
Chapter 5: Language education policy in Hong Kong
1 Background
2 Review and critical discussion of earlier language education policies (1842–1997)
3 Review and critical discussion of current language education policies (since 1997)
4 Prediction for the future
5 Conclusion
Acknowledgement
Notes
References
Further reading
Chapter 6: Educational language policy in Macau: Finding balance between Chinese, English and Portuguese
1 Introduction
2 Macau’s linguistic environment
3 MSAR language policy
4 Language policies
5 Implementation of language education
6 Languages in tertiary education
7 Challenges and opportunities for the future
Notes
References
Further reading
Chapter 7: Language education policy in Japan
1 Introduction
2 Languages in Japanese society
3 Language education policy measures and programmes: issues and responses
3.1 Japanese-language education policy
4 Conclusion
Notes
References
Further reading
Chapter 8: Language Education Policies in South Korea
1 Introduction
2 Language and people of South Korea
3 Education in South Korea
4 South Korea’s language education policy: the future
References
Further reading
Chapter 9: Language education policy in North Korea
1 Introduction
2 Brief linguistic history of Korea
3 Post-World War II division: North Korea and South Korea
4 Monolingualism in North Korea
5 Education system in North Korea
6 North Korea’s language (education) policy
7 North Korea’s language education policy: looking ahead
Notes
References
Further reading
Chapter 10: Mongolia: Language education policy
1 Language background
2 Pre-modern and modern Mongolian language education policy
3 Socialist language education policy
4 Post-socialist language education policy
5 Current language education policies
5.1 Debates about English as an official language
6 Conclusion
References
Further reading
Chapter 11: Language education policy in Taiwan
1 Background
2 Ethnolinguistic profile of Taiwan
3 Historical development of Taiwan and a critical discussion of earlier language education policies
4 Review and critical discussion of current language education policy
5 A prediction for the future with regard to the place, status and roles of the relevant languages
6 Conclusion
References
Further reading
Part III: South-East Asia
Chapter 12: Language-in-education policy development in the Philippines
1 Introduction
2 Linguistic make-up of the country and history of languages currently spoken in the country
3 Review and critical discussion of earlier language education policies
4 Initiatives on uses of non-dominant languages in Philippines education (1940–2009)
5 Review and critical discussion of current language education policies
6 A prediction for the future with regards the place, status, and roles of the relevant languages
7 Conclusion
Notes
References
Further reading
Chapter 13: Language education policy in Vietnam
1 The linguistic landscape of Vietnam
2 Early language education policies
3 Language education policies in the 21st century
4 Current issues with English education policy in Vietnam
5 Possible development and implications
References
Further reading
Chapter 14: Lao language policy
1 Background
2 Historical perspectives (1300–1890)
3 French colonisation and Royalist governments (1893–1975)
4 Early Socialist policies 1975–2009
5 Language policies 2009–present
6 Predictions for the future – place, status and roles of relevant languages
7 Conclusion
References
Further reading
Chapter 15: Language education policy in Cambodia
Introduction
Review and critical discussion of earlier language education policies
Review and critical discussion of current language education policies
Language education in Cambodia: the future
Conclusion
Note
References
Further reading
Chapter 16: Language education policy in Thailand
Background
Review and critical discussion of earlier language education policies
Thai
Minority languages
Tai languages
Foreign languages
Review and critical discussion of current language education policy
Thai
Foreign languages
Potential future developments
Conclusion
References
Further reading
Chapter 17: Language policy in Myanmar
1 Background
2 Languages and ethnicities of Myanmar
3 Language policy in education
4 Major ethnic education systems and policies
5 Recent policy developments
6 Other policy considerations
7 Future of language policy
Note
References
Further reading
Chapter 18: Malaysia’s complex language policy journey via Bahasa Melayu and English
1 Introduction
2 Pre-independence period – the colonial period
3 Post-independence Malaysia – nationalistic language policies
4 Post-independence period: impact of strengthening Bahasa Melayu and weakening English
5 2015/2016 – policy measures to strengthen competency of English
6 Conclusion – voices of the people and the need for development-oriented political will
Note
References
Further reading
Chapter 19: Language education policy
Singapore
1 Introduction
2 Background
2.1 Pre-independence milestones (1965)
3 Policy and the modern nation
4 Issues and debates
5 Future of languages in Singapore
Notes
References
Further reading
Chapter 20: Language education policy in Indonesia: A struggle for unity in diversity
1 Background
2 Language education policies
3 The future of language education policy
4 Conclusion
Note
References
Further reading
Chapter 21: Postcolonial language-in-education policy in globalised times: The case of Timor-Leste
1 Introduction
2 Historical background
3 The language situation in 2010
4 Colonialism, education and language ideology
5 Wicked problems and post-independence language-in-education policy
6 Predictions for the future
7 Conclusion
Notes
References
Further reading
Chapter 22: Language policy and practice in Brunei Darussalam
1 Introduction: the linguistic environment and the language diversity of Negara Brunei Darussalam
2 Outline of earlier language-in-education policies
3 Outline of current language-in-education policies
4 Conclusions and predictions for the future
References
Suggestions for further reading
Part IV: South Asia
Chapter 23: Language policy in education in India
1 Background
2 Language education in pre-independence India
3 Current languages-in-education policy and practice in India
4 Conclusion
References
Further reading
Chapter 24: Language education policy and inequalities of multilingualism in Nepal: Ideologies, histories and updates
1 Introduction
2 Linguistic diversity
3 Understanding language ideologies in Nepal’s multilingualism
4 One-nation-one-language ideology in education
5 Mother tongue ideology and multilingual education
6 Neoliberal ideology and English mania
7 Language policy in the federal context
8 The formation of the Language Commission
9 Teaching Chinese and other foreign languages
10 Conclusion
Note
References
Further reading
Chapter 25: Language policy in Bhutan
1 Introduction
2 Languages of Bhutan
3 Language policy
4 Schooling in Bhutan
5 Languages in education policies
6 Future directions
Notes
References
Further reading
Chapter 26: Mother tongue education policy in Pakistan
Introduction
Linguistic makeup of Pakistan
Review of literature
Critical discussion of earlier language policies
Critical discussion of current language policies
Future scenarios
Conclusion
Note
References
Further reading
Interviews
Appendix 1: Summary of major policy documents on language in education
Appendix 2: MLE in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Appendix 3: MLE in Sindh
Appendix 4: Asia Multilingual Education Working Group (MLE WG)1
Mapping of actions and actors addressing language in education issues in our country: pre-primary and primary levels
Chapter 27: Language in education policy in Bangladesh: A neoliberal turn?
1 Introduction
2 Language policy and nation-states under neoliberal globalization
3 Linguistic nationalism in Bangladesh: Before and after 1971
4 The neoliberal turn
5 Discussion and conclusion
Notes
References
Further reading
Chapter 28: Language education policy in Sri Lanka
1 Background
2 Earlier language education policies
3 Current language education policy (-ies)
4 The future
5 Conclusion
References
Suggestions for further reading
Chapter 29: From a monolingual to a multilingual nation: Analysing the language education policy in the Maldives
1 Background
2 Earlier language education policies
3 Current language education policies
4 Future predictions
5 Conclusion
References
Further reading
Part V: Central Asia
Chapter 30: Language education policy in Afghanistan
1 Background explaining the linguistic make-up of the country and the history of languages currently spoken
2 Review and critical discussion of earlier language education policies
3 Review and critical discussion of current language education policy
4 The future place, status, and roles of the relevant languages
5 Conclusion
References
Further reading
Chapter 31: Language planning and language policy in Kazakhstan
1 Introduction
2 The demographic reality
3 The historical context
4 Language policy in Kazakhstan
5 Educational language policy in Kazakhstan
6 Conclusion
Notes
References
Further reading
Chapter 32: Language-in-education policy in the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan
1 Introduction
2 Historical background
3 The language situation in the Central Asian republics
4 Language policy in the Tsarist and Soviet eras
5 Language policy in the modern republics
6 Future directions
Acknowledgements
References
Further reading
Index

Citation preview

‘It can be a difficult task to keep up with the rapid changes in language education policy as Asian nations try their best to balance preservation of their own languages and adding proficiency in other languages as demanded by the globalized market. This new handbook, edited by two scholars with long experience in the field and with chapters written by local experts, is exactly the resource you need to navigate this everchanging area. It is a significant addition to the literature on the topic.’ —Bernard Spolsky, Professor Emeritus, Bar-Ilan University, Israel ‘Choices in language education policy in Asia are remarkably complex. The region contains the most linguistically diverse societies on earth, enriched by ancient and validated literary traditions and dozens of scripts and orthographic traditions.This Handbook will be an invaluable intellectual and practical resource for researchers, teachers, policy makers and community members. It is an impressive effort with a comprehensive coverage of countries and geographic regions, language education policy types and their effects.’ —Joseph Lo Bianco, Professor of Language and Literacy Education, University of Melbourne, Australia

THE ROUTLEDGE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN ASIA

This must-have handbook offers a comprehensive survey of the field. It reviews the language education policies of Asia, encompassing 30 countries sub-divided by regions, namely East, Southeast, South and Central Asia, and considers the extent to which these are being implemented and with what effect. The most recent iteration of language education policies of each of the countries is described and the impact and potential consequence of any change is critically considered. Each country chapter provides a historical overview of the languages in use and language education policies, examines the ideologies underpinning the language choices, and includes an account of the debates and controversies surrounding language and language education policies, before concluding with some predictions for the future. Andy Kirkpatrick is Professor in the Department of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences at Griffith University, Australia. Anthony J. Liddicoat is Professor in Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom.

ROUTLEDGE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK

The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication ed. Kirsten Drotner,Vincent Dziekan, Ross Parry, Kim Christian Schrøder Routledge International Handbook of Sex Industry Research ed. Susan Dewey, Isabel Crowhurst, and Chimaraoke Izugbara Routledge Handbook of Cultural Sociology 2e ed. Laura Grindstaff, Ming-Cheng Lo, John R. Hall The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Development ed. Julie Cupples, Marcela Palomina-Schalscha and Manuel Prieto The Routledge International Handbook of Embodied Perspectives in Psychotherapy Approaches from Dance Movement and Body Psychotherapies ed. Helen Payne, Sabine Koch, Jennifer Tantia and Thomas Fuchs The Routledge Handbook of Teaching Landscape ed. Elke Mertens, Nilgül Karadeniz, Karsten Jørgensen, Richard Stiles The Routledge International Handbook of Spirituality in Society and the Professions ed. Laszlo Flanagan and Bernadette Flanagan The Routledge International Handbook of Language Education Policy in Asia Edited by Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat Routledge International Handbook of Migration Studies, 2nd edition Edited by Steven J. Gold and Stephanie J. Nawyn For more information about this series, please visit: www.r​outle​dge.c​om/Ro​utled​ge-In​terna​tiona​lHan​dbook​s/boo​k-ser​ies/R​IHAND​

THE ROUTLEDGE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN ASIA

Edited by Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kirkpatrick, Andy, editor. | Liddicoat, Anthony J., editor. Title: The Routledge international handbook of language education policy in Asia/edited by Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. | Series: Routledge international handbooks | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018056677 | ISBN 9781138955608 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315666235 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Language and languages–Study and teaching–Asia. | Language policy–Asia. Classification: LCC P57.A78 R68 2019 | DDC 306.44/95–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018056677 ISBN: 978-1-138-95560-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-66623-5 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

CONTENTS

List of contributors

x

PART I

Overview 1 1 Language education policy in Asia: An overview Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat 2 Minority language learning in mainland Southeast Asia David Bradley 3 L1-based multilingual education in the Asia and Pacific region and beyond: Where are we, and where do we need to go? Carol Benson

3 14

29

PART II

East Asia

43

4 Language policies in education in the People’s Republic of China Anwei Feng and Bob Adamson

45

5 Language education policy in Hong Kong Anita Y. K. Poon

60

6 Educational language policy in Macau: Finding balance between Chinese, English and Portuguese Andrew Moody vii

76

Contents

7 Language education policy in Japan Nobuyuki Honna and Junko Saruhashi

97

8 Language education policies in South Korea Jihyeon Jeon

111

9 Language education policy in North Korea Jae Jung Song

124

10 Mongolia: Language education policy Phillip Marzluf and Myagmar Saruul-Erdene

137

11 Language education policy in Taiwan Li-ying Wu and Ken Lau

151

PART III

South-East Asia

163

12 Language-in-education policy development in the Philippines Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos

165

13 Language education policy in Vietnam Xuan Nhat Chi Mai Nguyen and Van Huy Nguyen

185

14 Lao language policy Cliff Meyers

202

15 Language education policy in Cambodia Kimmo Kosonen

216

16 Language education policy in Thailand John Draper

229

17 Language policy in Myanmar Patrick McCormick

243

18 Malaysia’s complex language policy journey via Bahasa Melayu and English 257 Saran Kaur Gill and Azianura Hani Shaari 19 Language education policy: Singapore Ritu Jain and Lionel Wee

272

20 Language education policy in Indonesia: A struggle for unity in diversity Michelle Kohler

286

viii

Contents

21 Postcolonial language-in-education policy in globalised times: The case of Timor-Leste 298 Kerry Taylor-Leech 22 Language policy and practice in Brunei Darussalam Noor Azam Haji-Othman, James McLellan, and Gary M. Jones

314

PART IV

South Asia

327

23 Language policy in education in India Ajit K. Mohanty

329

24 Language education policy and inequalities of multilingualism in Nepal: Ideologies, histories and updates Prem Phyak and Laxmi Prasad Ojha

341

25 Language policy in Bhutan Lhundup Dukpa

355

26 Mother tongue education policy in Pakistan Tariq Rahman

364

27 Language in education policy in Bangladesh: A neoliberal turn? M. Obaidul Hamid and Arifa Rahman

382

28 Language education policy in Sri Lanka Indika Liyanage

399

29 From a monolingual to a multilingual nation: Analysing the language education policy in the Maldives Naashia Mohamed

414

PART V

Central Asia

427

30 Language education policy in Afghanistan Brian Spooner and Senzil Nawid

429

31 Language planning and language policy in Kazakhstan Timothy Reagan

442

32 Language-in-education policy in the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan Anthony J. Liddicoat

452

Index 471 ix

CONTRIBUTORS

Bob Adamson is Chair Professor of Curriculum Reform and Director of the Centre for Lifelong Learning Research and Development at the Education University of Hong Kong. Carol Benson is Associate Professor in International and Comparative Education at the International and Transcultural Studies Department at Teachers College in New York. David Bradley is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at La Trobe University, Australia and President of the UNESCO Comité International Permanent des Linguistes. John Draper is Director of the Research Group on Local Affairs Administration and Smart City Development at Khon Kaen University, Thailand. Lhundup Dukpa is a Head of the Educational Leadership Unit at the Royal Education Council in Bhutan. Anwei Feng is Professor of Language Education and Head of School of Education at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. Saran Kaur Gill is Professor of Macro-Sociolinguistics (Language Policy and Planning) with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Noor Azam Haji-Othman is an Associate Professor in English Language and Linguistics and Professional Communication/Media at the University of Brunei Darussalam. M. Obaidul Hamid is Senior Lecturer in TESOL Education at the University of Queensland, Australia. Nobuyuki Honna is a Professor Emeritus of international communication at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo. Tony Igcalinos is an independent practitioner in public policy research, program administration, strategic planning, public affairs and communications, partnerships, and resource mobilisation in the Philippines. Ritu Jain is a Lecturer at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. x

Contributors

Jihyeon Jeon is a professor in the Department of International Office Administration, Ewha Woman’s University, Seoul, Korea. Gary M. Jones is an Associate Professor in English Language and Linguistics and Professional Communication/Media at the University of Brunei Darussalam, and is currently managing the UBD/FPT , Global Centre in Da Nang,Vietnam. Andy Kirkpatrick is Professor in the Department of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences at Griffith University, Australia. Michelle Kohler is Senior Lecturer in Languages Education and Indonesian at Flinders University in South Australia. Kimmo Kosonen is a Senior Consultant in multilingual education with SIL International and a Lecturer at Payap University, Thailand. Ken Lau is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Applied English Studies, the University of Hong Kong. Anthony J. Liddicoat is Professor in the Centre for Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick in the UK and Adjunct Professor in the School of Communication, International Studies and Languages at the University of South Australia. Indika Liyanage is Associate Professor in the School of Education at Deakin University in Australia. Phillip Marzluf is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Kansas State University. Patrick McCormick was the representative of the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) office in Yangon from 2013 to 2016 and is part of a research project on the history of language contact in and around the area of Burma. James McLellan is a Senior Assistant Professor in English Language and Linguistics and Professional Communication/Media at the University of Brunei Darussalam. Cliff Meyers was a UNICEF Senior Education Specialist over the past 20 years across the Asia Pacific Region and works as a freelance consultant in the region. Naashia Mohamed is a Senior Lecturer at the Maldives National University. Ajit K. Mohanty taught as Professor and ICSSR National Fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Andrew Moody is an Associate Professor of Linguistics in the English Department at the University of Macau. Senzil Nawid is a Research Scholar affiliated with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona. Van Huy Nguyen is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, Australia. Xuan Nhat Chi Mai Nguyen is a Lecturer in English at College of Foreign Languages, Hue University,Vietnam. Prem Phyak is a Lecturer at Department of English Education, Central Department of Education, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Nepal. xi

Contributors

Anita Y.K. Poon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education at Hong Kong Baptist University. Laxmi Prasad Ojha is a Lecturer at Department of English Education, Central Department of Education, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Nepal. Arifa Rahman is Professor, Institute of Modern Languages, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Tariq Rahman is Dean, School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and Acting Dean, School of Education, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. Timothy Reagan is the Dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Maine, Orono. Junko Saruhashi is a Professor of Sociolinguistics at the Department of International Communication, School of International Politics, Economics and Communication, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo. Myagmar Saruul-Erdene is a Mongolian Language and Culture Instructor at the United States Department of State Foreign Service Institute. Azianura Hani Shaari is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Language Studies and Linguistics, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Jae Jung Song was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Otago. Brian Spooner is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Curator for Near Eastern Ethnology at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Kerry Taylor-Leech is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. Lionel Wee is a Professor in the Department of English Language & Literature and Vice-Dean of the Research Division (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences) at the National University of Singapore. Li-ying Wu is Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages. Catherine Young is Director of Global Language and Development Services for SIL International.

xii

PART I

Overview

1 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN ASIA An overview Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat

1 Introduction Language education polices are a form of human resource development planning (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997) that operate to develop language abilities that a society identifies as important for social, economic, or other objectives. They make statements about which languages will be included in education and the purposes for which those languages will be taught and learned. Policies therefore project an imagined future linguistic situation and make provisions to bring this into existence (Liddicoat, 2013). Understanding such policies is important for understanding how authoritative institutions such as governments and education systems construct the future possibilities for languages within their jurisdictions and attempt to shape emerging linguistic ecologies. The goal of this book is to understand language policies for education, how they have evolved over time, and what they have to say about the future of linguistic diversity in this vast region. The focus of the book is on explicitly stated language policies; that is, policies that are enshrined in various forms of language legislation, policy documents, curricula, and other educational texts. Such policies are inevitably accompanied by implicit policies, which equally shape language practices and can contribute significantly to what happens educationally (Spolsky, 2004). As public statements of governments’ intentions and values in relation to language, explicit policies’ documents have a particular place within the policy context as they are “explicit, tangible and authoritative statements of policy positions and as such can form a useful focus for study” (Liddicoat, 2013: 4). This book aims to examine language education policy over an extensive region in order to foster a comparative perspective on how language is included in education and the forces that shape this both within and across nations. We have chosen to focus on Asia as the largest land mass on earth, with the largest proportion of the human population, and the greatest linguistic diversity. Given the demographic and linguistic significance of this region, it represents a significant site for language policy development. The political geography of Asia is in many ways arbitrary as the geological region does not coincide neatly with the political, linguistic, and cultural realities of the region. In fact, Asia is itself an invention of Europe and European geography that has been reproduced over time (Markovits, 2013; Noor, 2014; Said, 1979). Both the grouping of nations, societies, and cultures together as Asia and the separating them out from others are discursive acts that are problematic 3

Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat

given the reality of social, cultural, economic, and other relations both within the continent of Asia and across continental boundaries. A neat division of the political and social world into continents is ultimately problematic given the realities of a vast land bloc incorporating Europe, Asia, and Africa with on-going contacts and demographic and economic flows across geological boundaries. In framing this book, we have chosen to construct the idea of Asia in a particular way and have excluded from consideration some areas that are geographically normally considered as a part of Asia: Russia and the Middle East. While Russia is the largest country on the continent of Asia, we have chosen not to include Russia in this volume as we felt that the political and cultural influences and the political elites that shape Russian language education policy are more strongly based in Europe than they are in Asia. The Middle East, or Western Asia, has many linguistic and cultural connections with Central and Southern Asia, but also with Northern Africa. We felt that Western Asia would be much better considered together with Africa in view of the significance of Arabic and Islam across the region. This book is presented as a series of polity studies of the Asian region that examines the ways that the dynamics of the various languages present in each context play out in the field of education. The studies are grouped geographically for convenience: East Asia, South East Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia. However, this grouping, like any other, is somewhat arbitrary and can suggest a coherence that is not in fact evident in the local realities of the policies under consideration and can also obscure realities that cut across these geographical divisions. In addition to the polity chapters, two chapters with a supra-local focus have also been included to highlight issues that tend to be obscured in broad considerations of a polity.These issues are minority language learning and mother tongue education.These are two issues that tend to be peripheral, or even absent, in much of the policy work in the region, although significant developments have been occurring in both that deserve special attention. All of the polity chapters in this book present information about how education policies address issues relating to national languages, indigenous languages, and other languages, of which English forms a special case. Below, we have attempted a synthesis of the policy directions found within the region in each of these areas as a way of characterising language education policy in Asia.

2  National languages Most of the countries of Asia were colonised and only gained their independence in the second half of the 20th century and so language in education planning in many countries has to be understood in the context of earlier colonial policies and the need for nation-building work post-independence. Different countries in the region had very different histories of colonialism. In some places in South Asia and South-East Asia, European powers began to establish a colonial presence from the 16th century, while in other countries, colonial history is much more recent. Asia was a target of most of the European colonial powers, with the UK, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Russia all carrying out imperialist projects in the region. Spain held power in the Philippines until the 19th century, but from then had no colonial presence in the region. In some places (notably in India, the Philippines, and Indonesia), colonial history is complex with changes in the colonial power over time. In addition to the European colonisers, Japan was also an active colonial power, establishing colonies in the Korean peninsula and Taiwan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The US replaced Spain in the Philippines from 1898 and Indonesia occupied Timor Leste at the end of Portuguese control in 1975. Most of the colonising powers established overseas colonial regimes of various types but the case of Russian colonialism in Central Asia involved instead incorporation of territory into the Russian state. 4

Language education policy in Asia

In all, very few countries escaped colonisation, with Thailand, Mongolia, Nepal, and Japan the exceptions. China, although not fully colonised, ceded territory to Portugal (Macau), the UK (Hong Kong), and Japan (Taiwan and briefly Manchuria). Bhutan and Afghanistan, although not formally annexed, were subject to strong influence from the UK, especially in foreign affairs. The colonial regimes normally used the colonisers’ language as the language of administration and established educational programmes using the colonial language as the medium of instruction. This meant that at the time of independence, there were established elites in most countries who were educated in the colonial language and the main education systems functioned in the colonial language. At independence, much of Asia, unlike Africa, rejected the use of colonial languages as official languages of the new states and chose local languages. Usually, the newly independent states chose a single language as the official variety and adoption of this language by all citizens was seen as central to the building of national identity. In a small number of countries, multiple local languages were given official recognition (e.g. India, Singapore, Sri Lanka) usually in contexts of complex linguistic diversity. Afghanistan recognised both Pashto and Dari as official. In some cases, the former colonial language was maintained as an official language, alongside local languages (e.g. English in Singapore, India, Philippines; Portuguese in Timor Leste; Russian in Kyrgyzstan). After their return to China, both Hong Kong and Macau adopted policies that continued the use of the former colonial language (English and Portuguese) alongside Cantonese. Hong Kong formulates its policy as official trilingualism (Cantonese, English, and Mandarin) and biliteracy (English and Chinese). The reasons for keeping colonial languages are complex. In some cases, the colonial language has been viewed as important as a lingua franca that facilitates communication between ethnic groups within the nation (e.g. English in Singapore and India) and may play this role as a language not closely linked to a particular ethnic group. In Central Asia, Russian has been maintained in recognition of the large numbers of ethnic Russians present in the country but may also be considered as having a lingua franca function for interethnic communication. In some cases, although not official, a former colonial language may be given special status as a language of interethnic communication (e.g. English in Sri Lanka, Russian in Tajikistan). Former colonial languages may also be maintained as being more suited to international communication than the local official language(s). For most of the countries in the region, literacy and internal language spread policies were important for educational planning, especially in newly independent states. At the beginning of the 20th century few countries in the region, whether colonies or not, had high levels of literacy and in colonised nations, literacy had normally been developed in the colonial language. Many of the countries of the region have therefore given a great deal of attention to literacy development in the official language, with many raising literacy levels very substantially since the mid-20th century. Internal language spread policies involved increasing use of the spoken variety among those who did not speak it as a first language. Coupled with the focus on official language literacy, this meant that education of linguistic minorities has mainly been conceptualised in terms of developing language and literacy skills in the official variety. In this context, the official language has typically been the sole language of schooling and other languages at best have been given only marginal roles. Although in most countries in the region the medium of instruction is the sole official language of the state, there are complexities around the medium of instruction policy in some parts of Asia. In some places where there are multiple official languages, these languages have not always been treated equally. For example, in Singapore only one language, English, is used as the normal medium of instruction for the majority of the curriculum, with the other official languages having the more marginal role of subjects in the curriculum. In Central Asian r­epublics 5

Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat

such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the emphasis on internal spread of Kazakh and Kyrgyz means that Russian is much less frequently used as the main medium of instruction and access to Russian schools may be limited. In Macau, Portuguese, although official, has a very marginal role in education compared to Chinese. In Hong Kong, medium of instruction is the focus of controversy with education in English medium schools considered of better quality and more desirable than education in Chinese medium schools. There has thus been substantial public pressure to expand English medium education at the expense of Chinese. Language education policy in many parts of the region has been closely tied to the dissemination of corpus planning activities, such as standardisation, elaboration, and codification. In some countries, languages which had not previously been used in schooling or for other official functions came to be used as official languages and required substantial corpus development, especially in academic domains. In many places, language planning agencies were established to undertake this corpus development work, which involved producing reference works such as grammars and dictionaries and pedagogical materials. In most countries this work was substantially the work of post-independence governments (e.g. India, Indonesia, Philippines) but in Central Asia significant work was carried out before independence as a result of the emphasis of the USSR government on the development of ethnic languages. For these countries, therefore, at independence there was substantial corpus planning work already completed and the languages had been to some extent integrated into the educational and national system, although usually dominated by Russian. In Central Asia, a key corpus planning issue has been whether to continue or break with the decisions of the Soviet era, especially in terms of script policy. The decision to replace Cyrillic with the Latin in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan has had significant consequences for education as it has meant that existing educational resources can no longer be used, and a significant investment is needed in new materials. Even in countries with wellestablished language traditions, there has been some corpus development work with a direct impact on education in the national language, such as the simplification of characters in China, the establishing of approved kanji lists in Japan, and the replacement of Chinese characters by hangul in both North and South Korea. Overall in the Asian region, language education policy has been used as a vehicle for nationbuilding and for attempting to establish a shared sense of national identity through the development of a common language. This appears to have been a central concern of policies both in countries created through colonialism, which may not have had an established national identity prior to colonisation and independence and also of more established countries that have not been subject to colonisation. Multilingual education policies are much less frequently found. This indicates that the region has been strongly influenced by the post-Enlightenment one nation – one language ideology (Liddicoat & Heugh, 2014; May, 2012), which was exported from Europe during the colonial period. Language policy has thus tended to consider linguistic diversity as potentially problematic for national unity and national cohesiveness.

3 English Along with the promotion of their respective national languages, the polities covered in this Handbook also privilege English as the first ‘other’ language to be taught in schools. As the chapters show, the demand for English and English medium education is influencing the educational agenda across the region. Hong Kong provides a good example. As noted above, the government’s aim is to produce citizens who are trilingual in Cantonese, Putonghua (Mandarin), and English and biliterate in Chinese and English. However, the fact that six of the eight ­government-funded universities are English medium, as well as all the private universities, means 6

Language education policy in Asia

that ­parental demand for English is such that many Chinese medium secondary schools are teaching more and more classes in English and fewer in Chinese. Bangladesh provides another example where English is challenging the national language, Bangla. As the authors of the chapter on Bangladesh argue, the changes in language policy in general and English language policy in particular can be read as a neoliberal narrative in a globalised world i.e. how a nation with a strong sense of linguistic nationalism at birth has gradually opened itself to English and has given space to supra-national and sub-national entities that have promoted English. There is a sense of irony here, as Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan and was established as an independent nation state on the basis of language, Bangla. In the early years of Bangladesh’s existence, English had only limited scope but was introduced into the first years of primary school in the early 1990s. The years since then have seen an exponential growth in the teaching of English and it has become the medium of instruction in all private schools. This move towards English medium of instruction is also seen at university level, both private and government. This has led the government to insist that English medium schools also teach classes in Bangla and the Education Act of 2016 makes Bangla and Bangladesh studies a compulsory part of the curriculum. However, if the state can be seen to maintain some sort of balance between Bangla and English in the public sector, this balance does not appear to be relevant for the non-state sector. Bangla seems to have been undermined in English medium schools and private universities.This pattern of private education providing English medium programmes and the state providing education through the national language can be determined in many of the polities reported on here. The increase in the parental demand for and popularity of an English medium education can also be determined. For example, in Nepal, the expansion of English as a medium of instruction in public schools exemplifies how neoliberal private schools shape the public discourses and policies of language education. Vietnam provides another example where the national language is seen to be under threat from English. As the authors of the chapter on Vietnam point out, although Vietnamese remains the most important language of education at all levels, the rapidly increasing number of private education institutions and universities have adopted English as a medium of instruction (EMI). This increased role of English is seen to threaten Vietnamese as EMI students report identifying less with Vietnamese culture with the result that the government has ruled that all students attending private educational institutions must take compulsory courses in Vietnamese language and culture. Language education policy in Bhutan is solely focussed on the promotion of Dzongkha as the national language and English. Indigenous languages other than Dzongkha currently have no place in the education system. It is expected that children will acquire their home language at home. The only languages included in school contexts are the national language and English. Thus, at kindergarten level, Dzongkha is the sole medium of instruction and English is introduced as a subject. At later primary school levels, the role of English is expanded with English becoming the medium of instruction in increasing, but unspecified proportions over the duration of primary education until in Grade 4, English replaces Dzongkha as the language of instruction, with Dzongkha language and literature continuing as a subject. This situation is then continued through secondary school and in tertiary education. Bhutan thus provides an extreme example of the trends which can be identified by analysing the language policies and practices encountered in the Handbook. The national language, in this case Dzongkha, and English represent the two main languages of education, with other indigenous languages playing no part. As will be discussed below, the promotion of English leads to the neglect of indigenous languages within the education systems. But it also leads to heightened divisions between the haves 7

Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat

and have nots, often realised by the haves buying private English classes and/or buying private English medium education and creating a marked distinction between private and public/state education; the English taught in state education is often poorly taught, and, in many cases not taught at all, despite government policy, because there are no teachers to teach it. For example, as the authors of the Myanmar chapter show, while technically university departments are allowed to use either English or Burmese, or some combination of the two, by long tradition, a majority of departments across the country use English as the sole medium of instruction and many require that examinations and theses be written only in English. The central problem with this proposition is the low English levels among both teachers and students, and a lack of access to trained English teachers. At a conference on multilingual policy in Mandalay in February 2016, Thant Sin Aye provided the results of her survey research of faculty and students across universities in Burma which showed that the majority would prefer to teach and be taught in Burmese, even if textbooks remain in English. Cambodia has recently introduced English from Grade 4 of primary school. However, many teachers who are expected to teach English have very low or no skills in the English language. As a result, in practice, many schools do not include English in their teaching syllabus. A policy to include English as a required school subject is in place, but it is not practiced in most primary schools of the country. This ‘gap’ between policy and practice can be seen in many contexts throughout the region. China has more students learning English than anywhere else in the region. English is introduced as a compulsory subject from Grade 3. In many cases, however, English is introduced even earlier, with private kindergartens catering to middle class demand for an English education for their children. Again, we see a divide between the wealthy who can afford special and extra English classes for their children and those who cannot. This often takes the form of an urban– rural divide. The privileging of English together with the national promotion of Putonghua – like many other countries, the PRC desires a unified and strong country and to that end the promotion of a national lingua franca is seen as essential – threatens local minority languages and other Chinese languages. History tells us that this could cause a rapid diminishing of minority languages and linguistic diversity and even social disturbance. Even a widely perceived ‘safe’ language with strong ethnolinguistic vitality such as Mongolian shows some signs of being endangered. Many dialects of Chinese also feel under threat. Even in Central Asia, where Russian has continued to be the most widely taught additional language, the position of Russian is being challenged by an increasing demand for English. This situation reflects a more widespread historical trend in the region where English displaced other languages from educational systems during the second half of the 20th century. The primary motivator for the growth of English in the region has been the increasing globalised role of English and an ideological positioning of English as the language of modernisation and economic opportunity supported by the neoliberal agenda of education for economic utility (Davies & Bansel, 2007; Piller & Cho, 2013). The predominance of English in Asia is not only a feature of individual polities’ policies, but is also supported by supra-regional bodies, most significantly ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations). ASEAN’s language policy has been one in which the languages of Asia have been excluded in favour of a single working language, English. The reach of this monolingual language policy has been further widened by the recent expansion of ASEAN as the ASEAN+3 to include China, Japan, and South Korea, at the end of 2015 (ASEAN, 2015). This regional grouping gives further impetus to the place of English in Asia, especially East Asia, and to the pragmatic, neoliberal rationale for a monolingual focus on English for communication outside the nation-state (Kirkpatrick, 2012; Kirkpatrick & Liddicoat, 2017). 8

Language education policy in Asia

4  Indigenous languages The area under consideration is the most linguistically diverse region of the world. In Indonesia alone, there are some 700 languages. Yet it is rare to find indigenous languages being systematically taught as part of the education system. In almost all cases, indigenous languages are neglected, if not ignored. Where they are taught, they are taught either by religious institutions and/or depend on funding from NGOs.These are often pilot projects and seldom part of mainstream education. Bangladesh provides an example of a place where the teaching of indigenous languages is dependent upon NGOs and external funding. The NGO, Building Resources Across Communities (BRAC), is the largest NGO in the world. In Bangladesh, BRAC owns 13,800 pre-primary schools with 400,072 students, and 22,971 primary schools with 681,794 students. BRAC also operates 1,635 ethnic minority schools in the south eastern region which provide multilingual education (involving indigenous languages, Bangla, and English) in which 40,175 minority students are enrolled. The authors of the Bangladesh chapter conclude that we may be witnessing an educational situation where the national language is losing ground to English and indigenous languages, albeit slowly, brought about by forces beyond state control. India is one of the most linguistically diverse countries of this linguistically diverse region with some 800 languages being spoken. Languages in India constitute a hierarchical and pyramidal power structure of broadly three layers. English occupies the most powerful position in the hierarchy. Hindi and other major regional languages are in the middle layer of the hierarchy.The majority of languages, the indigenous, tribal, and minority (ITM) languages, are in the lowest rung of the power hierarchy. This hierarchical system of power relationships between languages in India is characterised by a double divide, one between English and the major regional languages (English–Vernacular divide) and the other between the major regional languages and ITM languages (Vernacular–Other divide). In India, as in many of the other contexts discussed here, the rhetoric of language policy in education remains fractured between a political desire to promote the mother tongues and indigenous identities of the masses in a multilingual society and, at the same time, to cater to the growing popular craze for English. In this ‘battle’ between English and indigenous languages, English emerges on top, as the hegemonic role of English in Indian education has forced a monolingual orientation to education in a country where multilingualism is the social reality. There are, however, some efforts to promote a system of mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTBMLE). For example, the regional government of Odisha has introduced a mother tongue-based policy for tribal children in the state. Nevertheless, the authors of the India chapter conclude that indigenous languages are cumulatively ignored and neglected in education. In contrast to one of the most linguistically diverse places covered in the Handbook, Cambodia is one of the least linguistically diverse, with Khmer being spoken by some 90% of the population and with ‘only’ 23 other languages being spoken. Although English is the first other language to be taught, being compulsory from Grade 4 of primary school, the lack of teachers and resources referred to earlier actually means that many Cambodian children are educated in a monolingual Khmer environment. With regard the indigenous languages, a ‘Multilingual Education National Action Plan’ (MENAP) was finalised in late 2015 and officially launched in March 2016 with some success. As of early 2016, more than 5500 children had studied in or were attending formal schools providing multilingual education, and 150 people have been trained as teachers in multilingual education. It is estimated that the number of multilingual education students will double by the end of 2018. Cambodia therefore represents an example of a country where the national language is dominant, where English is privileged as 9

Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat

the first ‘other’ language to be taught in schools, but without the teachers or resources to implement the policy, but where some progress towards the adoption of MTBMLE is being made. Neighbouring Vietnam pays lip service to the teaching and learning of indigenous languages, but rigorously promotes Vietnamese as the medium of instruction. As the authors of the chapter on Vietnam note, the early enforcement of Vietnamese as the medium of instruction appears to disadvantage minority students as they have to acquire scientific knowledge in a language they are not yet proficient in. This has been reported to cause high dropout and failure rates among ethnic minority school-goers. As a general rule, the almost universal drive to promote a single national language as a marker of national unity and identity runs counter to the promotion of indigenous languages. Governments may see the teaching and learning of indigenous languages as inimical to the project of promoting national unity and a nation state.The chapter on Thailand provides an example where the teaching and learning of indigenous languages is viewed with suspicion, especially in the south of the country, where Thai is the medium of instruction, even though Pattani-Malay is the mother tongue of the majority of the population. The Ministry of Education’s rationale for learning Thai first centres on promoting national identity, national unity, and strengthening ‘Thainess.’ Nonetheless, the monolingual education system is generally seen as ineffective, with one-third of teenagers functionally illiterate. The insistence on using the national language as the medium of instruction, as is the case in the majority of the places covered in the Handbook, can result in poor educational outcomes for children whose mother tongue is not the national language. Interestingly, the remoteness of an area may help preserve an indigenous language. As Koehler reports in her chapter on Indonesia, the vitality of local languages is affected by the size and location of the community of speakers, with large urban-based languages such as Javanese and Sundanese generally faring much better than smaller, rural-based languages such as Bantik. However, size and remoteness can be a saving grace for some languages (such as those of Sumbawa and Alor) as they have been somewhat protected from more dominant languages. At the same time however, Indonesian is increasingly a first language and this trend may be producing an increase in monolingualism amongst some groups. While indigenous languages are, in the main, excluded from mainstream education, there are examples where governments are actively promoting a system of mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTBMLE). In the Philippines, for example, 19 indigenous languages have been gazetted to be taught as media of instruction for the first three years of primary school, with transition to the national language, Filipino, and English taking place in the later years of primary school. However, as Young (this volume) notes, last-minute changes to the policy were introduced, resulting in the discrepancy between what the proponents had initially agreed beforehand and the version that the President signed into law, prompting one wellknown proponent of MTBMLE, Ricardo Nolasco, to call the policy a ‘castrated policy’, as it only required the use of these indigenous languages as media of instruction for the first three years of primary school rather than throughout primary school as originally planned. At the same time, a lack of materials and funding means that many materials and resources have not been developed. The new system is also designed to make learning ‘paperless.’Yet this paperless system makes access difficult especially in areas where Internet service is poor or non-existent. And, as Young also notes, there is no foreseeable addition to the 19 languages granted official MOI status in the mid- to long term. And it should also be noted that, while the use of 19 indigenous languages as media of instruction represents a significant change from the previous bilingual education policy whereby English acted as the medium of instruction for maths and science subjects and the national language, Filipino, for other subjects from Grade 1 of primary 10

Language education policy in Asia

school, the Philippines is linguistically diverse with more than 170 languages spoken across the archipelago. While many countries covered in this Handbook are in fact moving to provide some form of MTBMLE for children whose first language is not the national language, this is, as noted above, often funded by NGOs or religious institutions and takes the form of pilot projects. The Philippines national policy of MTBMLE provides an exception to this, but, as noted above, the MTBMLE policy in the Philippines is not without its problems. As Benson reports in her chapter, it has been estimated that 40%, or 2.3 billion, of the world’s people still lack access to instruction in a language they speak or understand and as Bradley notes in his, in all countries of mainland Southeast Asia, indigenous ethnic minority languages are largely excluded from the government education system as a consequence of policies in support of the national language. This means that indigenous ethnic minorities are in most cases greatly disadvantaged when they start school in the national language.

5  Foreign languages other than English In Asia, foreign language education has become synonymous with the teaching and learning of English and other foreign languages have at best a minimal role in education, especially in schools. In some countries study of English as a foreign language is specified in local language policies, while in others the policy refers more generally to foreign language study. However, regardless of how the policy is framed, English has become the default language in all policies for foreign language teaching. The exception to this broader trend is in Central Asia, where Russian has held at least some of its former position in those republics where it does not have official status. Kazakhstan, for example promotes Kazakh–Russian bilingualism and requires all students to study Russian and other republics also provide instruction in Russian as an additional language. The maintenance of Russian in the education systems of these countries is motivated by a number of factors including the practical need for Russian as an interethnic lingua franca, ongoing economic links between the Russian Federation and Central Asia, the political influence of Russia in the region and possibilities for cross-border mobility. Even in Central Asia, however, the position of Russian is challenged by English and the relative balance of English and Russian in education may change in future. Although English dominates education, other languages are nonetheless present as foreign languages. In universities, a greater diversity of foreign languages is offered than in schools and the enrolments in these languages are greater than in schools, although often still marginal compared to the study of English. Much learning of foreign languages is thus undertaken in elective ab initio tertiary level programmes. In each polity, the number of languages available to learners at school or tertiary level is likely to be quite restricted, with high prestige European languages such as French, Spanish, and German tending to predominate, along with Chinese as the most widely taught Asian language. In many cases, the teaching and learning of these languages is supported by external language spread agencies such as the Alliance Française or the Confucius Institute. It is probable that political support from outside is more important for the presence of some of the languages available than local government language education policies. In Islamic countries, Arabic has maintained a position in schools, especially in religious schools, although it is less widely taught than English and is often taught only for the purposes of Qur’anic recitation or other religious uses. The present dominance of English is the result of patterns of change in language education policy over the period since the end of the end of the Second World War. Early in the post-war 11

Andy Kirkpatrick and Anthony J. Liddicoat

period, there was a greater diversity of languages taught especially in schools and larger numbers of students studying them at both school and university. For example, in South Vietnam, French held a significant place in education, which was eventually lost to English. In Communist states, Russian as the prototypical language of the Communist movement was commonly taught as a foreign language in both schools and universities (e.g. in (North) Vietnam, North Korea, Mongolia, the People’s Republic of China). The presence of Russian was, however, substantially eroded in favour of English from the 1990s following the collapse of the USSR, although English had begun to make an appearance even before this. Most of the period since the Second World War has been characterised by an overall decline in the diversity and the amount of study of foreign languages other than English. Nonetheless, there seems to be some evidence that this decline may be halting at least in some countries and enrolments may be increasing in some foreign languages, for example in China where there has been some encouragement of more diversified foreign language learning by some regional governments. Although overall proportions of learners remain very small in comparison with English, there is thus some evidence that in future the movement to English-only foreign language education may be slowing.

6 Summary In summary, the following trends emerge from this study of language policy and practice: i the promotion of the respective national language as part of the drive to create the idea of a nation state and to promote national unity; ii the promotion of English as the first ‘other’ language to be taught in schools as part of the neoliberal agenda in the drive to modernise and participate in globalisation; iii the teaching of English is often unsatisfactory with a paucity of trained teachers with sufficient proficiency in English to be able to teach it; iv an increasing division between public (national language as medium of instruction) and private (English medium of instruction) education which widens the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’; v many children in the region are being taught in a language they do not understand and are thus failing at school; vi there is a ‘rhetorical’ promotion of indigenous languages but, in practice, the teaching and learning of indigenous languages is left to NGOs, religious institutions, and mainly takes the form of pilot projects. The number of local languages being used in education remains a minute fraction of the total. Taken together these trends suggest that the linguistic diversity of the region is threatened by policies which promote the respective national languages and English. However, more governments do appear to understand the benefits to be derived from mother tongue-based multilingual education and thus may promote the teaching and learning of a small number of indigenous languages. With few exceptions such as in the Philippines, however, bilingualism in the national language and English is becoming the common goal of language education throughout the region, but it should be stressed that only the middle classes successfully attain this goal. The lack of resources and the lack of suitably qualified and proficient teachers means that, in many cases, English is either poorly taught – and thus not learned – or not even taught at all, despite being a compulsory subject. This is heightening the division between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’ There is little evidence for other forms of multilingualism as an educational 12

Language education policy in Asia

goal, whether this is home language, national language, English, or national language, English, other foreign language. There is also little evidence for systematic support for the inclusion of indigenous languages as languages of education. The linguistic diversity of the region therefore looks under severe threat and the future of many local languages looks bleak.

References ASEAN. (2015). ASEAN Economic Community blueprint. Jakarta: The ASEAN Secretariat. Davies, B., & Bansel, P. (2007). Neoliberalism and education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20(3), 247–259. doi:10.1080/09518390701281751 Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. B. (1997). Language planning: From practice to theory. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Kirkpatrick, A. (2012). English as an international language in Asia: Implications for language education. In A. Kirkpatrick & R. Sussex (Eds.), English as an international language in Asia: Implications for language education (pp. 29–44). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Kirkpatrick, A., & Liddicoat, A. J. (2017). Language policy in Asia. Language Teaching, 50(2), 155–188. Liddicoat, A. J. (2013). Language-in-education policies: The discursive construction of intercultural relations. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Liddicoat, A. J., & Heugh, K. (2014). Educational equity for linguistically marginalised students. In M. Bigelow & J. Ennser-Kananen (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 79–91). New York & London: Routledge. Markovits, C. (2013). L’Asie, une invention européenne? Monde(s), 3(1), 53–66. doi:10.3917/mond. 131.0053 May, S. (2012). Language and minority rights: Ethnicity, nationalism and the politics of language (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Noor, F. A. (2014). The discursive construction of Southeast Asia in 19th century colonial-capitalist discourse. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Piller, I., & Cho, J. (2013). Neoliberalism as language policy. Language in Society, 42(1), 23–44. doi:10.1017/ S0047404512000887 Said, E. W. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Random House. Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

13

2 MINORITY LANGUAGE LEARNING IN MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA David Bradley

1 Introduction Each of the seven nations in mainland Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar/Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore) has a somewhat different approach to language education for its indigenous minorities. Policies and approaches for language education of immigrant minorities are also quite diverse. For a general overview of these policies, see Bradley (2007); for more specific studies of policy in each country, see chapters by various authors in Bradley (ed. 1985b). A recent UNICEF initiative is extending mother tongue education for minorities as a way of developing social cohesion in Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar/Burma and improving educational and social outcomes for minorities, see UNICEF (2016a). Every nation except Singapore has a single historical national language, with a long-­ established written and spoken standard used by the majority group in the nation as well as to a greater or lesser degree by minorities in those nations. This is Vietnamese in Vietnam, Khmer in Cambodia, Lao in Laos, Thai in Thailand, Myanmar/Burmese in Myanmar/Burma, and Malay in Malaysia. Singapore has four official languages: Mandarin Chinese, English, Malay, and the Dravidian language Tamil, but in practice English and Mandarin Chinese dominate national life. In three nations, Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar/Burma, there is an official list of recognised indigenous ethnic groups, including the majority group: 54 in Vietnam, 47 in Laos, and 135 in Myanmar/Burma, though in Myanmar/Burma this is now evolving and is about to increase. In Thailand there is a gradually growing list of indigenous minority groups, which started in the early 1960s with seven ‘hill tribes’ in the north of the country, but is now up to 47 across the entire country, both due to separation of distinct groups within some of the original seven, recognition of additional small indigenous groups in the north and elsewhere in the country, and the arrival of groups from adjacent countries, mainly from Myanmar/Burma. Malaysia has a general policy which classifies all indigenous groups including the Malay majority as bumiputra ‘children of the land’ and within this has a separate category orang asli ‘original people’ for the various indigenous minorities who are not ethnic Malay. Singapore was inhabited almost entirely by speakers of varieties of Malay up to 1819, but now has an ethnic Chinese majority, a substantial Malay minority, a smaller and internally diverse South Asian minority, and a large expatriate and guest worker population.

14

Mainland Southeast Asia Table 2.1 Indigenous minority language mother tongue speakers Country

Groups

Languages

Population %

Laos Myanmar/Burma Vietnam Thailand Cambodia West Malaysia

46 134 53 47 N/A N/A

73 111 91 47 18 24

47% 34% 11% 7% 3% 0.7%

The proportion of the population whose indigenous spoken mother tongue is not the national language differs greatly between these countries; see Table 2.1. This does not include Singapore as there are no indigenous minorities which predate 1819 and whose languages are still spoken; Cambodia and Malaysia have no lists of ethnic groups with official status.The highest proportion is in Laos, and in Myanmar/Burma it is also quite high. The indigenous minority language totals and population percentages in this table do not include the substantial numbers of members of the majority ethnic group from adjacent countries living outside the borders of those countries:Vietnamese in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand; Lao, Malay, Khmer, and Bamar/Burmese in Thailand; Thai in Malaysia and Cambodia; Lao in Cambodia and Vietnam; and Khmer in Vietnam. There are some people from almost every Southeast Asian country in Singapore. Also not included are immigrant ethnic groups: ethnic Chinese discussed in (7) below and from South Asia discussed in (8) below; refugees and guest workers discussed in (9) below; and mother tongue users of various indigenous sign languages. Since education in all seven nations is in the main carried out in government schools which use the national language as medium of education, ethnic minorities are normally expected to use this national language exclusively during school hours. This causes severe educational disadvantage, especially for non-urban indigenous minorities whose communities traditionally do not use the national language in the home and village. Singapore is the exception, with parents having a choice between the four official languages for their children; increasingly the choice is English, with Chinese second, Malay third, and Tamil almost completely gone from schools despite its official status. Traditional education in Theravada Buddhist countries (Myanmar/Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia) prior to the onset of colonial rule in three of these countries in the late 19th century, and the onset of modernisation of education in Thailand at about the same time, was undertaken in Buddhist monasteries, especially for boys who spent a long time as novices in local monasteries but also for local boys in general. Many of these monastery schools subsequently became part of the local government systems.There have always been a few monasteries which specialise in the education of minority boys from remote areas; but the goal was to educate them in the national language and Buddhism, not in indigenous minority languages. In addition to the Buddhist temples which have long worked to teach national languages, there are many temples of smaller indigenous minority groups which teach and maintain knowledge of these languages. Many of these languages are related to Thai and Lao, and include a number of languages of Myanmar/Burma and Laos as well as regional varieties of Thai. Others include traditional languages with a long local history, such as the Mon-Khmer (MK) language Mon in south-eastern Myanmar/Burma and central Thailand and some other MK languages in Myanmar/Burma. 15

David Bradley

Christian religious education is a major factor in mother tongue literacy for many more non-majority languages in Myanmar/Burma and Thailand, where Sunday schools are the main place that Christians learn literacy in their languages. Most Muslim and Buddhist religious education focuses on relevant liturgical languages, not on minority languages: Arabic for Muslims and Pali for Theravada Buddhists, and sometimes relevant ancient European languages for Christians studying at an advanced level; though Malays also learn to write Malay using Arabic script. Because literacy training is one of the main duties of a Christian religious leader, Christian seminaries and institutes spend a substantial time reinforcing this for the languages of the groups which they serve. In some countries, there is a substantial Catholic private education system from primary to tertiary levels; this persists, especially in Thailand and Malaysia, despite the absence of large Catholic communities there. In other countries, the Catholic schools have been nationalised or closed, as in North Vietnam in 1954, Myanmar/Burma in 1965, and South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in 1975. Since the 1980s, in response to outside recommendations (Bradley, 1985a) and community demand, and following a pattern established in China, many hostels have been established for ethnic minority students near government schools in towns, especially in Thailand. Most of these are supported by fees paid by parents and subsidised by religious groups who run most of the hostels. These allow the students to pursue education beyond the level available in their home village, which is usually only very basic primary education and is often of very low and intermittent quality. While this of course means that the students become very fluent in the national language and interact constantly with the majority group, some hostels have evening or weekend classes in relevant minority languages. Some hostels are specifically for members of one ethnic group, and provide regular education in that language; often this is associated with teaching about the religion of the religious group which subsidises that hostel – most often a Christian group. Some multi-ethnic hostels provide literacy training and religious education in several minority languages. Because it is illegal in most Southeast Asian countries to use any medium of education other than the national language in any school during normal school hours, education in other languages is undertaken elsewhere. One alternative for some of the elite is to send their children to an international school, nominally intended for the children of expatriates; most of these are English medium, and some provide very little teaching of the local national language. Many international schools have quotas for local students to maintain a substantial proportion of mother tongue English speakers, and charge high fees which effectively exclude the vast majority of local people.

2 Myanmar Myanmar/Burma was an independent monarchy; it became a British colony in stages between 1826 and 1885. In 1937 it was separated from India, then conquered by Japan in 1942, returned to British rule in 1945, and independent since 1948. It was under direct or indirect military rule from 1962 to early 2016, and has just entered a new phase of joint National League for Democracy and military rule. The majority Bamar/Burman ethnic group and closely related ethnic groups such as the Rakhine comprise over half of the population; some additional members of indigenous ethnic minorities speak only Myanmar/Burmese language, and many more speak it as a second language. Min Naing (2000) provides an overview of the official view of the ethnic situation. During the British period, many foreign missionaries entered the country and were highly successful in converting many of the indigenous ethnic minorities to various 16

Mainland Southeast Asia

v­ arieties of Christianity, producing orthographies and teaching materials for many of these languages, and providing education in mother tongue, Myanmar/Burmese language, and English. Myanmar is the traditional name of this country in the literary High variety of the language, and apart from 1942 to 1945 has always been used to refer to the country in Myanmar/Burmese language. Bamar is the name of the country in the spoken Low variety, is the source of the English term Burma, and was used as the name of the country in Myanmar/Burmese language from 1942 to 1945 under Japanese occupation. The Myanmar/Burma government changed the English name to Myanmar in 1999, while retaining the term Bamar to refer to the ethnic majority group, usually referred to in English up to then as Burmans. The national language is now called Myanmar, but is normally called Burmese in English. It is possible that the National League for Democracy which has taken partial government control in May 2016 may change the preferred English names back to Burma and Burmese. During the colonial period, many members of ethnic minorities, especially those who had become Christian, received Christian education; the teachers in these schools often included foreign missionaries, and with mother tongue English-speaking teachers the outcome was better English language skills than found in most of the majority community. Such schools usually taught literacy in the relevant mother tongue, and gradually the teaching in these schools was taken over by mother tongue speakers; however, such schools at the primary and secondary level in the government-controlled part of the country were closed – most after 1948 and all after 1965. Due to severely restricted access to the government tertiary education system in Myanmar/ Burma over many years, a parallel religious tertiary education system has greatly expanded. This is in large part Christian theological seminaries and institutes which teach not just religion but also many more practical things including English and other skills. Most Christians in Myanmar/Burma are members of ethnic minorities, and many of these seminaries and institutes are for a specific minority and teach at least partly in the language of that minority. Another long-established parallel education system in Myanmar/Burma is run by a wide variety of ethnic separatist groups who have maintained their autonomy during ongoing military conflict with the government. Some of these systems are very large and provide education not just at primary level but even up to tertiary level in a variety of practical fields including teaching, nursing, and so on. Particularly notable are the education systems of the Karen National Union in the Kayin State, and the Kachin Independence Organisation in the Kachin State and the Northern Shan State, but also many other smaller groups of Shan,Wa, Kayah, and a host of other groups. Naturally these education systems place a major emphasis on learning and literacy in the language of the largest group within that organisation: Sgaw Karen for the KNU, Jinghpaw Kachin for the KIO, and so on. Thus, in Myanmar/Burma, unlike most other Southeast Asian nations, there is an available resource of experienced teachers from some ethnic minority mother tongue backgrounds with strong mother tongue, national language, and English skills; but they often lack the specific formal qualifications required to teach in a government school. There are also some primary education materials available for major ethnic minority languages such as Sgaw Karen, Jinghpaw Kachin, and so on, and for the languages of some smaller groups. However, most of these materials include some Christian religious content and may thus not be suitable for government schools, and some of the materials are based on obsolete pedagogical principles. The national language education policy which is under development in Myanmar/Burma and due to be introduced by the end of 2016 is trilingual from the beginning: mother tongue, Myanmar/Burmese language as the unifying national language, and English as the international language. UNICEF (2016b) provides a case study on how to do this in one area, the Mon State. 17

David Bradley

The curriculum for Myanmar/Burmese language and for English is well established, but somewhat problematic. The Myanmar/Burmese language is diglossic, and schools have always taught the literary High language which is quite different from the everyday spoken Low language which students need to communicate (Bradley 2015, 2016). Nearly all teachers lack the skills to implement the English language curriculum beyond the most basic level. As progress through the system is by examination with no allowance for non-mother tongue speakers of Myanmar/ Burmese, students from non-majority backgrounds often fail and have to repeat a year level once or more. Finally, few current government teachers speak a minority language, and almost none have ever taught one. Myanmar/Burmese is the Tibeto-Burman (TB) language with by far the largest number of speakers of any TB language; 87 or nearly 80% of the indigenous minority languages of the country are more or less closely related TB languages, and one additional recognised minority speaks a distantly-related Chinese language. There are seven Thai-Kadai (TK) languages fairly closely related to standard Thai and Lao; also 12 MK languages, two Miao-Yao (MY) languages, two Indo-Aryan (IA) languages (as well as many additional immigrant languages), and one Austronesian (AN) language. Some of the scripts for large minority groups are based on Myanmar/Burmese writing, but most use romanisations; quite a few of these romanisations are also used in other countries by members of the same transnational minorities. There are 29 minority languages with over 100,000 speakers, and another 43 with over 10,000; on the other hand, there are also 17 languages with 1,000 or fewer speakers, and of these, seven are only spoken in Myanmar/Burma; several other local languages have become extinct in recent years.

3 Thailand Thailand is the only country in the region which has been continuously independent, with no direct colonial rule. Thai language is one of the core elements of Thai national identity, and it is expected that all citizens should be literate in standard Thai. Thailand had an official language policy mandating the introduction of mother tongue education for all its minorities from 2010, but this is now in abeyance with the current military government which has been in power since 2014. The Thai military has a long track record of requiring Thai language and literacy among all males during their obligatory military service, and they give classes in Thai language where deemed necessary. One problematic feature of the established policy in Thailand is that orthographies have long been expected to use the Thai alphabet for all languages of Thailand. This has curious consequences for transnational majorities: Malay Muslims in southern Thailand are taught to write Malay with a Thai-based script in school, instead of the well-established romanisation used in Malaysia and Indonesia; and Khmer speakers in north-eastern Thailand learn to write Khmer in a Thai-based script instead of the Khmer script used in Cambodia, which was in fact the original source of the Thai script, and which is still used to write Thai for some religious purposes. This policy also divides transnational minorities; for example, the Thai-based Bisu orthography, for this language spoken in Thailand, Myanmar/Burma, and China, cannot be used by the Bisu outside Thailand. Instead, a romanisation is under development for the Bisu in Myanmar/Burma. Similarly, the small Khmu group in Thailand have a Thai-based script which is useless for the majority of the Khmu in Laos, where a romanisation is already in use. For transnational minority groups, this policy leads to a major waste of effort and unnecessarily divides minority ethnic groups who speak the same language. Fortunately, the former policy prohibiting the use of anything other than standard Thai as the medium of education in school hours in any school of any kind other than international schools 18

Mainland Southeast Asia

is no longer enforced; but now the problem is lack of materials and teachers for indigenous minority languages, and lack of government will to implement the 2010 policy. Some Thai politicians have proposed that English should be introduced as the medium of education from primary school onwards in Thailand, an absurdly unrealistic proposal. The current situation, in which teachers without the necessary skills are required to teach English as a second language from the beginning of primary school, is continuing to produce traumatised teachers and poorly taught students. This also leads to a massive market for private informal and formal teaching of English and materials for learning English. If just a small proportion of this inefficient effort could be devoted to mother tongue learning for minorities, the outcomes would be much more rewarding! Of the 47 indigenous minority languages of Thailand, 22 have over 10,000 speakers, but only five have more than 100,000 speakers. Most of the languages with fewer speakers are endangered; this includes languages with few remaining speakers such as Gong and Mpi spoken only in Thailand, which will disappear entirely if they are not documented soon. Eight are TK languages more or less closely related to Thai and Lao; this includes languages such as Shan (more widely spoken in Myanmar/Burma) and several languages with more speakers in Laos. 22 languages are MK, including Mon; 12 are TB, of which ten are spoken by more people elsewhere, notably in Myanmar/Burma; three are AN; and two are MY. It should also be noted that there are several very distinctive regional varieties of Thai; Northern Thai has its own history and writing system, and in the Northeast of Thailand, known as Isan in Thai, there are tens of millions of speakers of regional varieties more similar to Lao than to standard Thai. For general overviews of language and other issues relating to minorities of Thailand, see McKinnon & Bhruksasri (1983) and McKinnon & Vienne (1989). For specific discussion of educational issues facing many of Thailand’s minorities, see Bradley (1983, 1985a).

4 Indochina The three nations of modern Indochina all went through a French colonial period prior to 1954, and so their early elite was educated in French rather than in English. There is also a greater tendency for the Christians to be Catholic in these countries, for the same reason. As elsewhere in the region, members of ethnic minorities were often favoured for work in the colonial administration, notably in the military; this persisted during the Vietnam War, when groups such as the Meo or Mong in Laos and other groups in South Vietnam fought on the anti-communist side. As a result, after 1975 substantial numbers of these ethnic minorities became refugees who eventually settled in Western countries. This has meant that very substantial educational resources have been created using the romanised scripts of these languages, both for use in Western countries and also where possible in Southeast Asia.

4.1 Vietnam In Vietnam, nearly 86% of the population is ethnic Viet, and most of the rest able to speak Vietnamese. Divided from 1954 to 1975, Vietnam went two separate ways: a Soviet-inspired policy which recognised and institutionalised ethnic minority status and granted specific rights to educational and other support in the North, and a Western policy which allowed Christian and other groups to continue to use their established writing systems for indigenous minority languages and develop new ones in the South. In the North, and since 1975 in the entire country, the overall policy is to make new or reformed scripts follow the graphic conventions of Vietnamese script.This has meant that a transnational minority language inevitably has a d­ istinct 19

David Bradley

script used in Vietnam which differs from romanisations used elsewhere. For example, the Mien (Chinese, Lao, and Thai name Yao, in Vietnamese romanisation Dao) have a single standard romanisation used among refugees in Western countries, in China, and sometimes in Thailand, but another used in Vietnam. While in principle ethnic minorities in Vietnam have similar rights as in the former USSR and in China to use and develop their languages, in practice this has been very difficult, particularly for those groups who had older romanisations associated with Catholic or other Christian origins and not following the principles of Vietnamese script. Most early education is aimed at developing skills in the Vietnamese language among the ethnic minorities; an effort is made, as in China, to have trained local teachers who speak the local minority language to assist children in the initial stages of primary school to learn Vietnamese. There have been some limited trials of romanised ethnic minority language materials for five ethnic groups in a few primary schools, but these are not in general use. Apart from sign languages, ethnic Chinese, local Khmer, and local Lao, the local indigenous ethnic minority population comprises over nine million people, with 41 MK languages other than Viet, 26 TK languages, ten AN languages in the Cham subgroup, seven MY languages, and seven TB languages. Forty-three of these languages are spoken by very small groups and many are endangered, some critically. Fourteen languages have over 100,000 speakers, and 34 others have more than 10,000; even some of these are endangered. For an overview of the ethnic situation in Vietnam, see Khong (2002).

4.2 Laos After independence in 1947, Laos went through similar traumas to Vietnam, except that the boundaries of the conflict were less clearly defined and violence moved back and forth across much of country for nearly thirty years. A first wave of refugees went from Laos to France from 1947, including some ethnic minority people who had been soldiers or colonial officials for the French government. By 1954, the eastern third of the country was largely controlled by the Pathet Lao (‘Lao nation’) associated with and supported by the North Vietnamese communist regime, and the rest was controlled by the Royal Lao government with French and later American support. In the Pathet Lao areas, most of the population was not from the majority Lao ethnic group, and though the top leadership was ethnic Lao, many of the middle and lower level cadres and foot soldiers were from a wide range of minority groups. This has meant that since the Pathet Lao gained control of the entire country in 1975, ethnic minority cadres continue to occupy important positions and can have a positive influence for the progress and development of their ethnic groups. The Royal Lao and other non-communist factions were also led by ethnic Lao, but again many of their most effective soldiers were from ethnic minorities, notably the Meo (Lao and Vietnamese name; own name Mong, also known as Miao in Chinese or as Hmoob in the usual romanisation). Many from this ethnic group became refugees in Western countries after 1975, where they use a romanisation originally developed in Laos but now very widely used in the US, France, and elsewhere; more than a quarter of a million Mong remain in Laos. Other romanisations, for example for Khmu, a language with over 600,000 speakers in Laos, the largest ethnic group after the Lao majority, are occasionally used in local informal schools (such as one I have visited near Luang Phabang), but not in government schools. Due to the association of the romanisations with Western influence, the Lao government now does not wish to support them. In fact, though Laos is the country with the highest proportion of speakers of indigenous ethnic minority languages in Southeast Asia and with the 20

Mainland Southeast Asia

highest proportion of ethnic minority individuals inside the government, there is very little impetus for minority language education or maintenance. This is partly because most of the languages are spoken by very small numbers (43 of 73 with fewer than 10,000 speakers and only eight with more than 100,000 speakers). Also, three of the large ethnic groups and several intermediate and smaller groups speak languages more or less closely related to Lao itself, and so may feel less need for distinctive treatment. For most purposes, Laos is a country which functions almost exclusively in its national language, to a limited extent French, and increasingly English. Of the 73 indigenous minority languages of Laos, 13 are TK languages more or less closely related to Lao, 48 are MK languages, nine are TB languages, and three are MY languages. Thirty have over 10,000 speakers, of which eight have over 100,000; these are the MY languages Mong and Mien, the Lao-related languages Phu Tai, Phuan, and Tai Dam, and the MK languages Katang, Khmu, and Sô. There are 12 endangered languages with 1,000 or fewer speakers, and various others with more. Godineau (2003) provides a general overview of linguistic, cultural, and other issues confronting the minorities of Laos.

4.3 Cambodia Cambodia was an ancient Khmer kingdom, greatly reduced over more than a millennium by Thai and Vietnamese conquests of large parts of its former territory (leaving large Khmer minorities in Thailand and Vietnam). Like the rest of Indochina, it came under direct French rule in the late 19th century and became independent in 1953. Sucked into the war to its east, which badly affected the indigenous ethnic minorities who live mainly there, it was taken over completely by the Khmer Rouge in 1975, replaced in early 1979 by the Vietnamese-installed People’s Republic of Kampuchea. The period from 1975 to 1978 was particularly traumatic for ethnic minorities. Cambodia is a fairly homogeneous nation; 93% of the population are ethnic Khmer, traditionally Theravada Buddhist and with the longest-established indigenous writing system in use in Southeast Asia. The minorities include ethnic Chinese in cities and towns, ethnic Vietnamese in the southeast, ethnic Lao in the northeast, ethnic Thai in the west, and various small minority groups scattered around the borders; the largest indigenous minority group is the Cham in the northeast.The Khmer Rouge particularly targeted the Chinese and Cham groups, and many ethnic Chinese and Cham left Cambodia in the late 1970s and are now settled in Western countries. The Cham are a Muslim group who originally came westwards from central Vietnam into north-eastern Cambodia after the Vietnamese conquest of the Cham kingdom in 1471. From the mid-19th century, some Cham working in the silk industry moved to Thailand; they now live in Bangkok and several southern provinces. Targeted by the Khmer Rouge, many more Cham became refugees in Thailand after 1975; quite a few have moved to Malaysia where the government supports them as fellow Muslims, and others are now resettled in Western countries. North-eastern Cambodia also has one other minority ethnic group, Jarai, who are much more numerous in adjacent areas of central Vietnam and who also who speak an AN language related to Cham.There is also a small number of Phuan in the northeast who speak a TK language more extensively spoken in Laos and Thailand. Apart from these, the other 15 indigenous minority languages of Cambodia are MK languages, some of which are also spoken in adjacent areas of Thailand, Laos, or Vietnam and most of which are small groups whose languages are endangered to a greater or lesser degree; five are moribund or no longer spoken at all. The government education system does not cater for the use of any of these languages, and nearly everyone in Cambodia speaks Khmer as a first or as a second language. Indeed, about half of the 400,000 Cham 21

David Bradley

remaining in Cambodia speak only Khmer, and this is also true for most or all of the speakers of the five most endangered indigenous minority languages. Of the other 12 languages, five have over 10,000 speakers and the rest have fewer. Thel Thong (1985) provides a historical overview of language and education policies there.

5 Malaysia Malaysia is a federation of various states with Malay rulers in peninsular Malaysia who were in treaty relationships with the British, as well as some British colonies including Penang, Melaka, and the two components of East Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah. This discussion deals only with peninsular or West Malaysia; East Malaysia is inhabited by the same Malay and ethnic Chinese groups found in peninsular Malaysia, as well as a large number of indigenous minority groups speaking AN languages more or less distantly related to Malay. Malaysia has been promoting the use of Malay, also known as Malaysian, since before independence in 1957; this was one of the factors leading to the separation of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965. Malaysia has moved back and forth between decreasing and increasing the proportion of English language education in government schools; in the private ‘national type’ schools there is some provision for education in minority languages, but this has never included the language of any indigenous ethnic minority; the main beneficiary has been Mandarin Chinese. For most of Malaysia’s orang asli ethnic minorities, the mother tongue is a genetically unrelated MK language extremely different from the national language. Nearly all of these languages are spoken by very small groups, most of whom are losing their traditional lifestyles and all of whom also speak Malay. Indeed, some orang asli groups no longer speak anything other than varieties of Malay.Two orang asli languages,Temiar and Semai, have some limited official use and also serve as lingua francas among orang asli. There is one indigenous Portuguese creole, Kristang in Melaka, for which a variety of materials have been developed; a folkloristic revival movement is attempting to maintain the language through community action, but this is having only limited success and this language is also endangered. There is also a Malay creole spoken by ethnic Tamil in Melaka. Of the indigenous languages of peninsular Malaysia, two orang asli MK languages,Temiar and Semai, and two orang asli Malay varieties, Jakun (less pejoratively known as Orang Hulu) and Temuan, have more than 10,000 speakers; six MK languages and Kristang have over a thousand speakers, but all the rest have fewer, and many are endangered, some critically. Gomes (2007) is an in-depth study of changes in the lifestyle of one indigenous minority of Malaysia, including education; Lim et al. (2007) is a general overview of minority educational and other issues in that country. UNICEF (2016c) reports on an initiative to use mother tongue education for minorities as a way of improving social cohesion within Malaysian society.

6 Singapore Singapore became a British trading port in 1819, remained a British colony (apart from Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945) until 1957, joined the Malaysian Federation in 1963, and became an independent republic in 1965. In addition to Singapore English, the local lingua franca was Hokkien Chinese, with about two-thirds of the population from a variety of Chinese linguistic backgrounds, nearly a quarter Malay, and the rest from a variety of South Asian and other foreign backgrounds. Its education system has made no effort to maintain any of the Chinese languages spoken by the local population; when the promotion of Mandarin as one of the official 22

Mainland Southeast Asia

languages started in 1979, less than 1% of the population reported speaking it (Platt 1985), but now that has changed completely and Mandarin is widely spoken throughout the community. The one indigenous minority language, Duano of the northwestern part of the island, was one of the orang laut ‘sea people’ languages related to Malay, some of which are still spoken along the west coast of peninsular Malaysia and further north, but not in Singapore. Singapore thus has an unenviable record of not maintaining its one indigenous minority language and many immigrant languages.

7  Ethnic Chinese immigrant languages There is a long-established and economically successful immigrant population from China in every country in the region. This is mainly from the south-eastern coastal areas of China, and includes a very substantial linguistic diversity of Chinese languages, primarily Cantonese and various kinds of Min, but also some Mandarin, Hakka, and others. In many towns and cities, a specific Chinese language dominates due to chain migration from the same area of China; for more details see T’sou (1987). The dominant Chinese group in most cities and towns in central Thailand, Laos, and southern Myanmar/Burma is Teochiu (in Mandarin Chaozhou), a southern Min language, but there are some Foochow (Mandarin Fuzhou), an eastern Min language, in Chumpon and Nakorn Si Thammarat; and some Hakka in Chiang Mai, Korat, and Udorn. In most towns in peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, the dominant Chinese language is some sub variety of Hokkien (Mandarin Fujian) Min. In most towns in Vietnam and some towns in west central peninsular Malaysia such as Ipoh, Taiping, Seremban, and Kuala Lumpur, the dominant language is Cantonese, but with a substantial Hakka minority in Kuala Lumpur. Southwestern Mandarin is dominant among the ethnic Chinese in a few areas of northern Myanmar/Burma, northern Thailand, and northern Laos. In all cases, speakers of other local Chinese languages tend also to use the dominant local Chinese language; so Hakka speakers from Kuala Lumpur also speak Cantonese, and traditionally Cantonese, Hakka, and other speakers from Singapore also spoke Singapore Hokkien. As standard Mandarin has now become established as the prestige Chinese language and language of wider communication, this is now the exclusive medium of education in Chinese community schools across the region, and due to government policy promoting it, Mandarin has spread into general daily use in Singapore since a policy change in 1979 (Bradley 1991), replacing Hokkien in formal domains, and into the use of younger ethnic Chinese people with Chinese language education in Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar/Burma. The environment for Chinese language education is currently much less supportive in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The Chinese ethnic minority in countries where the government school system does not provide Chinese-language education have a variety of responses to demand for education in Chinese. Of course, in Singapore this is not a problem; government schools have been promoting Mandarin Chinese using simplified characters since 1979, and non-government schools which teach Mandarin Chinese also exist in many cities and towns in Malaysia. One issue here is that nearly all the ethnic Chinese children in these countries come from non-Mandarin speaking family backgrounds, and are learning Mandarin which is effectively a second language. In Singapore, the success of government policy and Mandarin education in schools has created a communication gap within many families, with grandparents educated before 1979 unable to speak Mandarin and grandchildren unable to speak their family Chinese language well. In Thailand, there are Chinese community schools in many cities and towns which provide Chinese language education outside normal school hours. This can be in the evening or on weekends. In some areas these schools teach traditional Chinese characters as used in 23

David Bradley

China before 1958 and still used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. This is especially true for the Chinese community schools in areas with substantial Mandarin Chinese immigrant populations along the northern border of Thailand; these schools also have some students who are not ethnic Chinese, especially from other local indigenous ethnic minorities who also live in China. Another domain for Chinese language learning and use is for Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, which is distinct from the Theravada Buddhism usual in Myanmar/Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia; in Vietnam both ethnic Chinese and some ethnic Viet majority people follow this religion. It is normal to use traditional Chinese characters for Buddhist purposes. These are also used for signage on Chinese-owned businesses in Thailand and Myanmar/Burma, but this is shifting to post-1958 simplified Chinese characters in other countries, and the traditional pre1958 characters have disappeared from use in Singapore. Chinese community education also exists in Myanmar/Burma; in the Kokang district of the Northern Shan State, Southwestern Mandarin is the dominant local language and Mandarin is the medium of local education; some nearby areas of the Wa Special Administrative Region along the eastern border of the Shan State have been under substantial influence from China for many years and knowledge of Mandarin is widespread among non-Chinese minorities there as well. The Chinese communities have undergone substantial persecution in some countries of the region at certain times. Part of the ethnic Chinese population was expelled from Myanmar/ Burma in the early 1960s, in the main returning to China. There were also major conflicts between the Malay and ethnic Chinese population in Malaysia at the same time. After 1975, the ethnic Chinese population was a particular target of the incoming communist governments in Cambodia and southern Vietnam. Many of the refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia now settled in Western countries are ethnic Chinese; by some estimates up to half. There has long been systematic preference for bumiputra Malaysians, and thus discrimination against Chinese and South Asian Malaysians. At some times, Chinese-language education has been restricted or closed in these countries.

8  South Asian immigrant languages In Myanmar/Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore, the South Asian immigrant population arrived mainly during the British colonial period and includes many speakers of various Dravidian languages, especially Tamil but also Malayalam, Telugu, and others; also speakers of various IA languages such as Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Nepali, and others. The continuation of these minority languages is partly assisted by ongoing arrival of spouses from South Asia, and is partly due to distinct religions from the local majority groups: Sikhism among most Punjabi speakers, Hinduism for most Dravidian and many IA speakers, and Islam for others. Thus, the family domain and religion are areas of immigrant language maintenance. In some cases, the work domain is also an area for language maintenance; for example, much of the cloth trade across Southeast Asia, even in countries with smaller South Asian populations such as Thailand, Laos, and so on, is largely controlled by Punjabi-speaking Sikhs. The religious organisations of these groups provide education in these languages; for example, Punjabi in Sikh gurudwaras. A problematic South Asian group is the Rohingya, a Muslim group who speak Bengali, written with an Arabic-derived script. They have long lived in Rakhine State of Myanmar/Burma; conversely, some members of the Rakhine ethnic minority group, who speak a language very closely related to Myanmar/Burmese and write with the Myanmar/Burmese orthography, also live in adjacent areas of Bangladesh and India where they are recognised as a tribal group. Up to 1784, part of south-eastern Bangladesh was ruled by the Rakhine kingdom, and so there 24

Mainland Southeast Asia

was no restriction on movement of Rakhine people westwards into what is now Bangladesh, nor on the movement of Bengali people eastwards into what is now Myanmar/Burma. From 1784, the border between Myanmar/Burma and British India was the Naf River; in 1826 the First Anglo-Burmese War resulted in the conquest of Rakhine State (known in English as Arakan) and its addition to India, so movement was again legal and easy, and continued to be up to 1947. Between the independence of Myanmar/Burma in 1948 and 1962, many Bengalispeaking Muslim people were recognised as citizens and residents of Myanmar/Burma under the group name Rohingya; however, the current Myanmar/Burma government view is that all Rohingya are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, a view rejected by the Bangladesh government. Thus, the Rohingya are effectively stateless; many have been expelled into Bangladesh where they live in camps, others are among the refugee flood moving southwards to Malaysia and beyond, and some remain in very unstable and precarious situations in Rakhine State.There are two recognised Buddhist ethnic groups who also speak varieties of Bengali in Rakhine State in Myanmar/Burma, the Daingnet and the Maramagyi. The Daingnet are also known as Chakma in Bangladesh, and have their own distinctive variety of the Bengali script. The Buddhist Bengali-speaking Maramagyi of Myanmar/Burma should not be confused with the Maramagyi tribal group of Bangladesh, who are Buddhist descendants of the followers of the Rakhine royal court who fled into what is now Bangladesh in 1784 and speak an archaic variety of Rakhine which they write with Myanmar/Burmese script.

9  Guest workers and refugees Some countries in the area have large guest worker and/or refugee minority populations: in Thailand, from Myanmar/Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and elsewhere; in Malaysia, from Myanmar/Burma and Cambodia; and from many places inside and outside the region in Singapore. Many of these come without children, but there are substantial and increasing numbers of school-age children who come with their families and may be ineligible for local government schools. For refugee minorities from Myanmar/Burma who live in refugee camps in Thailand, there is some provision of mother tongue education inside the camp, funded from non-government and largely foreign sources. For all refugees in camps in every country, there is some education in English, and sometimes also in the language of the country. Of course, many refugees live unofficially or officially in the community, and their children have limited and precarious access to education; such children may receive some informal education within their ethnic community, in mother tongue, local national language, and sometimes English.

10  Case study – Lisu Lisu is a transnational ethnic minority group of over a million living in China, Myanmar/ Burma, Thailand, and India. Lisu has two romanised orthographies, one developed from 1914 by Christian missionaries and widely used among Christian Lisu in every country, and the other based on the principles of Chinese pinyin romanisation and developed in China from 1958. For more information, see Bradley & Bradley (1999) and Bradley (2003, 2006). Hope (1976) proposed a Thai-based script for use by Lisu in Thailand, but this has never been used. The Christian romanisation uses only capital letters, including 15 inverted, to represent the consonants and vowels. Generalising from the Myanmar/Burmese orthography, it uses six combinations of punctuation marks after the syllable to distinguish the six tones of Lisu. Punctuation is represented by sideways versions of the Myanmar/Burmese punctuation: hyphen for comma, 25

David Bradley

and equals sign for period. Though it looks somewhat strange at first, this orthography represents the phonology very well, and now has its own Unicode standard. The variety represented is a somewhat simplified compromise dialect which is mainly central Lisu with some features of northern Lisu; speakers of all dialects use this when they write, and increasingly when they speak in formal settings and for cross-dialect communication. The Chinese pinyin romanisation is based solely on the northern dialect, and so does not distinguish some segmental contrasts absent from this dialect. It has been used intermittently in schools in Lisu areas of China, but in 1983 the local Lisu autonomous areas chose to make the Christian script the standard for Lisu in China. In northern Myanmar and India where many Christian Lisu live, they have been using the Christian script continuously and extensively. It is widely taught in churches, and literacy is fairly widespread. Since the mid-1970s, there has been increased contact between Lisu from these areas and Lisu in Thailand, and the Christian Lisu script has started to be used there as well. Though it is mainly associated with Christianity, it is also starting to be used by non-Christians, though many non-Christians reject it because of its religious association. Teaching materials for Lisu, starting from the first primer in 1918, have long had very extensive religious content; however, since the 1980s there are many primers prepared for use in China, Thailand, and elsewhere that do not have this. Literacy teachers in Myanmar/Burma, India, and Thailand are in almost every case the local Christian pastor; there are also some normal school classes using government-prepared materials in China. One effect of literacy in Lisu is that speakers of the divergent dialects can now use ‘book Lisu’ to communicate. Another is that it is now easy to transcribe and publish traditional Lisu songs, stories, proverbs, and so on, so that non-Christian Lisu culture can be preserved for the future. While most such materials are published in China where nearly two-thirds of the Lisu live, they are also widely distributed among Lisu in other countries. We have also published dictionaries using each of the two Lisu writing systems (Bradley 1994; Bradley et al. 2006), as well as some traditional Lisu songs (Bradley et al. 2000, 2008); more are forthcoming. Unlike many other groups, the Lisu are very positive about their language and maintain it well; indeed, some smaller groups in contact with the Lisu, such as the Anong and many Laemae in China and Myanmar/Burma, now speak Lisu instead of their traditional language. Lisu is also widely spoken as a lingua franca by others in Putao District in Myanmar/Burma and in northwestern Yunnan Province in China. Conversely, Lisu are enthusiastic and very effective second language learners, and speak the national language of their home country and various additional languages. Thus, a strong identity, positive attitudes about education and multilingualism, and a solid foundation of literacy in the mother tongue has provided them with a strong basis to succeed in education, to participate in national life where they live, and to maintain links among Lisu in different countries.

11 Conclusion In all countries of mainland Southeast Asia, indigenous ethnic minority languages are largely excluded from the government education system as a consequence of policies in support of the national language. This means that indigenous ethnic minorities are in most cases greatly disadvantaged when they start school in the national language. At present, the main domain for learning literacy in indigenous minority languages is through religious institutions. Many of the indigenous ethnic minority languages with smaller speaker populations, and even some larger ones, are endangered by national educational and other policies; for further discussion and information, see Bradley (2007). The potential loss of identity, traditional 26

Mainland Southeast Asia

knowledge, and cultural richness which the loss of these languages may lead to is a serious problem, as discussed in Bradley & Bradley (2019). All countries could benefit from providing initial mother tongue education to their indigenous minorities. This would require the development of suitable curriculum and materials for some languages, and the training of suitable mother tongue-speaking teachers. It would be more effective to provide some transitional bilingual education, as has been implemented to some extent in China in the first few years of primary school. There are also the usual issues related to dialect diversity and in some cases the absence of a single standard within an indigenous minority language, compounded by the fact that many minority groups live in more than one country, inside and in some cases outside this region. This will require careful co-operation across national boundaries to ensure that transnational minorities are not further marginalised and divided; the Lisu case study in (10) above provides a possible model. When adopting, refining, or developing standard varieties of indigenous ethnic minority languages for use in education, careful work in co-operation with the community is essential. Where possible, there should be one standard; this should not be overridden by local national preferences (as now happens for some languages in Thailand and Vietnam).

References Bradley, D. (1983). Identity: The persistence of minority groups. In J. McKinnon & W. Bhruksari (Eds.), Highlanders of Thailand (pp. 46–55). Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Bradley, D. (1985a).Traditional minorities and language education in Thailand. In D. Bradley (Ed.), Language policy, language planning and sociolinguistics in South-East Asia (pp. 87–102). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics A-67. Bradley, D. (Ed.) (1985b). Language policy, language planning and sociolinguistics in South-East Asia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics A-67. Bradley, D. (1991). Chinese as a pluricentric language. In Michael G. Clyne (Ed.), Pluricentric languages (pp. 305–24). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Bradley, D. (1994). A dictionary of the northern dialect of Lisu (China and Southeast Asia). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics C-126. Bradley, D. (2003). Lisu. In G. Thurgood & R. LaPolla (Eds.), Sino-Tibetan languages (pp. 222–35). London: Routledge. Bradley, D. (2006). Lisu orthographies and email. In A. Saxena & L. Borin (Eds.), Lesser-known languages of South Asia: Status and policies, case studies and applications of information technology (pp. 125–35). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Bradley, D. (2007). Language policy and language rights. In O. Miyaoka (Ed.), Vanishing languages of the Pacific rim (pp. 77–90). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bradley, D. (2015). Burmic languages in Myanmar. In K. VanBik (Ed.), Continuum of richness of languages and dialects in Myanmar (pp. 167–90). Yangon: Chin Human Rights Organization [in English and Burmese]. Bradley, D. (2016). Language in Myanmar. In A. Simpson, Nicholas Farrelly, & Ian Holliday (Eds.), Handbook of contemporary Myanmar (pp. 117–25). London: Routledge. Bradley, D., & Bradley, M. (1999). Standardisation of transnational minority languages: Lisu and Lahu. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée 69(1): 75–93. Bradley, D., & Bradley, M. (2019). Language endangerment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bradley, D., with Bya, B., & Fish, D. (2000). Lisu bride price song. Bundoora: La Trobe University [in Lisu]. Bradley, D., with Hope, E. R., Fish, J., & Bradley, M. (2006). Southern Lisu dictionary. Berkeley: Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus. Bradley, D., with Bya, B., & Ngwaza, D. (2008). Lisu new year song. Chiang Mai: Actsco [in Lisu and English]. Godineau,Y. (Ed.) (2003). Laos and ethnic minority cultures: Promoting heritage. Paris: UNESCO. Gomes, A. G. (2007). Modernity and Malaysia: Settling the Menraq forest nomads. Milton Park: Routledge.

27

David Bradley Hope, E. R. (1976). Lisu. In W. A. Smalley (Ed.), Phonemes and orthography: Language planning in ten minority languages of Thailand (pp. 125–48). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics C-43. Khong, D. (2002). Population and ethno-demography in Vietnam. Chiang Mai: Silkworm. Lim, T. G., Gomes, A. G., & Rahman, A. A. (2007). Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, present and future. Petaling Jaya: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre. McKinnon, J., & Bhruksasri, W. (Eds.). (1983). Highlanders of Thailand. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. McKinnon, J., & Vienne, B. (Eds.). (1989). Hill tribes today. Bangkok: White Lotus. Naing, M. (2000). National ethnic groups of Myanmar. (Trans Hpone Thant).Yangon: Chotaythan. Platt, J. T. (1985). Bilingual policies in a multilingual society: Reflections of the Singapore Mandarin campaign in the English language press. In D. Bradley (Ed.), Language policy, language planning and sociolinguistics in South-East Asia (pp. 15–30). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics A-67. Thel Thong. (1985). Language planning and language policy of Cambodia. In D. Bradley (Ed.), Language policy, language planning and sociolinguistics in South-East Asia, (pp. 103–17). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics A-67. T’sou, B. K. (1987). Chinese dialects overseas: Indo-Pacific and other parts of the world. In S. A. Wurm & Liu Yongquan (Eds.), Language atlas of China, B-16. Hong Kong: Longmans [in English]; Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press [in Chinese]. UNICEF. (2016a). Synthesis report: Language education and social cohesion (LESC) initiative. Bangkok: UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office. UNICEF. (2016b). Myanmar country report: Language education and social cohesion (LESC) initiative. Bangkok: UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office. UNICEF. (2016c). Malaysia country report: Language education and social cohesion (LESC) initiative. Bangkok: UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office.

Further reading Bradley, D., & Bradley, M. (2019). Language endangerment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, M. P., Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (Eds.) (2016). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (19th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. www.ethnologue.com. Simpson, A. (Ed.) (2007). Language and national identity in Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28

3 L1-BASED MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION IN THE ASIA AND PACIFIC REGION AND BEYOND Where are we, and where do we need to go? Carol Benson

1 Introduction These are exciting times for professionals in multilingual education (MLE). Policymakers are paying more attention to the essential role of learners’ own languages and ways of knowing in improving the quality of education for all. Better yet, practitioners and non-dominant ethnolinguistic communities have come a long way in implementing programs that promote bi- or multilingual competencies while facilitating learner achievement. As a technical assistant and researcher in MLE, I believe this represents a huge step forward in educational development, from a limited focus on getting children into school to a more appropriate focus on giving children a meaningful, useful and relevant education. The need is great. It has been estimated that 40%, or 2.3 billion, of the world’s people still lack access to instruction in a language they speak or understand (Walter & Benson 2012). According to the World Bank (2005), 50% of the world’s out-of-school children live in communities where the language of the school is different than the language of the home. This is unacceptable, when we know that providing instruction in learners’ home languages or mother tongues (abbreviated as L1s) has the potential to improve educational access, quality and equity, particularly for groups that have been socially marginalized (ADEA 2010; Ouane & Glanz 2011; UNESCO 2010, 2012). While language is not the only factor in improving educational quality, it is now widely understood that a mismatch between the learner’s language(s) and the medium of instruction is the root cause of school wastage (repetition, failure, drop-out) and may well influence the high rate of out-of-school youth in many contexts (Benson 2014; Heugh 2011; Walter & Benson 2012). The use of learners’ best languages (known as L1s) for literacy and learning across the curriculum provides a solid foundation for basic and continuing education and for transfer of skills and knowledge to additional languages. This has been established by large-scale research in North America (Cummins 2009; Thomas & Collier 1997, 2002) and substantiated in low-income settings, particularly in Eritrea and Ethiopia, whose systems use learners’ home languages for up to eight years of primary schooling (Walter & Davis 2005; Heugh et al. 2012). Use of learners’ L1s 29

Carol Benson

has been linked to increased parent involvement (Ball 2010) and greater participation of girls and women in education (Hovens 2002; Benson 2004; Lewis & Lockheed 2012). Increasingly, countries with former colonial or other dominant languages in education are using at least some non-dominant languages for at least some months or years of early schooling. A recent study found evidence that the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA), despite limitations like failing to account for linguistic variation (Schroeder 2013; Graham & van Ginkel 2014), may have raised awareness among development professionals that initial reading and writing should be taught in learners’ own languages (Benson & Wong 2015). L1-based MLE can be particularly effective for members of non-dominant groups, in contexts where intersecting social and economic disadvantages related to poverty, geography, ethnicity, religion, gender and other factors conspire to keep children out of school or make it extremely difficult for them to succeed (Ball 2010). In this way, MLE offers a pathway for addressing Sustainable Development Goal Four of the 2030 Agenda, to “ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning” (UNESCO 2016). MLE is arguably relevant for all learners in the 21st century, since those with oral and written proficiencies in multiple languages will be best able to link local and regional to international domains in this rapidly globalizing world (Benson & Elorza 2015). Because the potential of MLE is great, there are justifiably high expectations for MLE programs. Meanwhile, there are many challenges, particularly in low-income contexts. One is the widespread adoption of early-exit transitional models rather than more additive, pedagogically sound approaches to language learning. Another is the slow response of education systems to develop appropriate mechanisms for recruitment, training, placement and compensation of MLE teachers. Systems of assessment can also be a challenge if they are only or mainly in dominant languages, because they fail to show what learners can do. Causing and compounding all of these challenges are the often impossibly high aspirations of stakeholders from parents to politicians for proficiency in dominant national or international languages, to the detriment of good pedagogy and effective learning. This chapter analyzes current policies and practices in L1-based MLE, in the Asia and Pacific region and beyond. The chapters in this volume describe what is being done in individual countries and even comparatively. I focus on the bigger picture, of trends and of demonstrably effective practices, analysing what is being done, where we seem to be going and what issues need to be addressed. I begin by arguing that the best way to address equity issues in multilingual low-income contexts is to support policy that enables L1-based multilingual education to be put into practice. I then explore a range of challenges being encountered by both policymakers and implementers. In response to these challenges, I highlight some innovative and sound MLE practices around the world, suggesting ways these practices can be and have been applied in the Asia and Pacific region. I conclude with a discussion on the directions in which I see MLE going in the near future, and a call for policies and practices that are consistent with research findings on MLE.

2  Definitions and their implications To begin this discussion, I would like to draw attention to how the term L1-based multilingual education—also known as mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB MLE)—is being used, and what it actually means. Across the Asia/Pacific and Africa regions, it has become an umbrella term for a range of programs, but it was never meant to represent programs that exclude learners’ own languages, nor those that use the L1 only for oral explanations or codeswitching (Kosonen & Benson 2013). Pedagogically, the term refers to the purposeful and­ 30

L1-based multilingual education

systematic use of learners’ strongest languages for literacy and learning, accompanied by the explicit teaching of new languages, with the aim of creating learners that speak, read and write multiple languages (García 2009). That is, by the end of an L1-based MLE program, learners should be multilingual and multiliterate as well as achieving the other goals of the curriculum. Inherent in the term is the concept that non-linguistic curricular content is taught in one or more languages depending on learners’ proficiency levels and prior exposure to related knowledge. The success of the term has been to distinguish between programs designed for the elite to learn dominant international languages and programs tailored to give speakers of non-dominant languages access to basic education and explicit teaching of additional (dominant) languages. In addition, the substitution of multilingual for bilingual encompasses dual-language situations but makes space for the teaching and learning of more than two languages—which is often the case in multilingual African or Asian contexts. For example, in many contexts learners could have more than one home language; likewise, in addition to home languages there are regional languages as well as dominant national or international ones. Application of the term L1-based MLE has been less successful in calling attention to the fact that learners should fully develop oral, written and analytical skills in one of their best languages to reap the benefits of transfer to additional languages. In reality, many so-called L1-based MLE programs use the L1 for only a very short period of time, often limiting L1 use to pre-primary or the first one or two years of primary schooling. They are intent on switching to dominant languages as soon as possible, whether or not the appropriate cognitive skills have been established in the L1 so that there is a foundation to build upon. I discuss this challenge further below, and find that these programs are short-sighted. There are lessons to be learned from two related terms from particular contexts. In African countries with historical ties to France, the term convergent pedagogy (from the French pédagogie convergente) refers to a program that values the mother tongue for giving structure to the learner’s thought and personality and aims for “functional bilingualism” (Traoré 2001: 6, my translation). Inherent in this term is the idea of bringing instruction closer to (“converging” with) learners’ identities. A related but distinct term from Latin America is bilingual intercultural education (from the Spanish educación intercultural bilingüe or EIB), which usually involves two languages—an Indigenous L1 and Spanish or Portuguese—and two cultures. The intercultural component is meant to integrate local cultural values and lifeways into the curriculum, linking learners’ experiences and knowledge to new knowledge. According to López (2006), this explicit valuing of learners’ cultures should not only support learning but also raise learners’ self-esteem and empower them to address the power differentials between the dominant culture and their own. In L1-based MLE, cultural relevance is often part of the materials and the teaching, but it is not always explicit in the instructional approach, so this is an area that could be further developed.

3  Analysis of challenges to MLE policy and implementation L1-based MLE is significantly improving educational access and quality for non-dominant learners, as I discuss in more detail below. However, evidence from high-income countries, along with theories and principles from bi- and multilingual education, would suggest that educational outcomes could be even better for learners in MLE programs. When policymakers and implementers mobilize resources and put effort into bringing MLE into their education systems, expectations are understandably high, raising the question of why we cannot always show large gains relative to monolingual programs. This section explores the challenges of policymaking and implementation that are currently limiting the expected gains of MLE, and what can be or has been done to address these challenges. 31

Carol Benson

3.1  The challenge of depending on early-exit transitional models The default model of so-called MLE is what is known as an early-exit transitional model, meaning that the learner’s own language is used for only for one to three years, after which the L1 “exits” from the school in favor of a “transition” to exclusive use of a dominant language. This approach has mixed origins; for example, it was promulgated in colonial times by the British in African and South Asian contexts (Heugh 2011), but also in North America in the 1970s and 1980s, until researchers found that the pedagogical and cognitive benefits would be much greater with continued development of the L1 (Cummins 2009;Thomas & Collier 1997, 2002). The pedagogical critiques are compounded by sociological ones; the approach has been called short-sighted and discriminatory, representing a language-as-problem orientation (Ruíz 1984). According to Skutnabb-Kangas (1981), the early-exit model takes a subtractive approach to language development, devaluing learners’ home languages and life experiences, which is not productive for learning, nor for society. The theoretical basis for modern-day MLE comes from a wealth of research in high- and low-income countries confirming the now axiomatic Interdependence Hypothesis (Cummins 1981). Simply stated, interdependence means that we only need to learn to read once in our lives due to the way human brains develop and store language skills. Once we understand that our languages can be coded and decoded in written form, we can transfer these skills to any other languages we learn, even if the languages are not linguistically related (Cenoz 2009) or do not use the same writing system (Kenner 2004).To maximize the potential of interlinguistic transfer, the L1 must be effectively developed orally and in writing, and there must be high-quality oral instruction in the new language (known as Lx) (Bialystok 2001; Cummins 2009). In light of current research, then, an early-exit model represents a very weak version of MLE because it does not spend enough time or effort on any of the components that would promote effective transfer: a developing a strong foundation of literacy and cognition in the L1; b developing adequate proficiency in a new language (known as an Lx) for learners to effectively “transition” into exclusive use of the Lx as a language of literacy and instruction; c use of the L1 as medium of instruction so that learners understand basic concepts from the curriculum that may later be taught bilingually or through new languages. The result is that around grades 2 and 3, just as the curriculum focus switches from “learning to read” to “reading to learn,” an early exit from the L1 forces learners to receive most or all instruction through the Lx, which is neither cognitively nor linguistically easy for them to do (Heugh 2011). Even if short-term use of the L1 is clearly much better than ignoring it (Alidou & Brock-Utne 2011), early exit explains to a great extent why teachers struggle with “transition” to the Lx, and why experimental studies comparing MLE with non-MLE classes do not show even greater gains. The model problem is compounded by teachers’ own limitations in Lx proficiency and/or teaching methods, as well as testing learners only in the Lx, both of which are discussed in more detail below. What can be done? Current research would support adoption of more additive, pedagogically sound approaches dedicated to L1 maintenance and development throughout the primary cycle, if not beyond. Stakeholders need to consider conducting pilots that expand L1 use through the five to seven years of primary schooling, because greater gains are likely to be demonstrated in terms of learner achievement (e.g. Thomas & Collier 1997, 2002 in North America; SkutnabbKangas & Heugh 2012 in Ethiopia). Greater gains in student achievement will help convince 32

L1-based multilingual education

policymakers that true L1-based MLE, developing multiple languages and literacies, is worth the investment of resources. In the meantime, program outcomes could be improved if the study of L1 as a language/literacy subject is extended beyond its exit as a medium of instruction, which would allow learners to further develop and maintain their L1 literacy skills, allowing more opportunities for transfer.

3.2  The challenge of developing MLE teacher support structures The implementation of MLE for non-dominant language speakers requires first and foremost teachers who are highly proficient in the L1 of learners, and who understand what I call the C1, or home culture, referring to the values and lifeways of the L1 community. In some cases, those best suited to become MLE teachers have never had the opportunity to gain teaching credentials for the very reason MLE is being proposed now: the prior system used only a dominant language, excluding them from attaining more than a basic education. In other cases, members of non-dominant communities have survived dominant language education to gain credentials, only to find themselves teaching in communities with languages and cultures different from their own. Education systems have generally been slow to respond to the needs of MLE implementation with regard to teacher recruitment, training, deployment and compensation. In many cases, NGOs, donors and national universities have developed mechanisms for recruiting and training MLE teachers from the ethnolinguistic communities. These people are uniquely qualified due to the linguistic skills and cultural values they share with learners; however, they may need to develop dominant language proficiency as well as mathematics and other extra-linguistic curricular content (Benson 2004). One innovative example was a Catholic mission’s creation of a pedagogical secondary school (bachillerato pedagógico) in Bolivia, where Indigenous girls received secondary education along with L1 literacy and MLE pedagogy, preparing them for teaching jobs in their own communities (Benson & Elorza 2015). This strategy was successful in providing bilingual intercultural schools with L1 and C1 community members who understood MLE methodology, but their lack of formal qualifications meant they could not be put on government teacher rosters. Innovations like these are temporary solutions, and are not always sustainable when education ministries take over. A more successful model of empowering local community members has been developed by CARE in combination with the Cambodian government; in this model, volunteers chosen by their communities have been trained in L1 literacy and pedagogical skills alongside academic content. Because pathways for career development have now been established through legislation, these acting teachers can finally be recognized by the Ministry of Education and Training as contract teachers, putting them on the government pay scale and giving them a reasonable wage (Lee et al. 2015). The Cambodian government has also established a pathway for qualified teachers who speak Indigenous languages to become MLE teachers, with the help of a fasttrack, tailor-made training provided by CARE and regional education officers (Benson & Wong forthcoming; MoEYS 2015). The success of the Cambodian case can be traced to the close collaboration between the government and its development partners, as well as the government’s willingness to deal with different conditions in different provinces though centralized decision-making and appropriate legislation. It could also be argued that some level of decentralization would work in favour of recruiting, training, deploying and recognizing relevant people as MLE teachers. For example, in Ethiopia, a much larger and more linguistically diverse country than Cambodia, the policy 33

Carol Benson

calling for eight years of primary schooling through “nationality languages” is implemented to a great degree by Regional Education Bureaus, which can determine which languages need to be used in their schools and place teachers accordingly (Skutnabb-Kangas & Heugh 2012). Decentralization also seems to be a secret to success in the Philippines, where “localized realization of a national policy” (Metila et al. 2016: 781) by the Department of Education allows each school to select an appropriate medium of instruction based on local circumstances, but where pragmatic local decisions have the power to undermine policy goals if teachers and school decision-makers do not have enough information on MLE.

3.3  The challenge of assessing in dominant languages When designing evaluations of MLE programs, it is logical to assess learner achievement in both MLE (“treatment”) and non-MLE (“control”) classes so that some kind of comparison can be made. The most valid comparisons, of course, look at how learners from the same ethnolinguistic communities, growing up in the same conditions, fare when taught multilingually or not. In low-income contexts it is not possible—nor ethical—to set up randomized control trials as in medicine by randomly assigning children to receive MLE or not. However, MLE is often piloted in schools or communities where non-MLE classes operate, creating “natural” settings where comparison is possible. In reality, it is often difficult to make clean distinctions between treatment and control. For example, non-MLE teachers may use learners’ L1s at least some of the time, e.g. by orally translating or code-switching; in these cases, it is important to distinguish between classroom communication habits in “control” classes and the systematic use of the L1 for literacy and as a medium of instruction in the MLE “treatment.” This is not always an issue; for example, in a longitudinal study conducted in the Ratanak Kiri province of Cambodia (Lee et al. 2015; see also Benson & Wong forthcoming), non-MLE teachers were Khmer speakers who would not have used learners’ languages in the classroom. Assuming that there is an effort to distinguish between groups of learners from the same background based on the type of instruction they are given, the next question is how and what to assess. The usual choice is to give the same exact assessment to both groups using the dominant language, since that is a major goal of the curriculum in both treatment and control. The reasoning goes that if MLE is helping the “treatment” group, they will do better than the “control” group. This makes comparison seem easy and straightforward—but wait, is it appropriate? The two groups have not been taught in the same way. The control group is being taught only in the dominant language, so assessing them in that language makes sense. However, the MLE treatment group, whose instruction is based on literacy and learning in the L1, is not prepared for assessment in the dominant language until later, when they transfer skills from L1 to Lx. How can the MLE group be fairly assessed, if not in their L1? According to Cummins (2009), as discussed above, the acquisition of oral and written Lx is mediated by L1 proficiency. This means that assessing the oral and written proficiency of MLE learners in the L1 will demonstrate what they have learned that is potentially transferable, given adequate oral instruction in the Lx. If L1 literacy is assessed for MLE learners—and even for non-MLE learners, as Hovens (2002) did successfully in Niger1—evaluators get a much clearer picture of how language and literacy development is facilitated by MLE. Further, assessment of non-linguistic content like mathematics should be done in the language of instruction, since the goal is not to test language but to see what has been learned. Studies done in Ethiopia (Heugh et al. 2012) and Cameroon (Laitin et al. forthcoming) suggest that comparable, valid achievement data can be efficiently generated through curriculum-based testing of MLE and non-MLE learners using the language in which they are being taught. 34

L1-based multilingual education

Another option piloted in the Western Cape Province, South Africa (Mbude-Shale et al. 2004) is to use side-by-side bilingual test instruments, allowing learners to choose the language in which they respond item by item or to cross-check meanings as needed.

3.4  The challenge of aspiring to high proficiency in dominant languages People look to education to offer their children proficiency in dominant languages, especially when they are not widely spoken in the home or community. Their perception is that learning the languages spoken by people from dominant groups will give their children the best opportunities for jobs and economic success, especially if they can acquire native-like proficiency.This demand for linguistic capital (Bourdieu 1991) is unprecedented in today’s global world among people from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Underlying parent demands, however, are myths about how high proficiency in an Lx can be achieved through education. Other important goals of education, like learning to read and write, developing critical thinking and building knowledge across the curriculum, may be lost in the shuffle. The most damaging myth about learning a new language is that it should be used as a medium of instruction (Heugh 2011). Cummins (2010) calls this the myth of “maximum exposure,” and it causes teachers to prohibit L1 use, believing that only the Lx should be used in the classroom. The underlying assumption is that an individual must give up one language to acquire another but, as discussed above, the opposite is true, because building on the L1 results in better learning of the Lx. Those who believe in “maximum exposure” often look for schools that provide language immersion, exposing learners to the Lx at an early age. Actual immersion education, such as French-English immersion in Canada, has well-resourced classrooms, uses systematic communicative methodology, is implemented by teachers proficient in the languages of immersion, and does not ignore or prohibit the L1 (Genesee 1994; see also Pavlenko 2014). Even in Canadian immersion, near-native proficiency was a myth (White & Genessee 1996). In most low-income multilingual contexts, these conditions are simply not present. Research shows that the question of time is not as important as the quality of instruction and the proficiency of the teachers (Heugh 2011). The act of calling a dominant language the medium of instruction does not make it a valid language of classroom communication, nor does it miraculously make learners fluent. In fact, there is absolutely no research evidence that having a medium of instruction that is foreign to learners (and often teachers) will result in high-level proficiency in that language. To my knowledge there is no high-income country that uses a language foreign to most citizens as medium of instruction for public education.2 For high proficiency in an Lx, learners require input from highly competent speakers of that language, along with regular and sustained communicative interaction in different domains, usually in an environment where that language is used regularly, in addition to study of grammatical, phonetic and other linguistic features. This has nothing to do with learners’ lack of ability, but rather with the lack of conditions that support such high-quality linguistic input. Learners can, however, gain functional proficiency in a new language if the learning environment enables it by supporting L1 development while teaching the Lx explicitly as a new language.Teachers do not need to be native speakers, but they need to have an appropriate level of Lx proficiency, as well as effective teaching methods.They can also facilitate interlinguistic transfer by teaching learners about the similarities and differences between the L1 and Lx. Additional languages can be added using the same strategies. In sum, reasonable levels of Lx proficiency can be expected from a school system if a systematic approach to language learning is taken and if enabling conditions are created through teacher training and curriculum development. One example is the L1-based MLE pilot p­ rogram 35

Carol Benson

in south-eastern Nepal, run by the Nepali National Languages Preservation Institute with support from SIL International (Nepal).3 This program uses three languages—Rajbanshi, Nepali and English—from preschool (K) through grade 5, working toward literacy in all three languages but expecting different levels of proficiency in each. Key characteristics of the Rajbanshibased MLE program are: 1 2 3 4 5 6

staggered introduction of three languages: Rajbanshi L1, Nepali L2 and English L3; maintenance and development of the L1 throughout the primary cycle; appropriate methods and proficiency goals for each language; bilingual (Rajbanshi–Nepali) methods for content area instruction; adherence as much as possible to the Nepali national curriculum; creation of a child-friendly and participatory learning environment (Benson 2016).

This MLE program begins in K by introducing literacy in learners’ L1, introducing Nepali L2 orally in the second trimester of grade 1, and introducing English L3 orally in the second trimester of grade 2. Based on the national curriculum, appropriate adaptations are made for students to learn Nepali as a new language and to gradually transfer literacy understandings from L1 Rajbanshi to Nepali. Original materials have been developed for the teaching and learning of Rajbanshi literacy using familiar key words, phoneme and syllable analysis, relevant stories and other L1 literature. Total Physical Response (TPR) and other internationally known communicative approaches have been effectively implemented for the teaching of Nepali and then English. Supplementary materials for each level have been developed so that government textbooks can be used as much as possible, with appropriate adaptations for language, level and content. Non-language subjects are taught through Rajbanshi L1 in the early years, with Nepali L2 brought in gradually as a medium of instruction using bilingual teaching methods. Assessments have found learner achievement to meet the demands of the national curriculum. In June 2015, MLE students at each grade level in each subject including L1 Rajbanshi and math, averaged around 80% on year-end assessments, double the national passing mark of 40%. Given a set of carefully constructed literacy tasks at the same time, Rajbanshi MLE learners outperformed their peers in a nearby government school on all six Nepali reading tasks (grades 2–4) and all five English reading tasks (grades 3–4) in spite of having been introduced to Nepali about half a school year later and to English over one school year later. Further, a representative set of Rajbanshi MLE grade 2–3 students given a standardized story comprehension task outperformed the national average by a large margin. All of these results demonstrate that spending time teaching and developing skills in the L1 exerts no negative effect on Nepali or English; on the contrary, the MLE approach helps learners transfer literacy and academic content from the L1 to their additional languages (Benson 2016).

4  Ways forward in the Asia and Pacific region and beyond I conclude this chapter by discussing where I see MLE going in the near future, how efforts in the Asia and Pacific region contribute to this future and what needs to be done. First, evidence has accumulated from research in low-income contexts that children in MLE generally do better in literacy and learning than children in dominant language classrooms.4 Even though early-exit multilingual programs do not reach the full potential of MLE, as discussed above, learner assessments demonstrate that use of the L1 does not in any way impede the learning of additional languages; in fact, it provides advantages that could be maximized if L1 use were expanded, at least throughout primary education. 36

L1-based multilingual education

A greater convergence of donor and researcher discourse seems imminent. For example, non-governmental organizations, the United Nations and other agencies have all issued clear statements about the need to provide basic education in learners’ own languages (e.g. Pinnock 2009; UNESCO 2012, 2013; World Bank 2005). In a study of the Global Monitoring Reports documenting progress toward Education for All between 2002 and 2015, we found that there was a significant increase in positive mentions of MLE from 2002 to 2015, of which the brief mentions reflect an underlying assumption that L1-based MLE is desirable, and more detailed mentions are consistent with the research on effective policies and practices (Benson & Wong 2015). Further, wider discussions have been promoted by partner countries and organizations, of which one landmark was the International Conference on Language, Education and the Millennium Development Goals in Bangkok in November 2010, which brought together UN agencies, bilateral donors, NGOs, political leaders and scholars to discuss the importance of the learner’s first language (L1) in achieving quality Education for All (UNESCO 2010, 2012). UNESCO Bangkok and partners in the Asia and Pacific region have been leaders in bringing policymakers, researchers and practitioners together to discuss MLE, most recently at the 5th International Conference on Language and Education Sustainable Development through Multilingual Education in October 2016.5 What still seems to be missing is policymaker and donor commitment to implementing full maintenance and development models of MLE—multilingual education as it was meant to be— so that results can be optimized. This requires a better understanding on the part of everyone from governments to communities that the learner’s L1 holds the key to effective learning of literacy, curricular content and additional languages. Developing multiple literacies during one’s school career is an aim of schooling that calls for more attention. The research would call for long-term, high-quality instruction in the L1, developing oral and written as well as analytical skills, to form an optimum foundation for literacy and skills transfer to additional languages, which should be taught explicitly by teachers proficient in those languages. Multilingual education should work for everyone, not only people from non-dominant groups. MLE is arguably relevant for all learners in the 21st century, since those with oral and written proficiencies in multiple languages will be best able to link local and regional to international domains in this rapidly globalizing world (Benson & Elorza 2015). In Europe, policymakers and practitioners are exploring the idea of plurilingualism, or the development of communicative competence in multiple languages over one’s lifetime according to one’s needs (Council of Europe 2006, 2007). This concept is not strange to multilingual people in low-income contexts, but in today’s world, communicative competence must be expanded to include multiple literacies. Recent research shows that pluri-/multilingual individuals do not use all their languages in the same way and for the same functions, but draw from their varied language repertoires and switch between languages in a dynamic process reflecting their communicative needs (Herdina & Jessner 2002). As a consequence, the language proficiency of multilinguals will develop and change as a reflection of the sociocultural conditions in which they live, depending on the domains of use and the functions of the various languages in their everyday lives. What this means for early education is that schools should give learners a strong foundation in their L1s and an introduction to additional languages, combined with critical thinking skills and strategies to promote interlinguistic transfer that will serve them in their future lives and learning experiences. What it means for later education is that there should be continuity in maintaining and developing all of the learner’s languages. Finally, plurilingualism in is now being seen not only for its pedagogical benefits but for promoting democratic citizenship, pluralist attitudes that accept and even celebrate diversity, social 37

Carol Benson

coherence and mutual understanding (Council of Europe 2007).That is why our call for MEFA or Multilingual Education for All (Benson & Elorza 2015) is a call not only for good pedagogy but also for a better, more just world. This is why MLE merits stronger efforts on the part of policymakers, practitioners and all of us to design schools that meet the linguistic, cultural and academic needs of all learners.

Notes 1 Hovens (2002) was able to demonstrate that even those with no access to L1 literacy instruction did better when assessed in the L1 than when they were assessed in the dominant language. 2 The only possible exception to this is Singapore, which has a controversial English medium policy, but instruction includes people’s L1s, and the policy is meant to promote multilingualism. 3 For an overview, see http:​//nnl​pi.or​g.np/​proje​cts/m​ulti-​lingu​al-ed​ucati​on/ra​jbans​hi/pr​ogram​-over​ view/​ and see also https​://ww​w.sil​.org/​about​/news​/new-​trili​ngual​-pict​ure-d​ictio​nary-​publi​shed-​ rajba​nshi-​nepal​i-and​-engl​ish. 4 For example, I referenced results from Cambodia (Lee et al. 2015; Benson & Wong forthcoming), Cameroon (Walter & Benson 2012; Laitin et al. forthcoming), Eritrea (Walter & Davis 2005), Ethiopia (Heugh et al. 2012), Nepal (Benson 2016) and the Philippines (Metila et al. 2016). 5 See conference presentations and sessions at http:​//lc.​mahid​ol.ac​.th/m​lecon​f/201​6/bac​kgrou​nd.ht​m.

References ADEA. (January 2010). Policy guide on the integration of African languages and cultures into education systems. Amended and adopted by the Ministers of Education present at the African Conference on the Integration of African Languages and Cultures into Education. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 20–22 January 2010. Tunis Belvédère: ADEA/Hamburg: UNESCO. Alidou, H., & Brock-Utne, B. (2011). Teaching practices—teaching in a familiar language. In A. Ouane & C. Glanz (Eds), Optimising learning, education and publishing in Africa:The language factor. A review and analysis of theory and practice in mother-tongue and bilingual education in Sub-Saharan Africa (pp. 159–185). Hamburg: UNESCO/Tunis Belvédère: ADEA. http:​//une​sdoc.​unesc​o.org​/imag​es/00​21/00​2126/​21260​2e.pd​f. Baker, C. (2006). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (4th ed.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Ball, J. (2010). Enhancing learning of children from diverse language backgrounds: Mother tongue-based bilingual or multilingual education in the early years. Paris: UNESCO. http:​//une​sdoc.​unesc​o.org​/imag​es/00​21/00​ 2122/​21227​0e.pd​f. Benson, C. (2004). Do we expect too much from bilingual teachers? Bilingual teaching in developing countries. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7(2), 204–221. Benson, C. (2014). School access for children from non-dominant ethnic and linguistic communities. Background paper commissioned by UIS-UNICEF. Montréal: UIS-UNICEF Global Report on ­Out-of-School Children. http:​//all​insch​ool.o​rg/wp​-cont​ent/u​pload​s/201​5/01/​OOSC-​2014-​Ethni​clin​guist​ic-mi​norit​ies-f​i nal.​pdf. Benson, C. (May 2016). External evaluation of the Rajbanshi MLE program (Kindergarten through grade 5). Undertaken November 2015. Report for SIL International, Kathmandu. Benson, C., & Elorza, I. (2015). Multilingual education for all (MEFA): Empowering non-dominant languages and cultures through multilingual curriculum development. In D.Wyse, L. Hayward, & J. Zacher Pandya (Eds), The SAGE handbook of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment (pp. 557–574). London: Sage. Benson, C., & Plüddemann, P. (2010). Empowerment of bilingual education professionals: The training of trainers programme for educators in multilingual settings in southern Africa (ToTSA). 2002–2005. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 13(3), 371–394. Benson, C., & Wong, K. (2015). Development discourse on language of instruction and literacy: Sound policy and Ubuntu or lip service? Reconsidering Development, 4(1), 1–16. Benson, C., & Wong, K. (forthcoming). Effectiveness of policy development and implementation of L1-based multilingual education in Cambodia. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Bialystock, E. (2001). Bilingualism in development: Language, literacy and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

38

L1-based multilingual education Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cenoz, J. (2009). Towards multilingual education: Basque educational research from an international perspective. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Chiswick, B., Patrinos, H., & Tamayo, S. (1996). The economics of language: Application to education.Washington DC: World Bank. Council of Europe. (February 2006). Plurilingual education in Europe. 50 years of international cooperation. Strasbourg, France: Language Policy Division. http:​//www​.ecml​.at/P​ortal​s/1/d​ocume​nts/C​oEdo​cumen​ts/pl​urinl​ingal​educa​tion_​en.pd​f?ver​=2017​-02-0​7-160​535-7​63. Council of Europe. (2007). Guide for the development of language education policies in Europe. From linguistic diversity to plurilingual education. Strasbourg, France: Language Policy Division. https​://ww​w.coe​.int/​t/ dg4​/ling​uisti​c/Gui​de_ni​veau3​_EN.a​sp#To​pOfPa​ge. Cummins, J. (1981). The role of primary language development in promoting educational success for language minority students. In California State Department of Education (Ed), Schooling and language minority students: A theoretical framework (pp. 3–49). Los Angeles: Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center California State University. Cummins, J. (2009). Fundamental psycholinguistic and sociological principles underlying educational success for linguistic minority students. In A. Mohanty, M. Panda, R. Phillipson, & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.), Multilingual education for social justice: Globalising the local (pp. 21–35). New Delhi, India: Orient BlackSwan. García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century. A global perspective.West Sussex, UK:Wiley-Blackwell. Genesee, F. (Ed). (1994). Educating second language children.The whole child, the whole curriculum, the whole community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Graham, B., & van Ginkel, A. (2014). Assessing early grade reading: The value and limits of words per minute. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 27(3), 244–259. Herdina, P., & Jessner, U. (2002). A dynamic model of multilingualism: Perspectives of change in psycholinguistics. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Heugh, K. (2011). Theory and practice—language education models in Africa: Research, design, decisionmaking and outcomes. In A. Ouane & C. Glanz (Eds), Optimising learning, education and publishing in Africa:The language factor. A review and analysis of theory and practice in mother-tongue and bilingual education in sub-Saharan Africa (pp. 103–156). Hamburg, Germany: UNESCO (UIL)/ADEA. http:​//une​sdoc.​unesc​o. org​/imag​es/00​21/00​2126/​21260​2e.pd​f. Heugh, K., Benson, C., Bogale, B., & Gebre Yohannes, M. (2012). Implications for multilingual education: Student achievement in different models of education in Ethiopia. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas & K. Heugh (Eds), Multilingual education and sustainable diversity:Work from periphery to centre (pp. 239–262). London: Routledge. Hornberger, N. H. (2002). Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: An ecological approach. Language Policy, 1(1), 27–51. Hovens, M. (2002). Bilingual education in West Africa: Does it work? International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 5(5), 249–266. Kenner, C. (2004). Living in simultaneous worlds: Difference and integration in bilingual script learning. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 7(1), 43–61. Kosonen, K., & Benson, C.l (2013). Introduction. Inclusive teaching and learning through the use of non-dominant languages and cultures. In C. Benson & K. Kosonen (Eds), Language issues in comparative education: Inclusive teaching and learning in non-dominant languages and cultures (pp. 1–16). Rotterdam: Sense. Laitin, D., Ramachandran, R., & Walter, S. (forthcoming). Language of instruction and student learning: Evidence from an experimental program in Cameroon. World Bank Economics Review. Lee, S., Watt, R., & Frawley, J. (2015). Effectiveness of bilingual education in Cambodia: A longitudinal comparative case study of ethnic minority children in bilingual and monolingual schools. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 45(4), 526–544. Lewis, M., & Lockheed, M. (2012). Addressing primary and secondary education for socially excluded girls. In J. Heymann & A. Cassola (Eds), Lessons in educational equity: Successful approaches to intractable problems around the world (pp. 116–141). Oxford: Oxford University Press. López, L. E. (2006). Multilingualism and indigenous education in Latin America. In O. García,T. SkutnabbKangas & M. Torres-Guzmán (Eds), Imagining multilingual schools: Languages in education and globalization (pp. 238–261). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Mbude-Shale, N., Wababa, Z., & Plüddemann, P. (2004). Developmental research: A dual-medium schools pilot project, Cape Town, 1999–2002. In B. Brock-Utne, Z. Desai & M. Qorro (Eds), Researching the language of instruction in Tanzania and South Africa (pp. 151–168). Cape Town: African Minds.

39

Carol Benson Metila, R., Pradilla, L., & Williams, A. (2016). The challenge of implementing mother tongue education in linguistically diverse contexts: The case of the Philippines. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 25(5), 781–789. MoEYS. (2015). Multilingual Education National Action Plan 2015–2018. Phnom Penh: Ministry of Education,Youth and Sport. Ouane, A., & Glanz, C. (Eds). (2011). Optimising learning, education and publishing in Africa: The language factor. A review and analysis of theory and practice in mother-tongue and bilingual education in sub-Saharan Africa. Hamburg, Germany: UNESCO (UIL)/ADEA. http:​//une​sdoc.​unesc​o.org​/imag​es/00​21/00​2126/​ 21260​2e.pd​f . Pavlenko, A. (2014). The bilingual mind and what it tells us about language and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pinnock, H. (2009). Steps towards learning. A guide to overcoming language barriers in children’s education. London: Save the Children. http:​//www​.save​thech​ildre​n.org​.uk/e​n/doc​s/Ste​ps_To​wards​_Lear​ning_​LR.pd​f. Ruíz, R. (1984). Orientations in language planning. Journal of the National Association of Bilingual Education, 8, 15–34. Schroeder, L. (2013). Teaching and assessing independent reading skills in multilingual African countries: Not as simple as ABC. In C. Benson & K. Kosonen (Eds), Language Issues in Comparative Education: Inclusive teaching and learning in non-dominant languages and cultures (pp. 245–264). Rotterdam: Sense. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1981). Bilingualism or not: The education of minorities. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & Heugh, K. (Eds.) (2012). Multilingual education and sustainable diversity work: From periphery to centre. London: Routledge. Thomas,W., & Collier,V. (December 1997). School effectiveness for language minority students. Washington DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. http:​//www​.part​info.​se/wp​-cont​ent/u​pload​s/201​1/ 05/​Thoma​s-Col​lier9​7.pdf​. Thomas, W., & Collier,V. (2002). A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students’ long-term academic achievement. Santa Cruz, CA: Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence. http:​//cmm​r.usc​.edu/​/Coll​ierTh​omasC​omple​te.pd​f. Traoré, S. (2001). La pédagogie convergente: Son expérimentation au Mali et son impact sur le systéme éducatif [Convergent pedagogy: Its Experimentation in Mali and its impact on the education system]. Monographies Innodata. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED468191. UNESCO. (2005). First language first: Community-based literacy programmes for minority language contexts in Asia. Bangkok, Thailand: UNESCO. UNESCO. (2010). International conference on language, education and the millennium development goals (MDGs). November 9–11, 2010, Bangkok. http:​//www​.seam​eo.or​g/Lan​guage​MDGCo​nfere​nce20​10/. UNESCO. (2012). Why language matters for the millennium development goals. Bangkok: UNESCO Bangkok. http:​//une​sdoc.​unesc​o.org​/imag​es/00​21/00​2152/​21529​6E.pd​f. UNESCO. (2013). Mother tongue-based multilingual education: Lessons learned from a decade of research and practice. Asia-Pacific Multilingual Education Working Group. Bangkok: UNESCO. http:​//une​sdoc.​unesc​ o.org​/imag​es/00​23/00​2318/​23186​5E.pd​f. UNESCO. (2016). Sustainable development goals. Paris: UNESCO. http://en.unesco.org/sdgs. Walter, S., & Benson, C. (2012). Language policy and medium of instruction in formal education. In B. Spolsky (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of language policy (pp. 278–300). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walter, S., & Davis, P. (2005). Eritrea national reading survey: September 2002. Ministry of Education, Asmara, Eritrea. Dallas TX: SIL International. White, L., & Genesee, F. (1996). How native is near-native? The issue of ultimate attainment in adult second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 12, 233–265. World Bank. (June 2005). In their own language. Education for all. Washington DC: World Bank. http:​//sit​ ereso​urces​.worl​dbank​.org/​EDUCA​TION/​Resou​rces/​Educa​tion-​Notes​/EdNo​tes_L​ang _of_Instruct. pdf.

Further reading Benson, C. (2016). Addressing language of instruction issues in education: Recommendations for documenting progress. Background paper commissioned by UNESCO for the Global Education Monitoring Report 2016. Paris: UNESCO. http:​//une​sdoc.​unesc​o.org​/imag​es/00​24/00​2455/​24557​5E.pd​f.

40

L1-based multilingual education Pacific Policy Research Center. (August 2010). Successful bilingual and immersion education models/ programs. Research & Evaluation. Honolulu, HI: Kmehameha Schools Research & Evaluation. http:​// www​.ksbe​.edu/​_asse​ts/sp​i/pdf​s/Bil​ingua​l_Imm​ersio​n_ful​l.pdf​. Trudell, B., & Young, C. (Eds.) (2016). Good answers to tough questions in mother tongue-based multilingual education. Dallas, TX: SIL. https​://ww​w.sil​.org/​sites​/defa​ult/f​i les/​files​/sil_​2016_​good_​answe​rs_ to​_toug​h_que​stion​s.pdf​ UNESCO. (2013). Mother tongue-based multilingual education: Lessons learned from a decade of research and practice. Asia-Pacific Multilingual Education Working Group. Bangkok: UNESCO. http:​//une​sdoc.​unesc​o. org​/imag​es/00​23/00​2318/​23186​5E.pd​f

41

PART II

East Asia

4 LANGUAGE POLICIES IN EDUCATION IN THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA Anwei Feng and Bob Adamson

1 Introduction The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is much more linguistically diverse than it is generally perceived to be. While many are aware that China has 56 officially recognised ethnic groups, including the majority Han group that makes up 91% of its population and speaks Han or Mandarin Chinese, not so many know that the 55 ethnic minority groups speak about 130 languages. Most of the minority languages are only used orally at home and in other informal domains but still around 30 of these languages have written scripts that are currently used and learned by some of the minority groups (Sun, Hu, & Huang, 2007). Even fewer people are aware that while Mandarin Chinese or Putonghua is the predominant official language, the Chinese language consists of eight dialect groups that differ from each other morphologically and phonetically to such an extent that dialects spoken in different regions are often mutually unintelligible. According to estimates (Cao, 2014), of 1.28 billion Chinese speakers, only about 14% (0.18 billion) could be said to speak Putonghua as their mother tongue. Dialect speakers make up the majority of the Han population, even though about 70% of them understand Putonghua and speak it with a strong local accent (Li, 2015). However, this linguistic diversity has been decreasing over the last six decades. The foremost factor is the government’s consistent and sometimes forceful promotion of Mandarin Chinese or Putonghua (the standardised version of Mandarin) as a lingua franca all over the country.The rate of this decrease has been exceptionally rapid since the turn of the new century owing to swift development of modern transportation and telecommunications, large-scale migration of labourers from the country to economic centres, mass and social media, and job markets that favour standard Chinese speakers. All these have strong impacts on minority languages and dialects. According to recent surveys (Huang, 2013), of more than a hundred minority languages, only six of them, including Uyghur, Kazak,Tibetan, Korean, Mongolian, and Yi, could be seen as “safe”; four have already become extinct; but all the other languages are found either evidently endangered, severely endangered, or critically endangered. The ever-increasing popularity and promotion of Putonghua have also impacted hugely on Chinese dialects. Major causal factors of this impact could also include rapid urbanisation caused by mass migration of labourers including both minority language and Chinese dialect speakers from villages to economic centres, mass and social media, and job mobility in general. All these 45

Anwei Feng and Bob Adamson

have brought about a fundamental restructuring with regard to Chinese demography and the linguistic landscape. In 2011, the population in urban areas, for the first time, exceeded that living in the country (Cao, 2014). Ever-increased mobility, mass and social media dominated by Putonghua, and rapid urbanisation do not only impact upon isolated dialect speaking villages and towns, but also affect metropolitan areas such as Guangzhou and Shanghai where Cantonese and Shanghainese used to dominate the language communities. The promotion and spread of Putonghua may cause tensions, of which the movement to “protect Cantonese” that took place in Guangzhou in 2010 (Qu, 2011) is a typical example. Language policies in education in the PRC have been closely linked to domestic and international politics. Unifying a vast, diverse nation has been the driver for promoting Putonghua as the lingua franca, while shifts in official attitudes towards the role and status of dialects and minority languages have resulted in an array of policies. Geopolitical interactions and the exigencies of economic development have tended to dictate the choice of foreign languages on offer in the education system, with English being the current predominant language. This chapter presents an analytical overview of language policies in education in the PRC from an historical perspective and identifies areas of tension, challenge, and opportunity in contemporary society. It starts with a discussion on the policies surrounding Putonghua as the consistently promoted national lingua franca. Next, a critical analysis of language policies on minority groups is made to gain an insight into the changing fate of minority languages in different periods under the communist government. Following that, this chapter presents the complex history of foreign language education since the founding of the PRC, with a focus on the contemporary policies. On the basis of the policy reviews, some conclusions are drawn.

2 Putonghua In imperial times, China’s linguistic landscape was a patchwork of varieties of spoken Chinese and minority languages, while written Chinese was based on the version used in the Confucian classics (Kane, 2006) dating back over two thousand years. The notion of a standard form arose during the Republican era in the first half of the 20th century and was strongly promoted after the establishment of the PRC in 1949 (Saillard, 2004), when mass literacy and unifying a fractured nation were major goals for the new regime. The chosen version is a form of Mandarin Chinese, with “Beijing speech as its standard pronunciation, the northern Chinese dialect, and modern Chinese literary classics written in vernacular Chinese as its grammatical norm” (National Linguistics Work Committee, 1996: 12). Putonghua was formally adopted as the official standard language for the country in 1956, and its position was entrenched in China’s Constitution (1982) and its language law ([the] Law of the PRC on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language, 2000) as well as by the Regional National Autonomy Law ([the] Law of the PRC on Reginal National Autonomy, 1984). In schools, Putonghua was taught mainly for communication and cultural content, except during the turbulent years for the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), when the textbooks were full of political tracts and slogans. In 1986, Putonghua was designated as the principal language for instruction in schools, for radio and television broadcasts, for government work, and as the lingua franca for speakers of the many different dialects or minority languages (Rohsenow, 2004). By 1992, the State Language Commission had moved from its earlier advocacy of Putonghua to a more forceful call for it to be vigorously implemented across the country, with “cities as focus, schools as a base, government offices as a priority, radio and television as a model, and the public service industry as a window for communication” (Wang & Yuan, 2013: 27). 46

The People’s Republic of China

A number of strategies were put in place after the founding of the PRC to facilitate the propagation and mastery of Putonghua. The National Technical Committee of Language Standardization was set up for establishing the regular forms of Putonghua in terms of orthography, grammar, and pronunciation (Wang et al., 2013). Under the Chinese Script Reform Association and then, from 1954, the Committee for the Reform of the Chinese Written Language, a Romanised form was developed which became known as Hanyu Pinyin.The rationale was that Romanisation offered easier access to written forms of the language, as characters contain few phonetic elements and have to be recognised through memorisation. There was even animated discussion in the 1980s about replacing characters with Hanyu Pinyin, rather than using the latter just as a phonetic aid, but this idea did not come to fruition. Instead, from 1949, more than two thousand characters were simplified to make them easier to learn, while hundreds of others were discarded (Rohsenow, 2004). As a result, there was reportedly a sharp reduction of illiteracy in the first decade under the PRC among the Han Chinese population, with an average of four million people a year becoming literate (Zhang, 1997). In 1994, the National Putonghua Proficiency Test was introduced as a requirement for new teachers, teacher educators, broadcasters, and entertainers (Saillard, 2004) in an effort to develop the quality of Putonghua being presented through formal channels. Since the turn of the 21st century, the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language (2000) (the Language Law hereafter) has not only remained as the major policy for standardising language use and language education in the country but has pushed the promotion of Putonghua and Standard Written Chinese Language to an even higher level. Its promulgation ordered by the then President Jiang Zeming was a clear signal to further raise the status of Putonghua as the legally mandated oral means of communication and of Standard Chinese Characters for written documents in all formal domains. With the promulgation of the Language Law, Putonghua and the Standard Written Chinese Characters are not only given ultimate importance for language use in the Party and government offices, schools, service sectors, and mass media but are explicitly stated to be associated with national sovereignty and national dignity (Article 5). Since its promulgation, most provinces and regions have responded by either creating language laws for their own local contexts or modifying their existing ones (Wei, 2010). Many other measures have been taken to ensure implementation of the Language Law such as establishing more assessment centres for Putonghua and using promotion of Putonghua and Standard Chinese Characters in the formal domains as a criterion for ranking cities. To put it simply, Zhou (2013) states that constant efforts made by the government in the past decades to promote the national language throughout the country could be described as the process from Romanisation (creating Hanyu Pinyin), to Standardisation, and further to Legalisation, with the last being brought about by the Language Law. Putonghua is also taught as a foreign language. From the early decades of the PRC, courses were offered to international students coming to China on short- and long-term immersion programmes. More recently, with the development of the Chinese economy and international engagement, the Chinese government has robustly promoted the learning of Putonghua by establishing Confucius Institutes in foreign universities and Confucius Classrooms in foreign schools (Hanban, 2012). These centres provide courses in Chinese language and culture in general, but many recently established Confucius Institutes have specialised areas such as law, music, or economics. There has been some controversy in host countries such as the US over the embedding of Confucius Institutes within universities (e.g. Hartig, 2012; Li, Mirmirani, & Ilacqua, 2009; Kurlantzick, 2007; Nye, 2005; Paradise, 2009; Starr, 2009), but, by 2012, there were over 850 Confucius Institutes and Classrooms in more than 100 countries (Hanban, 2012). Moreover, Putonghua has become a common subject in school curricula around the world. 47

Anwei Feng and Bob Adamson

To support the development of Chinese as a foreign language, assessment schemes have been set up. Learners can take what is called Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) to determine their level of Chinese. The HSK was first administered inside China in 1990 with only 39 taking the first test. In the following year, it was administered outside the country with less than 500 test takers (Wang, 2005).The HSK in the first 20 years or so was basically modelled after the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) which is a standardised test designed by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), a private non-profit organisation in the US, to measure the English language ability of non-native speakers wishing to enrol in English-speaking universities (Xie, 2011). In 2009, a new HSK model was developed to replace the original TOEFL-like model, with the addition of the oral test. This model is more influenced by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (Xie, 2011) and now it is widely administered in more than 800 testing centres inside and outside China. In 2011 alone, more than 176,000 people worldwide took the New HSK test (Li, 2012). It should be noted that, in addition to the HSK testing centres which primarily serve the needs of those who speak Chinese as a foreign language, many centres for testing Putonghua have also been established inside China. It is claimed by Li Weihong (2014), Deputy Minister of Education and Director of the National Language Committee, that 20 years of Putonghua assessment projects in the country have seen the establishment of more than 1200 testing centres and more than 50,000,000 test takers. As a result, within the decade between 2000 and 2010, the number of Putonghua speakers increased from 50% to 70% of the total population in the country (Li, 2014). Overall, the promotion of Putonghua as a common language to unify the country has been a significant feature of language policies in the PRC. Naturally, such policies can cause tensions between national and local aspirations. As mentioned before, the promotion has not only impacted minority groups (to be further explored in the next section), but also affected speakers of Chinese dialects. For instance, Cantonese speakers, clustered mainly in southern provinces such as Guangdong, have found the imposition of a national language based on a northern variety difficult to accept, and the Chinese government has, on occasions, taken firm measures to restrict or ban the use of Cantonese in broadcasting, education, and other aspects of communication. The simplification of hundreds of characters as part of the efforts to raise literacy levels in the PRC received criticism on aesthetic, cultural, and linguistic grounds (Li, Li, & Li, 2013). Similarly, the moves to enhance Putonghua as an international language, mainly through the development of Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms, has created concerns over possible cultural, linguistic, and political imperialism (Wang & Adamson, 2015). Ironically, these concerns mirror those experienced within China when faced with powerful international languages such as English (Adamson, 2015), which will be described in a later section.

3  Minority languages Within China, there are 55 officially recognised indigenous minority groups totalling more than one hundred million people, comprising approximately 8.5% of the national population (Tsung, 2009). The overall tone for minority languages and cultures is set in the Constitution, the Language Law and the Regional National Autonomy Law, that is, minority groups have the right to use and develop their own languages and cultures. The Regional National Autonomy Law lists more detailed guides than the other two including the promotion of bilingualism and bilingual education and regulations in use of minority languages in formal domains. Minority groups in China are historically, culturally, and linguistically diverse, however, and thus state language policies vary from group to group. In Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, for 48

The People’s Republic of China

example, strong models of bilingual or trilingual education (see Baker, 2011; Feng & Adamson, 2015a) have been continuously encouraged owing mainly to the region’s political stability and social harmony. With these models, Korean learners could first of all develop native speaker competence in their own language, Korean (L1), which facilitates normal cognitive development. In turn, they could acquire the national language (L2), Mandarin Chinese, and a third language (L3), usually English, with relative ease. More importantly, their overall performance in school is widely found to be well above the national average (Zhang,Wen, & Li, 2015; Zhou, 2003). The strong forms of bilingual education help the Korean group to gain access to life opportunities in the mainstream society and maintain their cultural heritage and language. In some other regions, especially in those places where tensions exist, however, weak forms of bilingual or trilingual education are usually the only options. With these models, L2 is usually used as the medium of instruction and the main purpose of “bilingual or trilingual education” is to learn and develop the national language (L2), but often at the expense of their L1 (Adamson & Feng, 2015). Policies on minority languages have also changed over time. Since 1949, they have swung between coercive assimilation and the encouragement of diversity (Lam, 2005). During the 1950s when the priority of the government was to maintain political stability, there was a pluralistic period when use of minority languages was legally protected and a total of 16 scripts were created for 12 minority groups without written systems (Tsung, 2009). At times, such as during the Cultural Revolution, the language and culture of minority groups were under threat – often violent threat – as they were pressured to assimilate with the Han majority group. From late 1980s to the turn of the century, there appeared to be a second pluralistic period (Zhou, 2003) when there was decentralisation of language policy decisions which resulted in a range of policies. During that period, policies and official publications have placed a high premium on the notion of “Min-Han Jiantong,” literally mastery of both the home language and standard Chinese, as the ultimate goal of bilingual education for minority groups. For example, “Zhuang-Han Jiantong” (mastery of Zhuang language and standard Chinese) is stipulated in the regional policy documents as the aim for Zhuang, the largest minority group in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China; Zang-Han Jiantong for Tibetans and Yi-Han Jiantong for the Yi nationality is stipulated in southern Sichuan and Yunnan respectively (Dai & Dong, 1997). As a result, a strong form of bilingual education, usually called Model 1 in China, in which the minority language was used as the medium of instruction with Chinese as a school subject, was found in regions such as Tibet (Xiao & Higgins, 2015), Qinghai (Ma & Renzeng, 2015), and Yi dominated areas in Sichuan (Liu et al., 2015). In regions such as Guangxi and Yunnan where many minority languages were used only in oral interactions or dying out, to give way to local Chinse dialects, there were signs of efforts to revitalise the minority languages (Feng, 2005; Tsung, 2009). However, the period of decentralisation was relatively short and Putonghua was increasingly emphasised particularly in formal domains and became the dominant language of education. In the 21st century, state-level policies for minority language and culture have remained the same in terms of general principles. National promotion of Putonghua and the rights to use and develop own languages and cultures by minority groups, as enshrined in the Constitution and the Language Laws, are claimed in both academic and political discourses. However, a closer look at local- or regional-level documents reveal that the effort put into implementing the former is far more rigorous than the work on the latter, particularly in government and education. In Xinjiang, for example, less than 10% of the official documents are translated into Uyghur, even though both Chinese and Uyghur are designated as the legal official languages of the region (Zhou, 2004). The “Middle and Long-Term Plan for Educational Reform and 49

Anwei Feng and Bob Adamson

Development” issued by the Qinghai Provincial Education Bureau in 2010 states that by 2015 primary schools should achieve the aim to use the national language, Chinese, as the main medium of instruction and minority languages as the subsidiary medium of teaching to conduct bilingual education (Huang, 2013). In the last couple of decades, printed materials in minority language have dropped dramatically. In 1980, of all the printed publications, 8.9% were in minority languages; in 1991, this dropped to only 4%; and in 2005, only 2% of printed materials were in minority languages (Zhou, 2014). Where minority language policies in education are generally supportive of the preservation of the linguistic heritage of ethnic groups, they are aimed at fostering an ethnic minority identity embedded within a broader Chinese national identity, and at avoiding social divisions that the empowerment of a local language might cause. Thus, minority languages are taught alongside the increasingly dominant Putonghua. The former enable the students to develop competence in social domains, while the latter becomes the main language of professional and academic domains through the school system. When a third (foreign) language—usually English—is added to the mix, complexities and tensions multiply. Research (Feng & Adamson, 2015; Adamson & Yi, 2015) suggests that the combination of the two powerful languages can strengthen a minority language in regions where the ethnic group demonstrates a high level of ethnolinguistic vitality, while the minority language is under threat in regions where it does not. Efforts to institutionalise support for minority languages through affirmative action in education (such as lowering the bar for ethnic minority students seeking to enter higher education) have proved controversial. Beneficiaries find that, once accepted, they have to achieve the same standards as their majority counterparts to graduate even though they start from a lower base, and, even if they do succeed, they suffer from the stigma of being associated with affirmative action when they compete in the job market (Adamson & Xia, 2013). Minority languages now have to exist in the education system within a framework of multilingualism. If they are to flourish, then a number of challenges need to be faced (Adamson & Feng, 2015). These include securing a strong commitment from the local community and other important stakeholders towards the maintenance of the minority language in question; devising appropriate and realistic linguistic standards across the three or more languages (which are probably differentiated, with the greatest attention being given to Putonghua) that students can attain; developing written scripts for the minority languages that lack them; and mitigating the current tensions arising from the affirmative action policy. The greatest challenge, however, appears to lie in whether the government would be willing to empower minority languages and whether and how education authorities, schools, and universities would invest in strong models in trilingual education that promote the accretive acquisition of the three languages. In some respects, the government has demonstrated enthusiasm to support minority languages. For example, simultaneous translation has traditionally been provided in Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazak, Korean, Mongolian, Zhuang, and Yi at the National People’s Congress, the CCP National Congress, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress (Zhou, 2003). Bilingual street signs and boards are encouraged in minority autonomous regions or prefectures. The government has also shown great readiness to invest in researching and recording severely and critically endangered languages. The government has also set up some “demonstration districts” in some regions such as Xinjiang and Guizhou for bilingual use and bilingual education (Zhou, 2013a). However, as Huang (2014) points out, despite all these efforts, crucial measures for maintaining and developing the competence of L1 among living minority groups internally are neglected. As a result, it is rare to see a strong model put in application in schools and universities (Feng & Adamson, 2015a) 50

The People’s Republic of China

4  Foreign languages Choices concerning the teaching of foreign languages in Chinese schools are largely determined by national priorities. Thus, Russian was the main foreign language taught during the era of Sino–Soviet collaboration during the 1950s, and English during the period of economic development in the early 1960s and since the Cultural Revolution. Ross (1993) describes the language education policies as a “barometer” of modernisation. Other foreign languages, such as Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and South-East Asian languages, are offered in schools according to local contexts. The pragmatism regarding the choice of foreign languages masks deep tensions. English, for example, has only gained acceptance in China after much soul-searching over the associations of the language with colonialism and anticommunism, and the danger that English posed to the cultural and political integrity of the country (Adamson, 2004). It was the weakness of the Qing Dynasty in the face of European traders backed by gunboats that forced the Chinese to choose between technological modernisation and subservience.The former route involved appropriating Western science and technology to match the Chinese context, as the Japanese had done during the Meiji Restoration. After initially sequestering foreign merchants in cantonments in Guangzhou to restrict contact with Chinese—other than a few semi-literate “linguists” who could speak pidgin English—government policy turned to learning Western languages in order to access new scientific and technological ideas to strengthen the country. Colleges, such as the Tongwenguan or “Schools of Combined Learning” in Beijing, were established in the 1860s to study English, mathematics, and other subjects deemed useful for China’s modernisation. Western missionaries were also active in setting up schools and universities, and English soon became the key to lucrative employment opportunities, although there were sporadic outbreaks, sometimes violent, of antiforeignism (Adamson, 2004). The resistance to English partly explains the adoption of a utilitarian approach to teaching the language in schools (Wen Ti, in Teng & Fairbank, 1979: 183–184), which began after English (as well as Japanese) became part of the official curriculum from 1902. During the Republican era, interest in English expanded from science and technology to embrace the access it afforded to social sciences and the arts, although ambivalence towards the language still endured in some quarters. After the PRC was inaugurated, English was relegated from the school curriculum while emphasis was placed on the development of mass literacy in Chinese and on learning Russian because of the close collaboration with the USSR and antipathy towards many English-speaking nations. Russian prevailed while strenuous efforts were being made to build a socialist country modelled on the USSR. However, English became prominent once the Sino–Soviet relationship broke down in the early 1960s, although there was a lack of suitably qualified teachers. The Cultural Revolution briefly halted foreign language learning in schools and many teachers of English suffered physical and political attacks, but from the late 1970s, foreign language competence has been regarded as a vital component in the economic modernisation of the PRC (Adamson, 2004). For instance, the preamble to the formal school syllabus for English, issued in 1993 by the Ministry of Education, states that: A foreign language is an important tool for international interaction. In accord with our nation’s reform and Open Door policy and to meet the needs of speeding up socialist modernisation, efforts should be made to enable as many people as possible to acquire a certain command of one or more foreign languages. (People’s Education Press 1993:1, in translation) 51

Anwei Feng and Bob Adamson

English is also regarded as a high-status language for social mobility (Osnos, 2008). The PRC’s “Open Door” policy increased the Chinese people’s interactions with foreigners, opportunities for foreign travel and study, and access to information through the Internet. Foreign language skills were required for a range of jobs, including international banking, civil service, and taxi driving in major cities (Gil & Adamson, 2011). Informal channels for learning foreign languages through television programmes, multimedia packages, private tuition, and clubs blossomed. Successive curriculum reforms, with an increasing focus on sociolinguistic use of language rather than on linguistic mastery, have sought to increase the levels of oral and written proficiency. English became a key component of the high-stakes College Entrance Examination, which determines admission to higher education, and was also made a requirement for graduation, irrespective of the student’s major. The new century witnessed a huge turning point which pushed English education in the PRC to new heights. In 2001, three policy documents were promulgated by the Ministry of Education to promote English throughout the country. The first two specify the New English Curriculum Standards (NECS) for primary and secondary schools. One was issued to primary schools (Ministry of Education, 2001a), stipulating that English provision was to start from Year Three in all primary schools by the autumn of 2002. The other (Ministry of Education, 2001b) set up specific English standards for secondary schools. Attached to the second as appendixes are specific requirements for pronunciation, vocabulary, phrases, grammar, functional and notional inventories, and even a long list of English expressions to be used in classrooms. Both documents are claimed to be applicable to all schools nationwide. Apparent in the documents is the intention to standardise teaching philosophy and approaches, even though mention is made of the diversity of content and methodology owing to diverse backgrounds of pupils, accessible resources, and other contextual factors. The NECS documents detailing the rationale, learning outcomes, pedagogy, and inventories of lexical and grammatical items for teaching and learning have not only provided the official benchmark for primary and secondary schools, but have also become the basis for revising the traditional College English Syllabus which is now called College English Curriculum Requirements (Ministry of Education, 2007) for students at tertiary level. College English Education has been a huge part of tertiary education since 1985 when the first College English Syllabus was promulgated in China.There is extensive literature about College English teaching and learning both in Chinese and English (c.f. Cai, 2012). The third document issued in 2001 makes a brief but very significant “suggestion” for a new approach to English education at the tertiary level. Under its general title, Guidelines for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Teaching (Ministry of Education, 2001c), the policy stipulates that within three years 5–10% of the tertiary courses for undergraduate students be conducted in English, or another foreign language. The paragraph containing this stipulation was momentous because it was the first official endorsement of this strong form of bilingual education, that is, using both Chinese and English as the media of instruction.The endorsement was partly due to the long dissatisfaction of the outcome of traditional EFL teaching in the country and partly due to the increasing awareness of the research published internationally that gives evidence of the effectiveness of strong forms of bilingual education such as immersion programmes (Yu,Yeoman, & Han, 2009). In fact, by 2000, many kindergartens, primary, and secondary schools in coastal and metropolitan areas had already been practicing it without official approval (Feng, 2005). The years since 2001 have witnessed a clear paradigm shift in English language education in China from traditional EFL teaching and learning to strong forms of bilingual education (Cai, 2012). This practice has not been carried out without criticisms. Some critics argue that the use of a foreign language as a medium of instruction in fact contradicts China’s Language Law 52

The People’s Republic of China

which ordains that all educational institutions in China, except those in minority areas, must use Mandarin Chinese as the primary teaching language. This explains why critics have not only been challenging the current drive for English-language education from linguistic and cultural perspectives (Hu, 2008) but also questioning its legal status. According to Chen (2002), linguists, lawyers, and policy makers are aware of the “unlawful” situation bilingual education creates, but they argue that bilingual education is a recent phenomenon and regulations or laws governing it will follow soon. But to date, to the best of our knowledge, there has been neither new regulation nor official clarification from the government. Even though China is a country that has been traditionally characterised by centralised, topdown institutions, regional variations exist in terms of state policy implementation. The process of policy formulation at the local level in response to state policies can be rather complex and the real-world practices differ tremendously (Cortazzi & Jin, 1996). It is a commonplace observation that in most ordinary schools in cities and towns where the majority Han children attend, English starts from Primary One, instead of Primary Three, and the allocated time for this school subject often far exceeds the class hours specified in the 2001 policy documents. Furthermore, commonly seen in schools in metropolitan areas such as Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Xi’an, and coastal cities such as Shenzhen, are experiments and applications of strong forms of bilingual education such as immersion programmes (Knell et al., 2007; Hu, 2008). Private English centres/schools and bilingual kindergartens and schools have mushroomed in economic powerhouses such as the Zhujiang Delta Region and Shanghai. It is important to note that the popularity of learning English is not confined within school walls. In society more generally, particularly in the economically developed east, English has quickly become a required skill for desirable jobs, including the civil service, and for career advancement in general (Feng, 2005). This has pushed societal bilingualism in English and Chinese to an unprecedented level. In major cities such as Shanghai, parents use every means to get their children into schools with reputable English programmes. Furthermore, they seek extracurricular classes and activities at whatever cost to improve their children’s English. As Zou and Zhang (2011) observe, parents from various socioeconomic backgrounds have all invested heavily in their children’s English. In a society where quality English-language schools are highly commercialised, access to them is no doubt in the hands of the rich.This has increased social divisiveness between the rich and the poor. In contrast to urban cities and towns where English is robustly promoted, in under developed rural areas it is hard to provide even the most basic English-language education. Many studies give evidence of this urban–rural divide (Wu, 2008). Lack of resources, lack of textbooks with appropriate content for rural children, lack of pupils’ motivation to study foreign languages, and lack of parents’ support are common issues reported with regard to English teaching and learning in rural schools. The most reported problem is the shortage of qualified English teachers. It can be argued that the urban–rural divide has widened rather than narrowed in the last couple of decades (Wang, 2006). While English has been the predominant foreign language taught and learned in all provinces in China, it should also be noted that “minor (foreign) languages (小语种)” have never ceased to be taught and learned, particularly in universities. Minor (foreign) languages, as defined in China, include many major languages in the world, such as Russian, Spanish, French, Arabic, and German. In the last couple of decades, none has proved as popular as English. However, in recent years, some regions and provinces have started to pay more attention to minor foreign languages. This is particularly true in some provinces that border foreign countries. Take Yunnan for example. A document was issued in 2006 by the provincial education bureau to urge their own universities to enhance teaching of Vietnamese, Lao, Burmese, Cambodian, and Thai 53

Anwei Feng and Bob Adamson

(Yunnan Education Bureau, 2006). In a similar fashion, universities in Guangxi have substantially increased its student recruitment for majors in Thai, Vietnamese, Lao, Burmese, Cambodian, Indonesian, and Malay since the China-ASEAN Exposition started in 2004 and became an annual event (Chen, 2010). In Xinjiang, Russian and Arabic are existing “minor languages” in their universities. It is not uncommon to see calls made to add languages used in Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and Turkey to the course list. The above clearly shows that foreign language teaching and learning, English in particular, have enjoyed unprecedented attention in the last three to four decades. Authentic use in English in workplaces such as joint ventures and multinational companies and in the society in general has also been on the rise year by year (Feng, 2011). However, there are recent signs that the government is trying to de-emphasise the importance of English in China. The most obvious sign was the official release of a plan to reduce the weighting of English while increasing that of Chinese and mathematics in the high-stakes Gaokao (college entrance examinations) from 2016 (Li & Gao, 2013). This led to huge repercussions as various provinces followed the suit. The political motive of this move was obvious, that is, to further empower the national language and culture, while de-emphasising the importance of English, but the explanation given was usually that this move would reduce the pressure put on students by the English test. Some critics argue that the move was ill-conceived as the pressure is unlikely to be eased as long as it is part of the high-stakes examination and, more importantly, the value of English would not be lessened in the future simply because of the reduction of assessment weightage in high-stakes exams (Cheng, 2014).

5 Conclusion Of the language policies reviewed in this chapter, the promotion of Putonghua has been the most consistent since the founding of the PRC. Its functions have developed over time: it has always been believed to enhance the unification of the country and improve the literacy rates in less-developed areas. Since the turn of the century, Putonghua has been more rigorously promoted in China which has had serious consequences for both dialects and minority languages. Ever-increasing mobility, rapid urbanisation, and mass and social media dominated by Putonghua have further increased the spread of Putonghua in China at the expense of local languages and dialects. More recently, teaching Putonghua as a foreign language has been viewed as a way of enhancing the PRC’s international engagement. The rapid development of Confucius Institutes and Classrooms in more than 100 countries has led to an exponential spread of Chinese in the world. The orientation of language policies in education for ethnic minority regions has swung between coercive assimilation and the tolerance of diversity, while the actual details of policy implementation still vary greatly from region to region. Unlike Chinese dialects, however, minority languages are protected by the Constitution; bilingualism and bilingual education are still debated in policy making and in education. Similarly, the dominant foreign language taught in schools and higher education has also changed according to the prevailing political climate, with Russian being preferred in the 1950s, English in the early 1960s, the virtual dereliction of foreign language teaching for the duration of the Cultural Revolution, and the subsequent explosion of interest in learning English (Adamson, 2004). Feng (2011) portrays the national popularity and obsession of English in education and English language use in the society during the decades between late 1970s and 2011 metaphorically as the “apex of the third wave”, predicting a likely downturn, given China’s fear of political and sociocultural consequences after years of vigorous promotion of English language teaching and learning, which indeed seems to be happening in the last few years. 54

The People’s Republic of China

Having reviewed the language policies of China since the founding of the PRC, we would raise two questions for further discussion. Firstly, we have given evidence that the promotion of Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua) has been forceful, perhaps more so in the new century than before. Like many other countries in the world, the PRC desires a unified and strong country and to that end the promotion of a national lingua franca is seen as essential. There do not seem to be any other policies or voices to counter the policy to promote Mandarin Chinese as a necessary strategy to integrate the linguistically diverse groups into the mainstream society. Minority groups and dialect speakers desire structural integration which values equality of access to opportunity and treatment for all ethnic groups (Baker, 2011). However, there is also evidence of a cultural assimilation mind-set even among top policy makers who expect minority groups to give up their cultural identity and adopt mainstream language and values (Tsung, 2009). According to Zhou and Ross (2004: 16), former President and CCP General Secretary, Jiang Zemin, once suggested there were too many languages in China. Minority groups would normally desire economic-structural integration but feel painful about cultural assimilation (Paulston, 1992). Hence, a fundamental question could be whether and how policy makers could keep a balance between promoting Mandarin Chinese and granting its minority groups the rights to maintain and develop their own language and culture as its Constitution ordains. History tells us that failing to keep the balance could cause rapid diminishing of minority languages and linguistic diversity and even social disturbance. Even a widely perceived “safe” language with strong ethnolinguistic vitality such as Mongolian shows some signs of being endangered, particularly in cities (Tsung, 2009). Many dialects also feel under threat. Modern transportation, mass migration, rapid economic development, mass media, and social media, as well as existing language polices, all favour promotion of the powerful lingua franca, Mandarin Chinese. We would therefore argue that the current focus should be shifted more towards bi-/ tri-/multilingualism and bi-/tri-/multilingual education through policies made at regional and local levels, as well as at the state level. In minority regions, bi-/tri-/multilingual education should not be interpreted as the promotion of Mandarin Chinese in schools only as is the case in some regions. It should aim at what we call additive trilingualism which refers to the development of native speaker competences in L1 (the mother tongue) and very strong competence in L2 (Mandarin Chinese), given L2’s wide use and importance for life opportunities, and peer appropriate competence in L3 (a foreign language, usually English). Peer appropriate competence refers to both oral proficiency and literacy in L3 comparable to that of the peers of the majority Han group (Feng & Adamson, 2015). For the vast majority of minority pupils, highest competence in the L1 is essential from cognitive and affective points of view; strong competence in L2 is absolutely necessary for structural integration and from the socio-political point of view; peer appropriate ability in the L3 is necessary for keeping students from minority groups competitive within the education system and for enabling them to engage internationally when they join the workforce. There is sufficient evidence to show that such an educational aim is both desirable and attainable (Feng & Adamson, 2015a). Only when such additive trilingualism is achieved, can equality in education be achieved and can minority groups be empowered.With the general principles explicitly stated in the state-level policies such as the Constitution, we further argue that regional and prefectural level policies be made to promote additive trilingualism. A second question we would like to raise is how China could formulate policies that help to nurture “international talents” (国际型人才), a workforce with both specialised knowledge in a field and competence in a foreign language, especially English, desired by the country for engagement with international communities and its own sustainable social and economic development (Feng, 2007). Educators should appreciate the need for reforms of the current assessment system so as to address issues widely reported, particularly key stakeholders’ concern about 55

Anwei Feng and Bob Adamson

the huge pressure of the Gaokao on students and its washback effects on classroom practice. However, there is consensus that in the post-Mao era China has benefited tremendously from its “open-door” policy and from better engagement with the international communities, and foreign language education has played a key role in China’s development. Therefore, we agree with Cheng (2014) in his argument that policy documents should make it explicit that, while it is necessary and inevitable to reform the examination system, as well as classroom teaching and learning, the importance of foreign languages in education and for China’s further development should never be underestimated.

References Adamson, B. (2004). China’s English: A history of English in Chinese education. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Adamson, B. (2015). China’s English: lessons for Asian literacy. In C. Halse (Ed.), Asia literate schooling in the Asian century (pp. 119–132). Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Adamson, B., & Feng, A. W. (2015). Trilingualism in education: models and challenges. In A. W. Feng & B. Adamson (Eds.), Trilingualism in education in China: Models and challenges (pp. 243–258). Dordrecht, Holland: Springer. Adamson, B., & Xia, B. (2011). A case study of the College English Test and ethnic minority university students in China: Negotiating the final hurdle. Journal of Multilingual Education, 1(1), 1–11. Adamson, B., & Yi,Y.Y. (2015).Trilingual education in Inner Mongolia—signposts for the future of English in Asia? In M. O’Sullivan, D. Huddart & C. Lee (Eds.), The future of English in Asia: Perspectives on language and literature (pp. 193–206). Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Baker, C. (2011). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (5th ed.). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Cai, J. G. (2012). 中国大学英语教学路在何方 [A way out for college English teaching in China]. 上海交通大学出版社 [Shanghai: Shanghai Jiaotong University Press]. Cao, Z.Y. (2014). 方言濒危、文化碎片和方言学者的使命 [Endangered dialects, cultural fragmentation and the mission of dialectologists]. 中国语言学报 [ Journal of Chinese Linguistics], 16, 207–214. Chen, S. X. (2002). Language law bewilders bilingual educators. China.org. Retrieved June 16, 2011 from http:​//www​.chin​a.org​.cn/e​nglis​h/200​2/Apr​/3121​0.htm​. Chen, Y. (2010). 中国-东盟合作框架下广西的语言发展战略探讨 [A study of Guangxi’s language development strategy in the framework of China-ASEAN cooperation]. 学术论坛 [Academic Forum], 229(2), 166–170. Cheng, X. T. (2014). 关于当前英语教育政策调整的思考 [Reflections on the current English education policy adjustment]. 课程, 教材, 教法 [Curriculum, Textbooks, Pedagogy], 34(5), 58–64. (The) Constitution of the People’s Republic of China. (1982). Retrieved March 16, 2016 from http:​//eng​ lish.​peopl​edail​y.com​.cn/c​onsti​tutio​n/con​stitu​tion.​html. Cortazzi, M., & Jin, X. (1996). English learning and teaching in China. Language Teaching, 29(2), 61–80. Dai, Q. X., & Dong, Y. (1997). 中国少数民族双语教育的历史沿革-2 [A historical account of bilingual education for minority groups in China: Part 2]. 民族教育研究 [ Journal of Research on Education for Ethnic Minorities], 1, 50–61. Feng, A.W. (2005). Bilingualism for the minority or for the majority? An evaluative analysis of parallel conceptions in China. International Journal of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education, 8(6), 529–551. Feng, A. W. (2007). Intercultural space for bilingual education. In A. W. Feng (Ed.), Bilingual education in China: practices, policies and concepts (pp. 259–286). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Feng, A. W. (2011). The apex of the third wave: English language across Greater China. In A. W. Feng (Ed.), English language education across Greater China. (pp. 1–22). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Feng, A.W., & Adamson, B. (Eds.) (2015a). Trilingualism in education in China: models and challenges. Dordrecht, Holland: Springer. Feng, A. W., & Adamson, B. (2015b). Contested notions of bilingualism and trilingualism in the People’s Republic of China. In W.E. Wright, S. Boun & O. Garcia (Eds.), Handbook of bilingual & multilingual education (pp. 484–494). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Finifrock, J. E., & Schilken, D. (2015). Emerging trilingualism among the Dong minority in Guizhou Province. In A. W. Feng & B. Adamson (Eds.), Trilingualism in education in China: Models and challenges (pp. 199–222). Dordrecht, Holland: Springer.

56

The People’s Republic of China Gil, J., & Adamson, B. (2011). The English language in China: A sociolinguistic profile. In A. W. Feng (Ed.), English language education across Greater China (pp. 23–45). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Hanban. (2012). About Confucius Institute. Retrieved March 16, 2016 from http://english.hanban.org/ node_10971.htm. Hartig, F. (2012). Confucius Institutes and the rise of China. Journal of Chinese Political Science, 17, 53–76. Hu, G. W. (2008). The misleading academic discourse on Chinese–English bilingual education in China. Review of Educational Research, 78(2), 195–231. Huang, Xing. (2013). 少数民族语言文字使用情况调查述要 [Survey of the use of minority nationalities’ languages in writing]. 民族翻译 [Translation of Ethnic Minorities], 88, 64–78. Huang, Xing. (2014). 当前我国少数民族语言政策解读 [Analysing the current ethnic policy for minorities in China]. 中南民族大学学报 [ Journal of Zhongnan University for Nationalities], 6, 7–12. Kane, D. (2006). The Chinese language: Its history and current usage. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing. Knell, E., Qiang, H.Y., Pei, M., Chi,Y. P., Siegel, L. S., Zhao, L., & Zhao W. (2007). Early English immersion and literacy in Xi’an, China. The Modern Language Journal, 91(3), 395–417. Kurlantzick, J. (2007). Charm offensive: How China’s soft power is transforming the world. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lam, A. S. L. (2005). Language education in China: Policy and experience from 1949. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. (The) Law of the People's Republic of China on Regional National Autonomy. (1984). Retrieved March 16, 2016 from http:​//www​.chin​a.org​.cn/e​nglis​h/gov​ernme​nt/20​7138.​htm. (The) Law of the People's Republic of China on the standard spoken and written Chinese language (Order of the President No.37). (2000). Retrieved March 16, 2016 from http:​//www​.gov.​cn/en​glish​/laws​ /2005​-09/1​9/con​tent_​64906​.htm.​ Li, H. C., Mirmirani, S., & Ilacqua, J. A. (2009). Confucius Institutes: Distributed leadership and knowledge sharing in a worldwide network. Learning Organization, 16(6), 469–482. Li, P. (2012). 新汉语水平考试HSK的变革与汉语国际传播 [The new HSK reform and Chinese international communication]. 国际汉语教育 [International Chinese Education], 3, 192–201. Li, S., Li, F. L., & Li, M. L. (2013).The history of the modern simplified Chinese character originating from Qin Dynasty. Journal of Shenyang Agricultural University (Social Sciences Edition), 1, 122–124. Li, W. H. (2014). 二十载谱就华章新起点再创辉煌—纪念普通话水平测试工作开展20周年 [20 years brings forth a new starting point to create greater glory - to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Putonghua proficiency testing]. 中国教育报 [China Education Daily], October 22, 2014. Li, X., & Gao, Y. (October 27, 2013). The fate of English in China’s college entrance examination. China Daily. Retrieved from http://en.people.cn/203691/8438027.html Li,Y. M. (2015). Language planning in China. Berlin; Beijing: De Gruyter Mouton/The Commercial Press. Liu, C.Y., Ding, D., Wang, H.,Yu, L. J., & Yang, M. Z. (2015). A multi-case investigation into trilingualism and trilingual education in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture. In A. W. Feng & B. Adamson (Eds.), Trilingualism in education in China: Models and challenges (pp. 141–173). Dordrecht, Holland: Springer. Ma, F., & Renzeng. (2015). Ethnographic vitality, language attitudes and language education in Tibetan schools in Qinghai. In A. W. Feng & B. Adamson (Eds.), Trilingualism in education in China: Models and challenges (pp. 103–116). Dordrecht, Holland: Springer. Ministry of Education. (2001a). Guiding ideas to promote English curriculum in primary schools by the Ministry of Education. No. 2 Document issued by the Ministry of Education, Beijing, China. Ministry of Education. (2001b). Standard of English courses for 9-year compulsory education and general senior secondary schools (for experiment). Beijing, China: Beijing Normal University Press. Ministry of Education. (2001c). Guidelines for improving the quality of undergraduate teaching. Beijing, China: Ministry of Education. Ministry of Education. (2007). College English curriculum requirements. Beijing, China: Ministry of Education. National Linguistics Work Committee. (1996). 国家语言文字政策法规汇编 (1949–1995) [Collection of state language and script policies, 1949–1995]. 北京: 语文出版社 [Beijing:Yuwen Press]. Nye, J. S. (2005). The rise of China’s soft power. Wall Street Journal Asia, 29. Osnos, E. (2015). Crazy English: The national scramble to learn a new language before the Olympics. New Yorker, April 28, 2008. Available at http:​//www​.newy​orker​.com/​repor​ting/​2008/​04/28​/0804​28fa_​ fact_​osnos​?curr​entPa​ge=al​l. Paradise, J. F. (2009). China and international harmony: The role of Confucius Institutes in bolstering Beijing’s soft power. Asian Survey, 49(4), 647–669. Paulston, C. B. (1992). Sociolinguistic perspectives on bilingual education. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

57

Anwei Feng and Bob Adamson Qu, S. B. (2011). 广州“撑粤语”事件引发的思考. [Reflections on the Guangzhou “Hold up Cantonese” event]. 云南师范大学学报 [Journal of Yunnan Normal University], 43(1), 54–62. Rohsenow, J. S. (2004). Fifty years of script and written language reform in the P. R. C. In M. Zhou & H. Sun (Eds.), Language policy in the People’s Republic of China: Theory and practice since 1949 (pp. 21–43). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Ross, H. A. (1993). China learns English. New Haven:Yale University Press. Saillard, C. (2004). How a standard language becomes a vernacular. In M. Zhou & H. Sun (Eds.), Language policy in the People’s Republic of China:Theory and practice since 1949 (pp. 163–176). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Starr, D. (2009). Chinese language education in Europe: The Confucius institutes. European Journal of Education, 44(1), 65–82. Sun, H. K., Hu, Z. Y., & Huang, X. (Eds.) (2007). 中国的语言 [Languages in China]. Beijing: Business Press. Teng, S.Y., & Fairbank, J. K. (1979). China’s response to the west: A documentary survey, 1839–1923. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tsung, L. (2009). Minority languages, education and communities in China. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Wang, D. P., & Adamson, B. (2015). War and peace: Perceptions of Confucius Institutes in China and USA. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 24(1), 225–234. Wang, H., & Yuan, Z. R. (2013). The promotion of Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese): An overview. In Y. M. Li and W. Li (Eds.), The language situation in China (Vol. 1, pp. 27–39). Beijing: The Commercial Press. Wang, L. J. (2005). 中国汉语水平考试(HSK)的改革与发展—在世界汉语大会第二分会的主题发言 [Reform and development of the Chinese proficiency test (HSK) – Keynote speech at the Second Session of the World Chinese Conference]. 世界汉语教学 [Chinese Teaching in the World], 3, 6–9. Wang, S. G. (2006). 城乡居民收入差别的合理程度判断 [An assessment of legitimacy of income gaps between urban and rural residents]. 财经科学 [Financial Sciences], 217(4), 69–75. Wang, T. K., Li.Y. H., Chen M., Wang C.Y., & Zhou, Q. S. (2013). Language standardization in China. In Y. M. Li & W. Li (Eds.), The language situation in China (Vol. 1, pp. 57–65). Beijing: The Commercial Press. Wei, D. (2010). 地方语言文字立法. 中华人民共和国教育部 [Local language legislation. People’s Republic of China Ministry of Education]. Retrieved from http:​//www​.moe.​edu.c​n/pub​licfi​les/b​ usine​ss/ht​mlfil​es/mo​e/s48​41/20​1011/​11192​1.htm​l. Wu,Y. (2008). A study of disparities of English provision between urban and rural schools in Shiyan and its balancing strategies. (Unpublished MA dissertation). Huazhong Normal University, China. Xiao, Z. M., & Higgins, S. (2015).When English meets Chinese in Tibetan schools:Towards an understanding of multilingual education in Tibet. In A. W. Feng & B. Adamson (Eds.), Trilingualism in education in China: Models and challenges (pp. 117–140). Dordrecht, Holland: Springer. Xie, X. Q. (2011). 为什么要开发新HSK考试? [Why develop a new HSK exam?]. 中国考试 [Assessments in China], 3, 10–13. Yu, L. M.,Yeoman, E., & Han, J. X. (2009). 双语教育论: 加拿大浸入型教育对我国高校双语教学的启示 [Bilingual education: The implications of the Canadian immersion education to bilingual instruction in Chinese universities]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Yunnan Education Bureau. (2006). 云南省教育厅关于加强高等学校小语种教学工作的意见 [YEB’s Opinions on enhancing teaching and learning of “minor foreign languages” in higher education institutions]. 云南省教育厅高教处 [2006年 86号文件] [Higher Education Division, Yunnan Education Bureau, 2006, No. 86]. Zhang, Z. (1997). A report on the current situation and trends of development of literacy education in China. Report presented at the Asia Literacy Regional Forum, Manila. Zhou, M. L. (2001). The politics of bilingual education and educational levels in ethnic minority communities in China. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 4(2), 125–149. Zhou, M. L. (2003). Multilingualism in China: The politics of writing reforms for minority languages 1949–2002. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Zhou, M. L. (2004). Minority language policy in China: Equality in theory and inequality in practice. In M. L. Zhou & H.K. Sun (Eds.), Language policy in the People’s Republic of China: Theory and practice since 1949 (pp. 71–96). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Zhou, M. L., & Ross, H. (2004). Introduction: The context of the theory and practice of China’s language policy. In M. L. Zhou & H. K. Sun (Eds.), Language policy in the People’s Republic of China: Theory and practice since 1949 (pp. 1–18). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

58

The People’s Republic of China Zhou, Q. S. (2013a). 少数民族语言在社会转型中的挑战与机遇 [Challenges and Opportunities for minority languages in societal transition]. 云南师范大学学报 [Journal of Yunnan Normal University], 45(2), 1–8. Zhou, Q. S. (2013b). 中国“主体多样”语言政策的发展 [Development of language policies in the context of “diversity within centrality” in China]. 新疆师范大学学报 (哲学社会科学版) [Journal of Xinjiang Normal University (Social Sciences)], 34(2), 32–44. Zou, W. C., & Zhang, S. L. (2011). Family background and English learning at compulsory stage in Shanghai. In A. W. Feng (Ed.), English language education across Greater China (pp. 189–211). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Further reading Feng, A.W., & Adamson, B. (Eds.) (2015). Trilingualism in education in China: Models and challenges. Dordrecht, Holland: Springer. Li,Y. M. (2015). Language planning in China. Berlin; Beijing: De Gruyter Mouton/The Commercial Press. Li,Y. M., & W. Li (Eds.) (2013). The language situation in China. Beijing: The Commercial Press.

59

5 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN HONG KONG Anita Y. K. Poon

1 Background Hong Kong, a tiny fishing port currently with an area of 1104.3 square kilometres, was ceded to Britain in 1842 after the Qing Dynasty of Imperial China lost the First Opium War (1839– 1842). English, though spoken by a minority of the population – the colonists – was by default the sole official language of colonial Hong Kong in early days.Tanka and Hakka, the indigenous languages of Hong Kong, were spoken by fishermen and charcoal burners. With the influx of migrants from mainland China, mainly from Guangdong and nearby coastal areas since the 1850s, Cantonese and other Chinese dialects such as Chiu Chau, Fukien, and Shanghainese have become popular Chinese languages spoken in Hong Kong. Table 5.1 shows the latest distribution of languages used as first languages in Hong Kong. Table 5.1 indicates that approximately 95% of the population are speakers of Chinese, the majority of whom are native Cantonese speakers. Putonghua and English, albeit having a low percentage of native speakers in Hong Kong, play a pivotal role in the language scene of Hong Kong nowadays. The relation between ‘Chinese’, ‘Cantonese’, ‘Putonghua’ and ‘English’ as well as how these languages are played out in the language education policy scene over the decades are discussed subsequently. The term ‘Chinese’ was not defined in the two official legal documents – the Official Languages Ordinance – in Hong Kong prior to 1997 (Hong Kong Government 1974, 1987), nor in the Basic Law of Hong Kong enacted by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on April 4, 1990 for the Hong Kong SAR.1 Though ill-defined, ‘Chinese’ as understood in the context of Hong Kong means written Modern Standard Chinese, which is unanimously accepted as the only standard written Chinese used in formal writing in the Chinese Diaspora, and spoken Cantonese, whereas in mainland China, ‘Chinese’ refers to written Modern Standard Chinese and spoken Putonghua (i.e. Mandarin). Putonghua (spoken) has a direct correspondence with Modern Standard Chinese (written), but Cantonese (spoken) and Modern Standard Chinese (written) are not directly related. English as a colonial language enjoyed supreme status in Hong Kong. It remained the sole official language until 1974, the year in which Chinese was enacted as a co-official language as a result of Britain’s decolonisation policy and the local colonial government’s response to the pledge of the decade-long ‘Chinese as Official Language Movement’ led by a group of a­ wakened 60

Language education policy in Hong Kong Table 5.1 Distribution of languages used as first language in Hong Kong (Census and Statistics Department 2011) Languages

Population

Cantonese Putonghua Other Chinese dialects English Other languages

89.5% 1.38% 4.02% 3.5% 1.57%

local elites (Poon & Wong 2004). The status of Chinese was officially raised but Chinese has never been on par with English, neither prior to nor after the handover of sovereignty by Britain to the PRC in 1997. The main reason lies with the changing status of English in Hong Kong and the changing status of Hong Kong in the global arena over the past five decades. With the decolonisation policy in place starting from the 1970s, the status of English as a colonial language should have been lowered to give way to Chinese in the run-up to 1997. However, English has become an international language, if not the global language. Meanwhile, Hong Kong has also undergone a metamorphosis since the 1970s, from a manufacturing hub to an international centre of trade and commerce, and then to the third largest international financial centre in the world, thus changing the status of English in Hong Kong from a colonial language to an international language (Johnson 1994; Poon 2010).The great demand for proficient speakers of English has, therefore, had an impact on the language education policy in Hong Kong. Putonghua (or Mandarin), the national language in mainland China and Taiwan, was ignored by the Hong Kong government prior to 1997 for the obvious reason that instilling nationalism through this language was not the concern of the colonial government. Nonetheless, because of the open door policy of the PRC instigated in 1978 and its subsequent economic boom, Hong Kong people started to go north and do business in mainland China during the 1980s and the 1990s. At the same time, Hong Kong has also attracted hundreds and thousands of mainland tourists since the 1990s. The demand for Putonghua has thus been on the rise, and people in Hong Kong are gradually changing from being bilingual to trilingual, as evident in the increase in percentage of people able to speak Putonghua from 16.9% in 1991 to 46.5% in 2011 (Census and Statistics Department 2011). The changing linguistic landscape as well as the changeover of sovereignty has a bearing on the language education policy in Hong Kong.

2  Review and critical discussion of earlier language education policies (1842–1997) ‘Language education’ is defined as the teaching and learning of Chinese and English languages at schools in the context of Hong Kong, so the present chapter confines its discussion to the government’s policies pertaining to the teaching and learning of these two languages in the school sector without dealing directly with the medium of instruction policy, a species of ‘language-in-education’ policy (Poon 2000), although touching on the issue of medium of instruction at certain points will be inevitable. The analysis is based on the Hong Kong government’s language policy documents published over the past eight decades. This section first reviews the official language education policy documents published prior to 1997 and highlights some of their key contents. A critical discussion on the colonial government’s language education policies is subsequently provided. 61

Anita Y. K. Poon

2.1. Review The earliest official record of the Hong Kong government’s language education policy can be traced back to the Annual Report of the Central School, the first government school established in 1862, published in 1875: “The aim is to put both languages, English and Chinese, on a footing of perfect equality, as far as that is possible, and not sacrifice the one to the other” (Hong Kong Government Gazette February 12, 1876: 78), so both English and Chinese subjects enjoyed equal status in the curriculum. However, this policy was short-lived. The balance between the two subjects was upset as English was allotted more teaching hours upon the arrival of the governor, John Pope Hennessy (Resolutions of the Education Conference February 25, 1878, in Hong Kong Government Gazette March, 9 1878: 90). The goal of learning these two languages was not clearly defined until the first official education report – the Burney Report – in 1935: “… educational policy in the colony should be gradually re-orientated so as eventually to secure for the pupils, first a command of their own language sufficient for all needs of thought and expression, and secondly, a command of English limited to the satisfaction of vocational demands” (Burney 1935: 25). In the White Paper on Education Policy (Hong Kong Government 1965), which dealt with the issue of expansion of school education and free and compulsory primary education, a special note was made to strengthen English learning in Primary 6 in order to facilitate students’ study in Anglo-Chinese schools (i.e. the old term for those secondary schools using English as the teaching medium) as well as in the University of Hong Kong, an English-medium and the first university established in 1911 primarily to train civil servants for the colonial government. It also emphasised the importance of raising the English standards in Chinese Middle schools (i.e. the old term for those secondary schools using Chinese as the teaching medium) so as to help students progress to the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a Chinese-medium and the second university in Hong Kong inaugurated in 1963 mainly for Chinese Middle school graduates. The 1970s saw the expansion of school education. Elite education was replaced by mass education after the implementation of nine-year free and compulsory education in 1978. One consequence of mass education was a decline in language standards as the participation rate of the school age population had increased (Llewellyn, Hancock, Kirst, & Roeloffs 1982). Establishing and maintaining standards in the school system was thus a concern of the government especially when Hong Kong was developing into an international city and centre of trade and commerce. The quality of language teaching was identified as one of the two key issues in language education, the other being the medium of instruction. The teaching of both Chinese and English subjects left much to be desired, as evident in an official report: The teaching of Chinese … has in many cases developed into a loosely formulated programme of language, literature, history and philosophy of limited value for those pupils of restricted academic ability who would clearly benefit more if the teacher were to concentrate on basic communication skills in the mother tongue … Nevertheless, traditional attitudes to the teaching of Chinese die hard and progress is slow. It is also widely considered that the teaching of English is not yielding results commensurate with the considerable time and effort spent on it. (Hong Kong Government 1981: 112) A ‘language package’ was subsequently proposed to raise the standards of both languages: e.g. to establish an Institute of Language in Education within the Education Department with particular emphasis on the training of language teachers, to develop remedial teaching in Chinese and 62

Language education policy in Hong Kong

English in junior secondary forms, to provide wire-free induction loop systems with individual headsets to train students’ English listening skills and pronunciation, and to revamp the audiolingual English curriculum and replace it with the communicative approach. Meanwhile, an international panel was invited to review the entire education system of Hong Kong in 1981, and an insightful report, often referred to as the Llewellyn Report after its Chair, was published in 1982. In its chapter on ‘Languages in the classroom’, there was more discussion on the medium of instruction than on language teaching. Llewellyn et al. (1982: 29) argued that except in a few prestigious schools “attempts to teach through the medium of English leave much to be desired” because of low standards of English of both teachers and students. As “Hong Kong cannot afford to reduce the emphasis on English in its schools” (Llewellyn et al. 1982: 28), it was proposed to adopt a more coherent approach and develop genuine bilingualism, and extra resources should be provided to improve the English competence of teachers with a view to solving the medium of instruction problem. In response to the international panel’s proposals, a permanent Education Commission was set up in 1984 to formulate education policy and coordinate the planning and development of education at all levels (Education Commission 1984). Of the seven Education Commission Reports (ECRs) published, four – ECR1, ECR2, ECR4, and ECR6 – provided a wide range of suggestions on the language problems and language education. The ECR1 endorsed the international panel’s view that “bilingualism is essential” and that “the quality of language teachers must first be improved if the standard of languages in schools is to be raised” (Education Commission 1984: 35). Some of the recommendations were: to carry out research projects pertaining to language use in secondary schools, to recruit expatriate lecturers of English for the teacher training colleges and the then newly set up Institute of Language in Education, to encourage secondary schools to employ locally available native English speakers with teaching qualifications to teach English, to establish a Chinese Language Foundation to publish good quality instructional and general reading materials in Chinese, to promote the wider use and position of the Chinese language in the community, and to provide an additional graduate teacher of Chinese to every secondary school. The ECR2 made a few more follow-up suggestions to improve the quality of language teaching. In its chapter on ‘Language in education’ the ECR4 (Education Commission 1990) tackled mainly the issue of medium of instruction as the problem of using mixed code (i.e. mixing English and Chinese) to teach content-based subjects in English-medium secondary schools was worsening as a result of declining English standards. To meet the demands of parents, many secondary schools in the 1980s claimed to adopt English-medium learning (i.e. the textbooks, written work, examinations, and medium of instruction were all in English). In the classroom, however, teachers often explained the lesson material in Chinese mixed with English terms, and students were in some way forced to memorise the texts in English without thorough understanding in order to pass the examination. The Education Commission (1990) was of the view that “teaching and learning are generally more effective if the medium of instruction is either the mother tongue or English (for those who are able to learn effectively through this medium)” (Education Commission 1990: 100). Therefore, a comprehensive framework for a more clear-cut medium-of-instruction policy that permitted students to be placed in Chinesemedium classes or English-medium classes according to their language ability was proposed. In addition, a series of recommendations on raising English standards were put forward: e.g. to start the implementation of the Expatriate English Teachers Scheme in secondary schools in 1991; to offer English bridging courses for Primary 5 and 6 students, Secondary 1 students in English-medium schools, Secondary 3 students in Chinese-medium schools going to transfer to English-medium schools, and Secondary 6 students in Chinese-medium schools entering 63

Anita Y. K. Poon

t­ertiary institutions to help them adjust to the English-medium learning environment at different junctures in their studies; to produce English TV and video programmes for English language learning; to create a Language in Education Research Development Unit within the Institute of Language in Education to conduct research related to implementation and monitoring of language improvement measures. To cater for greater coherence in education planning across languages and across sectors of the education system, it was recommended that a new division in the Education Department be set up, and the Curriculum Development Institute was subsequently established in 1992–1993. Based on a series of research studies conducted by academics and linguistic experts, the Education Commission issued its sixth report a year prior to the handover, critically examining the factors hindering the development of high levels of language proficiency, and identifying two major weaknesses – i.e. “the lack of a coherent framework for the formulation, monitoring, and evaluation of policy, and the fact that a large number of language teachers are not fully trained” (Education Commission 1995: vii), so the entire ECR6 was devoted to a single issue – i.e. how to enhance language proficiency.The following were some major recommendations: (1) to set up a Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR) “to conduct research into the language education needs of Hong Kong, to develop policies designed to meet those needs, and to monitor and evaluate such policies in a coherent and systematic manner” (Education Commission 1996: 3); (2) to develop benchmark qualifications for language teachers at primary and secondary levels; (3) to review the workload of language teachers in primary and secondary schools as well as to review the teaching methods, the curriculum and assessment; (4) to set realistic language goals for kindergarten, primary, junior secondary, senior secondary, and tertiary levels; (5) to develop the ‘language across the curriculum’ approach in designing the syllabuses; (6) to review the need for language subjects to be assessed at primary level; (7) to extend the intensive English bridging courses for Secondary 6 and 7 students to facilitate their learning at English-medium tertiary institutions; (8) to request the tertiary institutions to enforce strictly their minimum entrance requirements as regards English language proficiency; (9) to encourage employers to develop their own vocational language programmes; (10) to promote Putonghua and in the long term make it become part of the core curriculum for all primary and secondary students.

2.2  Critical discussion Being a bilingual city during the colonial era, Hong Kong needed a balanced and coherent language education policy to nurture people to be able to use both Chinese and English proficiently at work as well as in social communication. The above review, however, shows Hong Kong’s language education policies prior to 1997 were biased towards English. The imbalance can be traced back to the early colonial days when the decision to assign more teaching hours to the English curriculum was mandated in 1878.The trend persisted, and the English Language subject was given slightly more lessons per week according to the syllabus and curriculum guide (Curriculum Development Council 1990, 1993). In addition, the government policy documents published during 1965–1996 repeatedly put more weight on English language teaching and learning, including strengthening English learning in Primary 6 and Chinese Middle schools to prepare students for English-medium learning as well as enforcing universities’ minimum entrance requirements of English proficiency (Hong Kong Government 1965; Education Commission 1996), revising the English curriculum as well as providing additional resources to enhance the English environment at schools (Hong Kong Government 1981; Education Commission 1990), and putting extra resources in raising the quality of English teachers (Llewellyn et al. 1982; Education Commission 1996). 64

Language education policy in Hong Kong

What are the contributing factors behind the imbalance in language education policy? Politics is the first and foremost factor. Being a British colony, Hong Kong inevitably assigned a heavier role to the colonial language, English, rather than the indigenous language, Chinese, when it first formulated its language education policy. The imbalance should have been redressed in the aftermath of a series of awareness-raising social movements against colonialism including the use of the colonial language as the medium of learning (Choi 1990) as well as the subsequent enactment of Chinese as a co-official language in 1974. However, a second factor – the economic development – phased in at this point and transformed Hong Kong into an international city and centre of trade and commerce. While taking on its new role, Hong Kong also saw a changing perception of the English language, from being very negative towards a colonial language as evident in some studies (e.g. Fu 1975) to a well-sought-after international language (e.g. Hyland 1997). Parents, among others, were (and still are) keen on sending their children to Englishmedium schools, which are perceived to provide a better environment for English learning.The great demand for English in the community since the early 1980s had exerted tremendous pressure on the policymakers, thus further tilting the language education policy in favour of English. Despite some imbalance, the scope of the language education policy documents published prior to 1997 was widening, from initially focusing merely on the quality of language teaching and related issues like teacher training and workload of language teachers, to looking deeply into the coherence and theoretical support of the syllabus, curriculum, and assessment. In addition to meeting the immediate needs of the teachers and students, some far-sighted and structural recommendations were made, for example, establishing the ILE and the CDI, conducting more research, and adopting a comprehensive strategy. The policymakers had even extended their scope to consider the demands of other stake-holders such as those of universities, employers, and the general public in their recommendations. Nonetheless, a major shortfall of the education policy in this period is its lack of clear specific language goals – a point explicitly highlighted in the ECR6 and the coherence between the two language subjects (Education Commission 1996). An input approach was used to resolve the key issue in language education during this period – i.e. undesirable quality of language teaching. Billions of dollars2 had been invested to improve various aspects of language teaching. Is the input in proportion to the output? Did the input bring about desirable effects? Apparently, the Hong Kong government had never evaluated the effectiveness of those support measures related to language education. On the contrary, undesirable effects of language teaching have surged since the early 1980s and persisted until the present time. A decline in language standards, especially English standards, was an indicator of ineffectiveness of the language education policy in this period, although language education policy was only one contributing factor among others such as the implementation of nine-year compulsory education. The Hong Kong government repeatedly argued until 2008 that English standards had remained the same during the 1980s and the 1990s, and that “English standards appeared to have been generally maintained but the fast increasing demand for competent users had led to a misperception that standards were falling” (Education Commission 1990: 93). On the other hand, some empirical studies conducted during this period directly addressed the issue of falling English standards of both secondary students and university students: e.g. Evans, Jones, Rusmin, and Cheung’s survey (1998) showed the student participants together with other groups rated their English abilities as being slightly below average; Stone (1994: 97) specifically remarked that “the results of this study are consistent with general anecdotal and research evidence suggesting that the English proficiency of Hong Kong undergraduates is low.” Declining English standards had a direct impact on the medium of instruction at schools. Since many school students’ English did not reach the threshold level for English-medium learning, 65

Anita Y. K. Poon

c­ode-mixing or code-switching was a common phenomenon as evident in some empirical studies on language use in the classroom during this period (Johnson & Lee 1987; Lin 1991; Poon 2000). There was an additional indicator of ineffectiveness of the language education policy – i.e. students’ poor motivation in language learning. Research showed school students were on the one hand positive towards English language learning because English was perceived as an important subject, but on the other hand not intrinsically motivated to learn the language (Richards 1994; Pennington & Yue 1994). Hong Kong students lacked intrinsic motivation and the “integrativeness” that “reflects a genuine interest in learning the second language” proposed by Gardner (2001: 5). Unlike English, the Chinese language was perceived as a less important school subject during this period; and students were even less motivated to learn it because most university programmes were English-medium and approximately 82% of secondary schools claimed to adopt English-medium learning (Education Commission 1994: 22). The report recommended addressing “the frequent (and unhealthy) lack of motivation towards Chinese language learning in schools” (Education Commission 1994: 65). Furthermore, policymaking in language education during this period underwent drastic changes as a result of paradigmatic shifts in governance in education, defined as control of the education sector involving “who controls what and how” in the forms of centralisation and decentralisation (Bray 1999: 207–232). Poon and Wong (2004) argue that according to their five-actor framework, educational governance at different stages in Hong Kong’s history is governed by various internal political forces (i.e. colonisation, decolonisation, neo-colonisation, and recolonisation), as well as external economic forces (i.e. globalisation). From the early colonial days until the 1960s, educational governance was highly centralised and schools were tightly controlled by the Department of Education in terms of funding, curriculum, assessment, and the like. The 1970s were a turning point in Hong Kong’s economic, political, and social development. In response to the popular demands after the riots in 19673, the local colonial government started to implement Britain’s decolonisation policy, originally stipulated in 1952 (Sweeting 1993). Politically Hong Kong changed from a colonial government to a representative one through decentralising its administration to the Municipal Councils and the District Boards, as well as setting up a consultative and advisory system that invited experts in different fields to sit on various advisory committees to inform government policymaking. Decentralisation in educational governance also started during the 1980s, and a high-powered advisory body was set up in 1984 – i.e. the Education Commission, which was the de facto though not de jure policymaker of school education. A rational approach was adopted by the Education Commission in its decision-making. Before each decision was made, processes such as problem identification, analysis of problem, consideration of possible alternatives, and predicted outcomes were considered (for details of processes of formulation of policy in education prior to 1997, see Poon 2000: 173). Before an ECR was submitted to the government for approval, the Education Commission had to conduct a territory-wide consultation.

3  Review and critical discussion of current language education policies (since 1997) 3.1 Review The changeover of sovereignty on July 1, 1997 marked a new era in the development of language education in Hong Kong. A massive education reform of unprecedented depth and magnitude (Cheng 2000; Poon & Wong 2008) covering the entire education system – i.e. academic structure, admissions system, curriculum and assessment, medium of instruction, teacher c­ ertification 66

Language education policy in Hong Kong

and training, and life-long learning (Education Commission 2000) – was launched by the Hong Kong SAR government in 1998 as part of the then “fashionable reform movements for equality of education” (Farrell 1999: 149) “to redefine the role of education to meet the new demands of global changes in the new millennium” (Poon & Wong 2008: 36). Reform in language education was subsumed under the curriculum reform. Prior to the curriculum reform initiated in 2001 (Curriculum Development Council 2001), the approach to both Chinese and English language teaching in real practice was very traditional (Poon 2010). Since Chinese is an ideographic language and there is no way to pronounce Chinese characters by merely looking at the script, rote learning is the only way to learn how to pronounce and write Chinese characters.Therefore, the Chinese language teachers in the old days relied heavily on the lexical approach, especially in primary schools. That means teaching was text-based and the teacher typically read out a text written in classical Chinese, and then explained to students the meaning of words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and the whole text, followed by asking students to do some exercises. “Although listening and speaking feature in the Chinese Language syllabuses, these skills have been relatively neglected in classroom teaching” (Education Commission 1994: 25). In addition, there was no integration between English reading and writing. At the same time, audiolingualism has remained a dominant teaching method in the English language classroom in Hong Kong and “many other schools have still not fully embraced the communicative approach” (Education Commission 1994: 25), which had been first introduced to the local primary and secondary English curriculum in 1981 and 1983 respectively. To implement the curriculum reform, the Curriculum Development Council published three sets of curriculum guides for both Chinese language education and English language education respectively (Curriculum Development Council 2002, 2004, & 2007). A key feature of the new language curriculum is to incorporate the spirit of the education reform, which aims at nurturing a new generation of learners who are “capable of life-long learning, critical and exploratory thinking, innovating and adapting to change … and contribute to the future well-being of the nation and the world at large” (Education Commission 2000: 4). In addition to subject knowledge and language skills, generic skills (e.g. critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity) as well as positive attitudes and values are included as key learning elements in language learning. Schools are encouraged to develop their own school-based language curriculum to cater for the needs of their students. All in all, the curriculum reform documents have entirely changed the direction of Chinese language education, not only on paper but in practice. An integrated skills approach is adopted. Instead of teaching isolated prescribed texts, texts of different genres under a particular theme are taught.Teachers are encouraged to integrate listening, speaking, reading, and writing in each unit. Apart from training language skills, cultivating a sense of aesthetics, responsibility to the community, and awareness of Chinese culture and national identity are also incorporated into the objectives of the Chinese language subject. As for English, the changes are less drastic because English language teaching as a field has a body of teaching methods underpinned by the communicative approach developed over the past four decades. The current reform provides an opportunity for teachers to reflect on their practices. Teachers are encouraged to try out the so-called ‘new’ methods or concepts such as task-based language learning, integrated skills, language arts, shared reading, phonics, authentic materials, student-centredness, etc., some aspects of which have been included in the English curriculum for decades. Apart from the above four government documents pertaining to the curriculum reform, only one official report on language education policy has been published (SCOLAR 2003) since the handover. The SCOLAR report proposed a wide range of recommendations covering 67

Anita Y. K. Poon

the school sector, universities, parents, employers, the mass media, and the wider community with a view to raising language standards in Hong Kong. The following were some major recommendations pertaining to language education: (1) to develop and assess basic competencies in Chinese and English of primary and secondary students; (2) to develop standards-referenced public examinations; (3) to set the level of Chinese and English in line with overseas standards required for university admission; (4) to encourage employers, particularly the government, to adopt the language competencies expected of working adults as requirements for recruitment and/or promotion; (5) to develop a Putonghua proficiency scale for local workers; (6) to create a more motivating language learning environment for local students and working adults; (7) to focus more on the teaching of English grammar, phonics, and language arts, and on Cantonese pronunciation and modern standard Chinese writing; (8) to encourage schools to properly deploy native-speaking English teachers so as to enrich the English environment in schools; (9) to provide more intensive and focused professional development programmes for panel chairpersons of language subjects; (10) to set up a task force of district-based teaching consultants to help individual schools improve their language curricula and pedagogy; (11) to require all English and Putonghua teachers to meet the language proficiency requirement for teachers within the time frame set by the government; (12) to require new language teachers joining the teaching profession after 2004–2005 school year to hold at least a Bachelor in Education degree majoring in the relevant language subject; (13) to provide an incentive grant covering 50% of the course fees to encourage serving language teachers to acquire the recommended qualifications; (14) to provide Chinese language teachers with subsidies to attend Putonghua summer immersion courses in mainland China; (15) to endorse the Curriculum Development Council’s long-term goal of teaching Chinese language in Putonghua; (16) to engage Chinese language teachers from mainland China to help interested schools to try teaching Chinese language in Putonghua as an interim measure.

3.2  Critical discussion The curriculum reform has provided a platform for changing the curricula including the pedagogy for teaching Chinese language and English language. Specific learning targets for each Key Learning Stage (e.g. Primary 1–3 as KLS 1) are spelt out in the respective curricula. However, despite so many changes, the reformed language curricula fail to address one long lasting major weakness of language education identified in ECR6, i.e. the linking of language goals between Chinese and English.This is considered important because language goals should be “supported by research into children’s language development and patterns of the acquisition of language skills in a bilingual context” (Education Commission 1996: 17). While the language education policy prior to 1997 was biased towards English, the policy after the handover tilts in favour of Chinese, or more specifically Putonghua. Table 5.2 shows the Chinese subject now occupies more time in the curriculum because of the presence of Putonghua. A biliterate/trilingual policy, which refers to two written languages (Modern Standard Chinese and English) and three spoken languages (Cantonese, English, and Putonghua), was announced by the first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR in October 1997. The biliterate/trilingual policy was initially meant to be a language-in-education policy to enhance students’ language ability with a view to sustaining their competitiveness in the globalising world. Among the three spoken languages, Putonghua has been given special emphasis under the biliterate/trilingual policy at school – e.g. making Putonghua a compulsory subject in primary and junior secondary curricula in 1998, introducing Putonghua as an elective subject in a p­ ublic 68

Language education policy in Hong Kong Table 5.2 Curriculum time of Chinese and English Language subjects (Curriculum Development Council 2000: 78–80) Chinese Language Primary School Junior Secondary

Putonghua

English Language

Number of teaching hours per year

25%–30%

17%–22% 17%–20%

700 900

17%–22%

examination in 2000, launching a four-year intensive support scheme to assist primary and secondary schools in using Putonghua to teach Chinese language (the so-called PMIC scheme) through in-school support by mainland experts and local consultants (Education Bureau 2015) – in addition to rigorously promoting Putonghua in the wider community. Why is Putonghua being proactively promoted under the biliterate/trilingual policy, thus creating an imbalance in the language education curricula? Evans (2013: 306) finds it “inevitable and desirable” because of “Hong Kong’s political and economic reintegration with renascent China.” On the other hand, Poon views the biliterate/trilingual policy by putting it in the context of the education reform. She argues that “the overt aim of the biliterate/trilingual policy is for economic reasons – to enhance the competitiveness of Hong Kong students in the age of globalisation, and Putonghua is a necessary skill as the economy of China is getting stronger”; however, the biliterate/trilingual policy together with other policy changes in education after the handover “are for serving the covert aim of the education reform [i.e. national re-integration] because Putonghua is a symbol of nationalism and PMIC is a means to achieving national re-integration” (Poon, 2016). Only by examining the various language-in-education policies (e.g. the biliterate/trilingual policy, the compulsory Chinese-medium instruction policy, the fine-tuning medium-ofinstruction policy, the PMIC policy, and language education policies) implemented after the handover can we understand the “contradictions and disjunctions” identified by Evans (2013: 318). Hence, politics and economy again account for the imbalance in the current language education policy. While the enormous investment into language education has continued since the early 1980s, the approach to funding after the handover has changed from input-focused to outputfocused. Unlike the colonial Hong Kong government which simply injected money to improve language education without assessing the return, the Hong Kong SAR government takes into account the views of stake-holders outside the school sector, for example, the universities and the employers, especially those in the business sector. SCOLAR (2003: 4) states explicitly that “employers have expressed increasing concern in recent years about the inadequate language proficiency of their employees, particularly in spoken English and Putonghua” based on the figures drawn from the 2001 Business Outlook Survey conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, and the Business Prospect Survey 2001 conducted by the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. Therefore, entry requirements of Chinese language and English language have been set by the eight government-funded universities at Level 3 (Level 1 being the lowest, followed by Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, Level 5, Level 5* and Level 5**). To ensure continuous language enhancement of university students, the universities began to adopt the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) as an exit test on a voluntary basis for their graduates in 2002.This measure is welcomed by the employers. In addition, the quality of language teachers needs to be benchmarked. A Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers (LPAT) was introduced in 2001, and all English and Putonghua teachers joining the profession after September 2004 have to pass the LPAT. The requirements for English teachers are even 69

Anita Y. K. Poon

more stringent because they need two additional qualifications – subject knowledge in English (i.e. grammar, phonetics and phonology, lexis, discourse, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and literature) and a diploma in education specialising in English language teaching. The above curriculum reform, biliterate/trilingual policy, and output-focused funding policy have been in place for 15 years. Have they brought about desirable effects on language education in Hong Kong? The results of the Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA), a public assessment of approximately 200,000 Primary 2, Primary 6, and Secondary 3 students on English, Chinese, and Mathematics, indicate that the Chinese standards of students have remained steady; for example, the percentage of the same cohort of students achieving basic competency in Chinese when they were in Primary 6 in 2010 as well as three years later when they were in Secondary 3 was 77% and 77.1% respectively. However, the scores on the English subject have been the lowest among the three subjects. Only 71.6% of Primary 6 students reached the basic competency level in English in 2010, but the passing score of the same cohort of students dropped to 69.5% three years later when they were in Secondary 3 in 2013 (Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority 2015). The TSA statistics echo the teachers’ views in Poon’s study (2009) – i.e. the English teachers in ten secondary schools who had taught in those schools for at least eight years have witnessed falling English standards of the students in their own schools. Low motivation is another indicator of the undesirable effects of language education policy. A perception survey was conducted by SCOLAR in 49 primary and secondary schools on students’ attitude and motivation in language learning. It was found that there was a wide gap between the students and teachers’ perceptions. 47% and 44% of the students claimed that they had ‘strong’ or ‘very strong’ motivation for learning Chinese and English respectively whereas only 11% and 8% of the Chinese language teachers and English language teachers thought that their students were ‘strongly’ or ‘very strongly’ motivated in learning Chinese and English respectively (SCOLAR 2003: 29). What accounts for the further decline in English standards after the handover? Among a myriad of factors, the most crucial one pertains to the implementation of another language-in-education policy – the compulsory Chinese-medium instruction policy implemented during 1998–2010 – which counteracts the effect of other policies to enhance English. Junior secondary schools were required to adopt Chinese as a medium of instruction. An exception was made for 114 Band 1 schools (Band 1 being the top schools and Band 3 the bottom schools) which were granted English-medium status. Studies conducted during this period corroborate the results of public assessment as well as general impression that English “has significantly declined as a language in general use” in Hong Kong (Wong 2008 March 14). For example, in his three longitudinal studies investigating the effects of different medium-ofinstruction arrangements on students’ learning at different stages in secondary school, Tsang (2002, 2004, 2008) found that the English results of the students in Chinese-medium schools were very poor because their self-esteem and motivation for English learning were much lower than those of their counterparts in English-medium schools. Finally, policymaking in language education changed in 1997 because a change in the political centre inevitably affects governance in education. Poon and Wong (2004: 153) argue that “[a]lthough Hong Kong is bestowed with the Basic Law that presumably guarantees ‘one country two systems’, …[i]t would be surprising if the [Hong Kong] SAR’s governance is not influenced by the PRC polity in one way or another,” as “the PRC is known as a Leninist dictatorship.” Decentralisation in educational governance that started in the 1980s as a result of decolonisation took “a different paradigmatic course, from decentralization back to centralization” after the handover (Poon and Wong 2004: 148). The changing role of the Education Commission is a revealing example. Before the handover, the Education Commission, the de facto though not de jure policymaker, played a key role in education policies in the school 70

Language education policy in Hong Kong

s­ ector, and had published seven ECRs, each of which went through very rigorous policymaking procedures. The role of the Education Commission, as well as other advisory bodies, has diminished since 1997 because the consultative advisory system is perceived as part of the colonial governance of pre-1997 Hong Kong. Some policies related to language education after 1997 are ad hoc. For example, the biliterate/trilingual policy was simply announced by the first Chief Executive in the aftermath of the handover without going through any rigorous policymaking process. The Education Commission has stopped issuing ECRs, and its policymaking role has been taken back by the Education Bureau. Furthermore, some language education policies are being ‘twisted’ by the Hong Kong SAR government. For example, it was proposed in the ECR6 to promote Putonghua, and to make the training of Chinese language teachers to teach Putonghua “a long term goal” (Education Commission 1996: 22). This ‘long term goal’ was re-interpreted as “the Curriculum Development Council’s long-term vision to use Putonghua to teach Chinese language” (i.e. PMIC) (SCOLAR 2003: 36). SCOLAR even endorsed it in 2003 “without any empirical evidence at all” (Evans 2013: 319). At the same time, Tse, Loh, Lam, and Lam’s study (2010) challenges the government’s rationale for promoting PMIC – i.e. PMIC would enhance students’ literacy skills as Putonghua has more correspondence to written Chinese than Cantonese. They found that the students using Cantonese to learn the Chinese language subject outperformed their counterparts who used Putonghua as a medium of learning. Nonetheless, in 2008 SCOLAR suddenly launched a four-year intensive support scheme worth HK$200 million (equivalent to US$26.3 million) to assist selected schools in using Putonghua to teach Chinese language (SCOLAR January 3, 2008). Though never announced or properly formulated, the PMIC policy is in place now. The reason for pushing forward the PMIC policy at the expense of breaking the rule of following the proper procedures in policymaking as practised for decades in Hong Kong is clear – it is to speed national re-integration.

4  Prediction for the future Based on the above discussion, it is predicted that the Hong Kong SAR will continue to promote the biliterate/trilingual policy, while favouring Putonghua and enforcing PMIC. Before the implementation of the PMIC policy in 2008, almost all schools in Hong Kong used Cantonese to teach the Chinese language subject. But according to an unofficial survey conducted by two groups in 2014, “about 70 per cent of the city’s 569 local primary schools and 40 per cent of its 514 secondary schools use Putonghua for Chinese-language lessons” (Yau & Yung September 2, 2014). In view of the rapid spread of PMIC, it is very likely that the government will extend the use of PMI to other subjects – i.e. all subjects except English language will sooner or later adopt Putonghua as the medium of teaching, as in other cities in mainland China. However, since Putonghua is not the first language of the majority of local students, using PMIC may lead to a drop in the Chinese standards, as evident in Tse et al.’s study (2010).What is more, to quicken the process of re-integration, simplified characters4 are going to be introduced to schools, as this has been proposed in the recent consultation document on the revised Chinese language education curriculum guides by the Curriculum Development Council despite facing strong opposition from the education sector (Apple Daily February 26, 2016). Under the current ‘one country two systems’ policy, Cantonese enjoys the status of the majority language and as the spoken form of one of the official languages – ‘Chinese’ – in Hong Kong.Yet it is predicted that the term ‘Chinese’ currently used in Hong Kong but not defined in the official legal documents will be more precisely defined by the PRC in the future following the norm in the mainland – i.e. ‘Chinese’ means Modern Standard Chinese as the written form and the national language Putonghua as the spoken form. Cantonese will be relegated as 71

Anita Y. K. Poon

a Chinese dialect used by the locals, as Shanghainese being the dialect used in Shanghai. At the same time, however, Hong Kong Cantonese is well loved by Hong Kong people because “it embodies the spirit of Hong Kong – a spirit that Hong Kong people are proud of ” (Poon 2010: 24). Because of the increasingly tightening grip of the PRC on Hong Kong’s governance, the political climate in Hong Kong has changed dramatically in the last few years. There is a tension between the local people and the pro-Beijing SAR government as well as the PRC. The umbrella movement5 has influenced a generation of youngsters and it is likely that they will be driven by their localism to safeguard local culture including Hong Kong Cantonese. Therefore, the focus of the contentious language issue will shift from Chinese versus English to Cantonese versus Putonghua as suggested by Bolton (2011). English as a global language will continue to be valued in Hong Kong if Hong Kong remains an international financial centre. Nevertheless, it all depends on whether the ‘one country two systems’ policy can be sustained after 2047.6

5 Conclusion This chapter has first described the linguistic make-up of Hong Kong and the changing statuses of English, Chinese, Cantonese, and Putonghua over time. It has reviewed the language education policy that encompasses Chinese language education and English language education both before and after the handover of sovereignty of Hong Kong from Britain to China on June 30, 1997. This chapter has also provided a critical discussion of the changing language education policies during the historical, political, and economic development of Hong Kong over the past four decades. The above critical review reveals that two language problems – i.e. dipping English standards, and lack of coherence in the language goals of both Chinese and English subjects – have remained unresolved in language education. The decline in English standards must be curbed because Hong Kong cannot afford to lose its competitive edge, to which linguistic capital is a major contributor. The greatest drawback of the present (as well as the previous) policy in language education is the lack of coherence in the language goals of Chinese and English. Policymakers need to be more far-sighted and consider adopting models of bilingual education, such as the one proposed by Poon (2013: 48) – that is “the teaching of L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English) should be planned holistically together with the planning of teaching medium in the entire school curriculum” as well as the appropriate use of code-mixing and code-switching. Using code-mixing or code-switching to teach content-based subjects, which are presumably taught in English-medium classes, is frowned upon by the Hong Kong education policymakers because their focus is on providing an English environment for students with a view to improving English. For students whose English is up to the threshold level, English-medium instruction will not pose any problem. For others who are emergent bilinguals, pedagogical code-switching, “an instance of translanguaging” (Garcia 2009: 152), can be adopted as “a pedagogical technique” (Garcia 2009: 153) to facilitate students’ learning of content-based subjects. However, in the context of Hong Kong, code-switching or translanguaging is deemed necessary only “as a temporary means of enabling higher-order thinking process to be brought to bear on learning” (Lin 2000: 183).

Acknowledgement I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my colleague, Dr. Yin-Bing Leung, for sharing with me her expertise in Chinese language teaching. 72

Language education policy in Hong Kong

Notes 1 Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) is the official name for Hong Kong under the PRC after June 30, 1997. 2 According to the proposed budget, a total of HK$200 million (equivalent to US$26.3 million) was required to implement the measures in the first phase recommended in the ECR6 published 20 years ago.There are altogether three phases. In addition, if we add up the expenses, some of which are recurrent, spent on language education proposed in ECR1, 2, 4, and 6, the amount should be multiple. 3 As influenced by the Cultural Revolution in mainland China, the local pro-Beijing leftists launched territory-wide struggles against the colonial government. Demonstrations, strikes, and bombs were used as the means of their struggles. The life of the entire Hong Kong was affected. 4 Simplified characters are used in mainland China whereas traditional characters continue to be used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. 5 It took place during October–December 2014. “For 79 days, thousands of protesters occupied Hong Kong’s financial district and elsewhere to demand true universal suffrage – one person, one vote, without the interference of Beijing” (Stout 2015 September 28).The protesters were peaceful and they used umbrellas to shield themselves from the tear gas and pepper spray of the police. 6 The Hong Kong SAR was promised to enjoy 50 years of autonomy under the ‘one country two systems policy’ according to the Basic Law of Hong Kong.

References Apple Daily. (February 26, 2016). Students recommended to read simplified characters. p. A6. Bolton, K. (2011). Language policy and planning in Hong Kong: Colonial and post-colonial perspectives. Applied Linguistics Review, 2, 51–71. Bray, M. (1999). Control of education: Issues and tensions in centralization and decentralization. In R. F. Arnove & C. A. Torres (Eds.), Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local (pp. 207–232). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Census and Statistics Department. (2011). Hong Kong 2011 population census summary results. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Cheng, Y. C. (2000). A CMI-triplization paradigm for reforming education in the new millennium. International Journal of Educational Management, 14(4), 156–174. Curriculum Development Council. (1990). Syllabuses for secondary schools – Chinese language subject. Hong Kong: Government Press. Choi, P. K. (1990). A search for cultural identity: The students’ movement of the early seventies. In A. E. Sweeting (Ed.), Differences and identities: Educational argument in late twentieth century Hong Kong (pp. 81–107). Hong Kong: Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong. Curriculum Development Council. (1993). Guide to the Secondary 1 to 5 Curriculum – English language subject. Hong Kong: Government Press. Curriculum Development Council. (2001). Learning to learn. Hong Kong: Printing Department. Curriculum Development Council. (2002). Chinese language education: Key learning area curriculum guide (Primary 1–Secondary 3). Hong Kong: Printing Department. Curriculum Development Council. (2002). English language education: Key learning area curriculum guide (Primary 1–Secondary 3). Hong Kong: Printing Department. Curriculum Development Council. (2004). Chinese language education: Key learning area curriculum guide (Primary 1–6). Hong Kong: Printing Department. Curriculum Development Council. (2004). English language education: Key learning area curriculum guide (Primary 1–6). Hong Kong: Printing Department. Curriculum Development Council. (2007). Chinese language education Key learning area: English language curriculum and assessment guide (Secondary 4–6). Hong Kong: Printing Department. Curriculum Development Council. (2007). English language education Key learning area: English language curriculum and assessment guide (Secondary 4–6). Hong Kong: Printing Department. Education Bureau. (2015). Discussion paper for Legislative Council Panel on Education: using Putonghua as the medium of instruction for teaching the Chinese language subject in primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong (LC Paper No. CB(4)748/14-15(01). Retrieved June 2, 2015, from http:​//www​.legc​o.gov​.hk/y​r14-1​5/ eng​lish/​.../e​d2015​0413c​b4-74​8-1-e​.pdf.​ Education Commission. (1984). Education commission report no.1. Hong Kong: Government Printer.

73

Anita Y. K. Poon Education Commission. (1990). Education commission report no.4. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Education Commission. (1995). Draft education commission report no.6. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Education Commission. (1996). Education commission report no.6. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Education Commission. (2000). Reform proposals for the education system in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Evans, S. (2013). The long march to biliteracy and trilingualism: Language policy in Hong Kong education since the handover. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 33, 302–324. Evans, S., Jones, R., Rusmin, R. S., & Cheung, O. L. (1998). Three languages: One future. In M. C. Pennington (Ed.), Language in Hong Kong at century’s end (pp. 391–415). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Farrell, J. P. (1999). Changing conceptions of equality of education: Thirty years of comparative evidence. In R. F. Arnove & C. A. Torres (Eds.), Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local (pp. 150–177). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Fu, G. S. (1975). A Hong Kong perspective: English language learning and the Chinese student. University of Michigan: Comparative Education Dissertation, Series 28. Garcia, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority. (2015). Results of TSA. Retrieved January 29, 2015, from http://www. Bca.hkeaa.edu.hk/web/TSA/en. Hong Kong Government Gazette. (February 12, 1876). Hong Kong Government Gazette. (March 9, 1878). Hong Kong Government. (1965). Education policy. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Hong Kong Government. (1974). Official languages ordinance. [No. 10/74]. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Hong Kong Government. (1981). The Hong Kong education system. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Hong Kong Government. (1987). Official languages ordinance [Amended]. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Hyland, K. (1997). Language attitudes at the handover: Communication and identity in 1997 Hong Kong. English World-Wide, 18(2), 191–210. Johnson, R. K. (1994). Language policy and planning in Hong Kong. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 14, 177–199. Johnson, R. K., & P. M. Lee (1987). Modes of instruction: Teaching strategies and student responses. In R. Lord & H. N. L. Cheng (Eds.), Language education in Hong Kong (pp. 99–121). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Lin, A. M. Y. (1991). Teaching in two tongues: Language alternation in foreign language classrooms. Research Report No. 3. Hong Kong: Department of English, City University of Hong Kong. Lin, A. M. Y. (2000). Deconstructing ‘mixed code’. In D. S. C. Li, A. M. Y. Lin & W. K. Tsang (Eds.), Language and education in postcolonial Hong Kong (pp. 179–194). Hong Kong: Linguistic Society of Hong Kong. Llewellyn, Sir J., Hancock, G., Kirst, M., & Roeloffs, K. (1982). A perspective on education in Hong Kong: Report by a visiting panel. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Pennington, M. C., & Yue, F. (1994). English and Chinese in Hong Kong: Pre-1997 language attitudes. World Englishes, 13(1), 1–20. Poon, A.Y. K. (2000). Medium of instruction in Hong Kong: Policy and Practice. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Poon, A.Y. K. (2009). Reforming medium of instruction Hong Kong. In C. H. C. Ng & P. Renshaw (Eds.), Reforming Learning (pp. 199–232). Dordrecht: Springer. Poon, A.Y. K. (2010). Language use, language policy and planning in Hong Kong. Current Issues in Language Planning, 11(1), 1–66. Poon, A.Y. K. (2013). Will the new fine-tuning medium of instruction policy alleviate the threats of dominance of English-medium instruction in Hong Kong? Current Issues in Language Planning, 14(1), 34–51. Poon, A.Y. K. (2016). Unlocking the dilemma of language policy in the post-1997 era. In T. K. C.Tse & M. Lee (Eds.), Making sense of education in post-handover Hong Kong: Achievements and challenges (pp. 54–72). Oxford: Routledge. Poon, A.Y. K., & Wong,Y. C. (2004). Governance in education in Hong Kong: A decentralizing or a centralizing path? In Y. C. Wong (Ed.), One country two systems in crisis: Hong Kong’s transformation since the handover (pp. 137–166). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

74

Language education policy in Hong Kong Poon, A.Y. K., & Wong,Y. C. (2008). Education reform in Hong Kong: The ‘Through-Road’ model and its societal consequences. International Review of Education, 54, 33–55. Richards, S. (1994). Motives and methods: motivation, strategy choice, and language use among secondary school students learning English in Hong Kong. Research Report Series, No. 39. Hong Kong: Department of English, City Polytechnic Hong Kong. SCOLAR. (2003). Action plan to raise language standards in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: SCOLAR, Education and Manpower Bureau. SCOLAR. (January 3, 2008). SCOLAR intensifies support for schools to teach Chinese in Putonghua. Retrieved on May 30, 2015, from http:​//www​.lang​uage-​educa​tion.​com/e​ng/ne​ws_08​_0103​.asp.​ Stone, R. (1994). English in Hong Kong: word knowledge skills of science undergraduates. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, 4(2), 93–100. Stout, K. L. (September 28, 2015). Hong Kong’s ‘Umbrella’ protest: One year on, what has changed? CNN International Report. Retrieved on 10 February 2016, from http:​//edi​tion.​cnn.c​om/20​15/09​/27/a​sia/h​ ong-k​ong-p​rotes​ts-on​e-yea​r-lat​er/. Sweeting, A. (1993). A phoenix transformed:The reconstruction of education in post-war Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Tsang, W. K. (2002). Evaluation on the implementation of the medium-of-instruction guidance for secondary schools report. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Tsang, W. K. (2004). Further evaluation on the implementation of the medium-of-instruction guidance for secondary schools final report. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Tsang, W. K. (2008). The effect of medium-of-instruction policy on education advancement. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Tse, S. K., Loh, K.Y. E., Lam,Y. H. R., & Lam, W. I. J. (2010). A comparison of English and Chinese reading proficiency of primary school Chinese students. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 28, 400–417. Wong, A. (March 14, 2008). Hong Kong is falling short of greatness. South China Morning Post, p. EDT4. Yau, E., & Yung,V. (September 2, 2014). Cantonese or Putonghua in schools? Hongkongers fear culture and identity ‘waning’. Retrieved on June 10, 2015, from http:​//www​.scmp​.com/​lifes​tyle/​famil​y-edu​catio​n/art​icle/​ 15830​37.

Further reading Bolton, K. (2011). Language policy and planning in Hong Kong: Colonial and post-colonial perspectives. Applied Linguistics Review, 2, 51–71. Evans, S. (2013). The long march to biliteracy and trilingualism: Language policy in Hong Kong education since the handover. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 33, 302–324. Hyland, K. (1997). Language attitudes at the handover: Communication and identity in 1997 Hong Kong. English World-Wide, 18(2), 191–210. Poon, A.Y. K. (2010). Language use, language policy and planning in Hong Kong. Current Issues in Language Planning, 11(1), 1–66.

75

6 EDUCATIONAL LANGUAGE POLICY IN MACAU Finding balance between Chinese, English and Portuguese Andrew Moody

1 Introduction The city of Macau is located just 30 km west of Hong Kong and shares a border with the Chinese city of Zhuhai, a ‘Special Economic Zone’ (SEZ) of the People’s Republic of China. The resident population of the city is just 632,857 and the territory is easily influenced by these two larger neighbours. Nevertheless, the unique historical and linguistic character of the city has developed over the centuries into a distinctive point of contact between Chinese, Portuguese and English language and culture. Language policy in education for Macau seeks to maintain this balance between three languages and develop a distinct identity for the 21st century.

2  Macau’s linguistic environment Macau is frequently regarded as the first and the last European colony in China. Portuguese explorers, traders and missionaries established a trade colony on the western bank of the Pearl River in 1557 and the settlement soon thrived from a growing trade in silk and tea with Japan. Four hundred and forty-two years later, the Portuguese administration of the territory was returned to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on December 20, 1999, more than two years after the similar ‘handover’ of Hong Kong. Macau is now a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China and, as such, enjoys a certain degree of autonomy and self-administrative authority. In order to understand the role of language policy and language planning within the territory, it is necessary to survey the historical and contemporary factors that have produced the unique linguistic environment in Macau. It is not uncommon for writers, when writing about the larger Hong Kong SAR, to note that Macau replicates many of the administrative and governmental policies of Hong Kong; but this way of thinking is reductive and naturally misses many of the unique socio-economic and historical factors that have come to define the territory. In describing the Macau SAR (MSAR), then, special attention will be paid to understanding the unique factors that have come to shape language policy in education and society.

76

Educational language policy in Macau

2.1  Multilingualism of Chinese languages Most linguists agree that the various languages spoken as ‘Chinese’ are more technically described as ‘languages’, rather than ‘dialects’ (Norman 1988; Chen 1999), although they are more often called ‘dialects’ when described by language planners. Within the seven ‘traditional’ Chinese dialect areas pronunciations have diverged over time to produce many more mutually unintelligible varieties. The diversity of spoken Chinese languages, however, is mostly masked by the relative lack of diversity in the written forms of Chinese. Standard Written Chinese (SWC) is a highly standardised written language that is based upon and largely corresponds to the standardised spoken language, Putonghua (i.e. ‘Mandarin’ Chinese). While there are clearly educational challenges posed to Macau schools by the number of Chinese languages spoken in Macau, these challenges are amplified by the fact that, to become literate in Chinese, students must frequently learn to use Putonghua, a language that they do not speak as a native language. Table 6.1 presents data from the 2016 Macau By-census about ‘usual’ and ‘additional’ languages1 used in Macau. According to the figures, 87.5% of Macau’s 632,857 residents over the age of three speak Cantonese as a ‘usual’ or ‘additional’ language. While the number of Cantonese speakers has increased steadily within the territory over the past ten years, the proportion of Cantonese speakers within the population has experienced a slight decline, as illustrated in Figure 6.1. The proportion of the population speaking Cantonese, as either a ‘usual’ or ‘additional’ language, has dropped from 93.4% in 2006 to 89.9% in 2011 to the current 87.5% in the 2016 By-census. The census bureau notes that this demographic change has occurred because of increased immigration of non-Cantonese speakers into Macau (DSEC 2016). Since the community is frequently identified as a Cantonese-speaking community – and educational language policy is often premised upon this characterisation – it is informative to examine the vitality of Cantonese as a language of education and as a language of civic identity within the community. When writing about language in Macau, most scholars assume that other languages will not challenge the dominance of Cantonese. For example, Li (2005, 2006) describes Cantonese as a ‘lingua franca’, although there is little evidence that individuals use the language as a second or non-native language. Similarly, Chan (2015) describes the processes of intergenerational language shift from other Chinese varieties toward Cantonese – the same processes, incidentally, that leads Li (2005, 2006) to name Cantonese as a lingua franca. Recent

Table 6.1 ‘Usual’ and ‘additional’ languages of Macau’s resident population aged three and over Language

Cantonese Putonghua Hokkien Other Chinese dialects Portuguese English Tagalog Others TOTAL

As ‘usual’ language

As ‘additional’ language

Total

Number of speakers

Percentage

Number of speakers

Percentage

506,625 34,606 — 33,453 3,675 17,639 18,953 17,906 632,857

80.1% 5.5% — 5.3% 0.6% 2.8% 3.0% 2.8% 100%

48,971 284,372 — 81,735 10,618 156,202 6,769 28,079

7.4% 44.9% — 12.9% 1.7% 24.7% 1.1% 4.4%

Source: Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos, Macao 2016.

77

87.5% 50.4% — 18.2% 2.3% 27.5% 4.1% 7.3%

Andrew Moody

census data from 2011 and 2016 suggest that the proportion of Macau’s population who use Cantonese as an additional language has remained relatively stable from around 5.5% to 6.5% (see Figure 6.2). When examined by age group (i.e. primary school students age three to nine, secondary schools students age ten to 19 and tertiary students age 20–24) the proportion of Cantonese speakers fluctuates slightly from census to census, but with a clear trend over the past 25 years that the lowest portion of Cantonese speakers are in the highest age group (i.e. college or university students age 19–24). Within this group 81.5% of the populations speak Cantonese 100% 93.40%

95%

89.90%

90%

87.50%

85% 80% 75% 70% 65% 60% 55% 50%

2006

2011

2016

90%

6.5%

6.8%

6.6%

5.4% 89.5%

4.4%

4.5%

100%

90.3%

Figure 6.1 Proportion of Cantonese speakers across ten years. Source: Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos, Macao, 2006, 2011, 2016.

80% 70%

75.0%

83.1%

81.3%

78.5%

75.6%

30%

80.7%

85.2%

89.8%

91.1%

93.3%

94.2%

88.5%

92.8%

95.6%

40%

91.3%

50%

93.3%

60%

20% 10% 0%

1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016

1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016

1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016

primary

secondary

tertiary

usual language

additional language

Figure 6.2 Proportion of Macau students who speak Cantonese (Data of ‘additional’ languages is only included in the 2011 Census and 2016 By-census.). Source: Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos, Macao 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016.

78

Educational language policy in Macau

and only 75% speak it as a ‘usual’ language. While there is no evidence that Cantonese is in any way endangered or threatened within Macau, some of the policy measures designed to privilege Putonghua as a language of education (see 3.1 below) suggest that the prevalence of Cantonese may one day become uncertain. The Chinese language that has shown the greatest growth and development within the Macau census data is ‘Mandarin’.This language category on the census report represents a number of Chinese dialects that might be generally characterised as ‘Northern’ or ‘North-eastern’ speech and it is closely aligned to the PRC’s standardised spoken variety, ‘Putonghua’. Table 6.1 notes that, although only 5.5% of Macau’s population speak Mandarin as a ‘usual’ language, 44.9% claim to speak it as an ‘additional’ language. Figure 6.3 illustrates how the language has become increasingly prevalent within school age populations since the 1999 handover of Macau. In 2016 86.3% of 20–24-year-olds profess knowledge of Mandarin (a proportion that is nearly double that of the general population) and 12.3% of the tertiary student aged population use Mandarin as their ‘usual’ language (a proportion that is more than double that of the general population). These figures suggest that the future will continue to see shift toward Mandarin, especially as a ‘usual’ language. There are also a number of ‘minority Chinese languages’ that are spoken in Macau and these are accounted within the Macau censuses with varying degrees of accuracy. The largest of these languages is ‘Hokkien’, a language that is spoken across coastal regions of East China, primarily in Fujian province,Taiwan and parts of eastern Guangdong province. In the 2011 census 19,957 speakers (3.7%) identified Hokkien as their ‘usual’ language. With an additional 17,333 (3.2%) speakers of the language as an ‘additional’ language, Hokkien speakers account for 6.9% of the Macau population. Berlie (2012), however, has suggested that the community is likely much larger than what is reported in the census reports, and this is consistent with language surveys in other locations where proficiency in minority languages or marginalised dialects is often underreported. Berlie (1999a) estimated that in 1998, the year before the Macau handover, there were 110,000 members of the Hokkien community in Macau, a number that is much larger than what is suggested by the question of ‘usual’ language in the census. This figure would, in fact, account for one-third of Macau’s population at that time. 100.0% 74.0%

90.0% 80.0%

64.6%

60.9%

70.0% 60.0% 46.0%

50.0%

4.9%

40.0%

28.2%

30.0%

20.6%

20.0% 10.0% 0.0%

7.1% 7.9%

6.8%

12.3%

1.6% 1.7% 3.2% 0.9% 2.3% 3.7%

0.2% 0.2% 0.2%

1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016

1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016

1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016

primary

secondary

tertiary

usual language

2.6%

0.9% 1.0% 1.7%

additional language

Figure 6.3 Proportion of Macau students who speak Mandarin as either ‘usual’ or ‘additional’ language. Source: Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos, Macao 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016.

79

Andrew Moody

The question of how many Hokkien speakers there are in Macau, then, is quite possibly an examination of language shift over many decades. In Hong Kong, Hokkien speakers flooded into the territory in the 1950s from the People’s Republic of China, but there is strong evidence that the Hokkien-speaking community in Macau is much older than this new community of immigrants in Hong Kong. Before the Portuguese settled into the territory in the 16th century, Macau was a fishing community, and there is strong evidence from local religious practices at the time that the community was not a Cantonese-speaking community, but a Hokkien-speaking ‘island’ within costal Guangdong province (see Porter 1996, Lamas 1999, Gunn 2002). The name of the fishing village – the name that eventually became Macau – is perhaps derived from the Hokkien name of the goddess Ah-Ma, describing the village as Ah-Ma Gau, lit. ‘Port of Ah-Ma’. It seems plausible, therefore, that a large community of Hokkien speakers in Macau has gone through various stages of language shift towards the language of the surrounding community, Cantonese. Figure 6.4 shows the distribution of Hokkien speakers by age group, according to the 2011 Census report, where 72% of Hokkien speakers are between the ages of 20 and 60 years of age. With much smaller portions of either younger or older speakers of Hokkien, it seems that the patterns emerging in the census suggest that identification as a Hokkien speaker might be age-graded and related to the prestige of the variety as a language of commerce and communication within the larger community of Hokkien speakers (in, for example, Fujian Province or Taiwan). The treatment of Hokkien and ‘other Chinese’ language speakers in the Macau census data is somewhat uneven, and this might be indicative of ambivalence or confusion about the status of Chinese varieties other than Mandarin or Cantonese. The 2001 and 2011 Censuses report the numbers of ‘Hokkien’ speakers, but the 1991 Census and the 1996, 2006 and 2016 By-Census only report the numbers of ‘other Chinese’ speakers. There are several possible reasons for this. First, the inconsistencies in the presentation of the data might simply represent inconsistencies in the form of the census, and the types of responses that were allowed to be recorded. But this 3~9 4% 60~64 6%

>=65 9%

50~59 12%

10~19 10%

20~29 26%

40~49 11% 30~39 22%

Figure 6.4 Proportion of Macau population speaking Hokkien as either ‘usual’ or ‘additional’ language. Source: Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos, Macao 2011.

80

Educational language policy in Macau

explanation does not address the problem of why the census asked inconsistent questions about language use, except to say that the preparation of the census was careless or haphazard. A second possible reason for the changes in presentation might be related to the ambiguities in the definition of ‘Hokkien’. As with the English term for the language, the Chinese term Minnanhua ‘Southern Min Dialect’ or ‘Hokkien’, might refer to a number of different dialects that are not fully mutually intelligible with one another. While this may cause confusion to respondents, a simplified ‘other Chinese’ response might have been presented as a solution to possible confusions. Finally, it should also be noted that Hokkien has gained notable political prestige in recent years as it has become increasingly associated with Taiwan and political movements that might be interpreted as promoting Taiwan as an independent state. The decision to change the representation of Hokkien within the census might be related to Macau’s political status as a Special Administrative Region of the PRC and the desire to distance itself from political movements outside the MSAR. Other Chinese languages that have been identified in Macau include Chiu Chau (aka Chiu Chow) and Hakka. The multilingualism of Chinese languages is especially relevant to education and language policy because one of the expressed goals of MSAR policy is to train students to function orally in both Mandarin and Cantonese and to achieve literacy in Standard Written Chinese (SWC) (Direcção dos Serviços de Educação e Juventude 2017). However, SWC is a language that is closely related to the spoken standard Putonghua, a language that bears tremendous similarity to most spoken Mandarin varieties. For speakers of non-Mandarin varieties of Chinese to become literate, they must essentially do so by learning to write in Mandarin. In other words, to write in Chinese requires student to learn to do so in a second language, and this burden is placed on top of students in addition to the challenges of using a writing system that may require the memorisation of more than 3500 logograms.

2.2  Historical and contemporary importance of Portuguese Portuguese has been present within the Macau language ecology for more than 450 years, and, as will be discussed in 3.1 below, has earned recognition as an official language in Macau. The census figures about the number of Portuguese speakers within the territory, however, suggest that the language is not widely spoken in the territory, if it ever really was. Table 6.2 shows the number of Portuguese speakers – both as a ‘usual’ and as an ‘additional’ language – as recorded in the Macau census and by-census data over the past 20 years. As might be expected, the number of individuals who use Portuguese as a ‘usual’ language went into sharp decline after the 1999 handover of sovereignty of the territory from Portugal to the PRC. The number of Portuguese speakers dropped from 7352 (1.85%) in 1996 to 2813 (0.66%) in 2001, and this proportion

Table 6.2 English, Mandarin and Portuguese as ‘usual’ and ‘additional’ languages in Macau ‘Usual’ language

English Mandarin Portuguese

‘Additional’ language

1991

1996

2001

2006

2011

2016

2011

2016

0.53% 1.19% 1.80%

0.80% 1.25% 1.85%

0.66% 1.57% 0.66%

1.48% 3.24% 0.62%

2.25% 5.03% 0.75%

2.79% 5.47% 0.58%

21.11% 41.40% 2.44%

27.47% 50.40% 2.26%

Source: Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos, Macao 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011, & 2016.

81

Andrew Moody

has remained more or less stable since that time. There has been some interest in learning Portuguese as an additional language in Macau (see Bray & Koo 2004) since the handover of sovereignty. However, Moody (2008) notes that the 7149 speakers of Portuguese as an additional language in the 2006 census more or less accounts for 8333 civil servants who also claim to use Portuguese as an additional language. At the University of Macau, as many as 700 students enrol in Portuguese 1 classes (i.e. introductory language courses), but fewer than 45% of those students continue into a second semester of study and the number studying Portuguese falls off even more after that. While there are a number of speakers of ‘Brazilian Portuguese’ in Macau, the standard form of the language that is usually taught in classrooms and used in media is ‘Continental Portuguese’. Historically, there is a creolised variety of Portuguese (i.e. a creole language lexified primarily by Portuguese with phonological and morpho-syntactic borrowing from Chinese and Malay) that developed in Macau. This creole language was called Makista (a.k.a. Maquista) and the language’s innovations are very similar to Kristang, the creole variety of Portuguese that developed in Melaka, a historically Portuguese city in modern Malaysia (Baxter 1996, 2005).This language was widely spoken until the early 20th century by ‘Macanese’ residents, that is residents who are Eurasian mixed race. It seems that in the 19th century the Macanese community had a good command of English and, with the establishment of the British crown colony of Hong Kong in 1842, the Macanese community was a fundamental contributor to the early development of the colony (Bolton 2003, Moody 2008). It is, therefore, understandable that the Macanese community has shifted away from first-language proficiency in Makista towards Cantonese as a first language and English as a second.

2.3  Historical and contemporary importance of English One of the typical misconceptions about Macau, and especially in its current and historical relationship to Hong Kong, is the mistaken notion that English has only recently been introduced to the territory as a language of broader communication.The fact of the matter, however, is that Hong Kong was only established as an English colony in 1842, and before that time Macau was the primary ‘centre’ of English in China. Bolton (2003) discusses the early history of English in China, including the ‘Dictionary of the Red Haired Devils’ (i.e. a book that used Chinese to phonetically represent English words and phrases from as early as the 1750s) and the development of Chinese Pidgin English in Macau. In the late 18th and early 19th century English traders would travel from Macau to Guangzhou where they were allowed to conduct business for the purchase and shipping of Chinese goods. Robert Morrison, a member of the Church of England’s China mission, began the first Chinese translation of the bible while he was living in Macau, published the first English-language Chinese grammar in 1815 and over the next eight years completed the first Chinese–English/English–Chinese dictionary in 1823. In 1839 the English-language Morrison Education Society School was founded in Macau, although it was moved to Hong Kong in 1842 (Bolton 2003). English medium of instruction (EMI) schools have retained a vital role within education until today. To think of English as a late addition to the linguistic repertoire of Macau’s daily life, then, is to overlook the long history of English in the territory. Figure 6.5 shows the growth of English in school-age population, according to the Macau census figures since 1991. Unfortunately, the census did not report the prevalence of English as an ‘additional’ language until the 2011 census, but there is clear evidence of the increasing use of English – both as a ‘usual’ and an ‘additional’ language – over the years. More than half of 20–24-year-olds were estimated to use English in the 2016 By-census. 82

Educational language policy in Macau 60.0% 48.1%

50.0% 38.3%

40.0%

33.1%

30.0%

23.9% 15.5%

20.0% 10.0% 0.0%

11.2% 3.4% 0.3% 0.5% 0.6% 1.8% 2.5%

0.2% 0.2% 0.2% 0.5% 1.0% 1.6%

0.6% 0.5% 0.7% 0.7% 1.0% 2.2%

1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016

1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016

1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016

primary

secondary

tertiary

usual language

additional language

Figure 6.5 Proportion of Macau students who speak English as either ‘usual’ or ‘additional’ language. Source: Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos, Macao 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016.

2.4  Other forms of multilingualism The 2016 By-census notes that “[w]ith an increase in the incoming immigrants” the number of Tagalog speakers in Macau grew by 1.2 percentage points to 3.0% of the population (p. 9). In addition to the 18,953 Tagalog speakers in the 2016 By-census, 17,906 (2.8%) Macau residents are estimated to use an ‘other language’ as their usual language. In terms of overall proficiency (i.e. both ‘usual language’ and ‘additional language’ users), 108,566 residents (17.2%) use some language other than Chinese, English, or Portuguese. The notion, however, that recent immigration into Macau may be creating a more multilingual environment is not consistent with older historical assessments of Macau’s multilingual population. Moody (forthcoming) offers a full description of historical and contemporary language communities in Macau, which have included speakers of Japanese, Malay, Kolkani, Hindi, Burmese, Timorese, Cambodian and Indonesian.

3  MSAR language policy The highest law of Macau is encoded within a document called the ‘Basic Law’ of the Macau Special Administrative Region (see Chinese Government 1993a, 1993b, 1993c). The Basic Law, like the Basic Law of Hong Kong, is essentially a PRC document that was drafted in accordance to 1986–1987 negotiations for the ‘handover’, or transfer, of sovereignty from Portugal to China. The Basic Law stipulates that Macau is to be governed as a ‘Special Administrative Region’ for 50 years after the 1999 handover and that the administration of the SAR is to be overseen directly by the Chinese ‘Central Government’ with some degree of autonomy. As the constitutional documents of the MSAR, the Basic Law also has some influence and allows for some ambiguity in the implementation of language policy.

3.1  De jure language policy Chapter 1, Article 9 of the Macau Basic Law states that: In addition to the Chinese language, Portuguese may also be used as an official language by the executive authorities, legislature and judiciary of the Macao Special Administrative Region. (Chinese Government 1993b) 83

Andrew Moody

This English translation is unofficial and, according the site where it was published, provided ‘For Reference Only’. The discussion of the finer points of the Basic Law in this section are based upon the Chinese and Portuguese versions of the Basic Law (see Chinese Government 1993a & 1993c), although reference may be made to the English version. The first observation about the Basic Law is that there is a clear preference for Chinese as the primary official language and Portuguese as an ‘additional’ official language. Chinese is not specifically declared an official language in any of the three versions – the Chinese, Portuguese, or English versions – but it is instead assumed in the statement about Portuguese. Likewise, the language of three versions does not declare that Portuguese is an official language, but instead states that Portuguese ‘could also be used’ (‘may also be used’ in the English version) as an official language (Fong 1999). Clearly the purpose of the language used here is to downgrade the status of Portuguese below Chinese. The second observation about Article 9’s statement might be related to the definition of ‘Chinese’. As in English, ‘Chinese’ is not a fixed spoken language, but is instead a collection of mutually intelligible and unintelligible ‘dialects’ that are historically related. This is an important point of ambiguity within the document because the Putonghua (lit. ‘ordinary speech’) dialect of Chinese is the designated standard in the PRC (Chinese Government 2000), but not widely spoken in Macau, nor used as an official variety. Instead, Cantonese is the most widely spoken variety of Chinese in Macau, and much of the territory’s official business is conducted in Cantonese. The Chinese word used for ‘Chinese’ in the Basic Law is 中文 (Putonghua: zhongwen; Cantonese: zungman2), and it represents an interesting choice of a term because of its ambiguous meaning in Putonghua and Cantonese. In Putonghua, this term refers to ‘written Chinese’, and in some contexts the word might mean ‘Chinese literature’ or ‘Chinese culture’. In Cantonese, however, this word does not specify a distinction between the spoken or written language, and it is the normal word to refer to either written or spoken Chinese. Cantonese zungman, therefore, would normally be taken to mean ‘Cantonese’ in Macau. There is also no specification of a written standard within the Basic Law, although ‘Chinese’ is usually regarded as the modern ‘Standard Written Chinese’. There is a form of ‘written Cantonese’ that is frequently used in domains like advertising, but this is neither allowed nor prohibited by Article 9. There are also possible differences in the types of characters used in Chinese, specifically whether they are the ‘complex’ or ‘traditional’ characters (normally used in Hong Kong,Taiwan and Macau) or the ‘simplified’ characters of PRC (and widely adopted in Singapore, too). Article 9 does not specify a type of characters to be used, but it should be noted that the government printing house produces copies of the Basic Law in complex characters (Chinese Government 1993a). There are 18 ‘government schools’ in Macau3. These schools are operated by the government and offer free education according to the territory’s curriculum standards. These schools only offer Chinese medium of instruction (CMI) or Portuguese medium of instruction (PMI). English may be offered at the primary and secondary levels of these schools as a second language. English as a second language is usually compulsory in Macau government schools.

3.2  De facto language policy A typical misconception about the role of English in Macau derives from assumptions about the territory’s history as a colony of Portugal. There is a tendency, especially for academics whose orientation is primarily toward descriptions of language policy in Hong Kong, to imagine that Macau is a Portuguese reflection of English in Hong Kong. Whereas English, especially EMI, was brought to Hong Kong as a function of the territory’s status as a British colony, a common 84

Educational language policy in Macau

misconception is that Portuguese and PMI would have been brought to Macau as a Portuguese colony. Moody (forthcoming) describes the history of multilingualism that developed under the Portuguese administration of Macau, and English is one of the foundational languages that developed during Macau’s colonial period. Although English is not provided as an official language within the Macau Basic Law, there are a number of reasons to suggest that it does indeed function as an official language within the territory without legal recognition, not the least of which is the fact that the Basic Law is widely available in the territory in Chinese, Portuguese and English documents (see Chinese Government 1993b). Moody (2008) notes that English is used in a number of capacities within the Macau government, where it might not be completely expected, such as 70% of government agencies that offer services in English. In 2017, according to a survey of the 80 Macau government agencies that have websites accessible from the government web portal (Macau Government 2017), 65% of those agencies still offer a website in English. The degree to which English may be taken as a de facto official language of Macau, however, is most clearly demonstrated within the ranks of the civil service, where 96.55% of the 31,200 civil servants speak Cantonese and 60.26% speak English. Despite the fact that Portuguese is the second official language of Macau, the 18,800 English-speaking civil servants are nearly 183% greater than the 10,287 who speak Portuguese. Perhaps more informative about recent trends in Macau’s language policy, however, is the 76.43% of civil servants who report that they can speak Putonghua; this proportion is significantly larger than the 56.22% of the population between the ages of 25–65 who reported speaking Mandarin as a ‘usual’ or ‘additional’ language in the 2016 census. The de jure status of English in Macau, however, is most clearly recognisable within the educational sector. As in Hong Kong, the Macau educational sector is comprised of three types of schools: fully public ‘government schools’ that are owned and operated by the Macau SAR government according to the official government curriculum; fully ‘private schools’ that received no direct funding from the MSAR government and whose curricula are not regulated; and ‘subsidised private schools’ that are owned and operated privately, but whose curricula and administration conform to MSAR regulations in order to receive government funding.Table 6.3 lists the number of schools in Macau and the enrolments for each of the three types. While government schools only offer education in the two official languages – Chinese medium of instruction or Portuguese medium of instruction – English is a compulsory course within the government schools. For subsidised private schools that offer government subsidised free education, English is normally a compulsory course at all grades and frequently used as a medium of instruction.

4  Language policies Regulation of pre-primary, primary and secondary education in Macau is overseen by the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ: Direcção dos Serviços de Educação e Juventude) within the local Macau SAR government. As described in 3.2 above, there are three types of schools that operate within Macau: (1) government schools (also referred to as ‘public schools’ in DSEJ documents), (2) subsidised private schools which offer free education and (3) private schools that do not offer government-subsidised free education. These three types of schools, then, offer pre-primary, primary and secondary education in three different languages of instruction: Chinese, English and Portuguese (see Table 6.3 for details about the number of schools and their enrolments).The language policy for these schools, because it is overseen by the DSEJ, is encoded within a comprehensive and authoritative statement of policy within the territory entitled simply the Language Education Policy (Direcção dos Serviços de Educação e Juventude 2017). Nevertheless, a careful reading of policy documents, in addition to an examination of 85

Andrew Moody Table 6.3 Macau schools by medium language of instruction, level and type, 2015/2016 Government

Subsidised

Private

Schools

Schools

Schools

Students

Students

Total Students

Schools

Students

Pre-Primary Chinese English Portuguese Total

5 0 1 6

391 0 86 477

46 1 0 47

13,285 244 0 13,529

4 3 1 8

2,196 755 159 3,110

55 4 2 61

15,872 999 245 17,116

Primary

Chinese English Portuguese Total

5 0 1 6

546 0 34 581

52 6 0 58

18,838 3,189 0 22,027

3 3 1 7

2,248 1,982 285 4,515

60 9 2 71

21,632 5,171 319 27,122

Secondary

Chinese English Portuguese Total

5 0 1 6

1,169 0 4 1,173

30 6 0 36

20,528 2,917 0 23,445

4 4 1 9

2,190 2,147 254 4,591

39 10 2 51

23,887 5064 258 29,209

18

2,230

141

59,001

24

12,216

183

73,447

TOTAL

Source: Direcção dos Serviços de Educação e Juventude 2017. When schools have separate English MoI and Chinese MoI sections, the sections have been counted as separate schools.

actual practice within Macau schools, demonstrates that many of the complexities of multilingual practice are not addressed within DSEJ regulation of educational language policy and, in many ways, purposefully overlooked within the regulation. The Language Education Policy (LEP) is directed toward administration of the first two types of schools, government schools and subsidised private schools; discussion of practice in private schools (i.e. those private schools that do not offer subsidised free education) is not governed by the LEP. The LEP begins with nine ‘focal points’ that are designed to place the policy document within socio-political and historical contexts: 1 The LEP begins by noting that provisions within the “Basic Law” for the establishment of educational language policies that are consistent with the official languages policy of the MSAR, namely that Portuguese may also be used as an official language. 2 A statement of four language regulations related to Article 37 of the Fundamental Law of Non-tertiary Education System (see Macau Government 2006): a Public schools must use one of the two official languages, Chinese or Portuguese, as the teaching medium and provide the opportunity to learn the other official language. b Private school may use an official or other language as a medium of instruction (MoI). c When using another language as the MoI, private schools’ teaching resources should be assessed by DSEJ to confirm that they “possess adequate conditions prior to the enforcement of the language” (p. 2). Interestingly, this requirement of assessment is only applicable to schools that use an MoI language other than Chinese or Portuguese. d Those private schools that use a language other than Chinese or Portuguese as the MoI should provide students the opportunity to learn at least one of the official languages. 3 Surprisingly, the LEP states unequivocally that “the standard spoken Chinese language refers to Putonghua” and that “the standard written Chinese language refers to the standardised 86

Educational language policy in Macau

4

5

6 7 8

9

Chinese characters” (p. 2). Although it is not entirely clear what these ‘standardised Chinese characters’ are, the document continues later to suggest that is the ‘simplified’ characters used almost exclusively in the PRC. The LEP continues to affirm that all Macau citizens have “the right to learn and use the standard spoken and written Chinese language” (p. 2). Acknowledging an “increasingly close relationship with the Chinese mainland” with language that seems to underestimate the relationship between the SAR and China, the LEP notes that “it has become crucial to promote Putonghua” (p. 2). The LEP also states that there is a “need for Macao to act as a platform for cultural, trade and economic exchanges between the Greater China Region and Portuguese-speaking countries” and that this drives the teaching of Portuguese in Macau. The motivation to teach Portuguese, however, is mollified with the provision that Portuguese language teaching should be implemented in “an appropriate and effective way” (p. 2). In somewhat stereotypical language, the LEP notes the need to “popularise English” so that Macau might “develop into an international city” (p. 3). The LEP notes that policy must “lay a solid language foundation for residents in pursuit of lifelong learning and development” (p. 3). With language that seems to make very little commitment to the many types of multilingualism described in 2.1 above, the LEP seeks to “ensure the further development of Chinese culture in the city and take into account its multicultural characteristics” (p. 3). Finally, the last focal point articulated within the LEP seems to retract from the earlier commitment (in the third point) to Putonghua and simplified Chinese characters by stating that “Cantonese and traditional Chinese characters have been most widely used in schools and among Macao residents” and that policy “should reflect and acknowledge their importance” (p. 3).

Although these nine points do not make direct reference to the use of English as an instructional medium language (instead, the reference is vaguely made to ‘other languages’), the purpose of the LEP is very clearly focussed on four languages used in Macau: Putonghua, Cantonese, Portuguese and English.

4.1  Chinese language policy Chinese is by far the most widely used MoI in both government and subsidised schools in all levels of non-tertiary education. Table 6.4 demonstrates the resiliency of Chinese as a medium of instruction within the territory over the past 28 years, both before and after the 1999 handover of the territory. Traditionally, Chinese medium of instruction (CMI) has meant that Cantonese would be used as the MoI, and the LEP specifically notes that schools that currently use Cantonese as the MoI will be allowed to continue to use the language, with the understanding that students should be given the opportunity to learn Putonghua, too. It should be noted that the status of Cantonese in Macau – especially when understood in opposition to Putonghua – extends to the written language as traditional Chinese characters (see Chan 2015, Yan 2015). Whereas Macau schools have traditionally used Cantonese as the MoI, students have also normally used traditional (i.e. complex) characters to write in Chinese. While the uses of Cantonese and complex characters appear to remain protected as MoI in the LEP, there is also an important shift in the importance given to Putonghua and simplified Chinese characters within the LEP. The designation of Putonghua and simplified Chinese characters as ‘standard Chinese’ develops a new orientation towards Chinese that is not present in any other language laws or policies in Macau. 87

Chinese English Portuguese TOTAL

60,660 4,150 3,500 68,250

Number

88.80% 6.10% 5.10% 100%

80,000 83.30% 12,000 12.50% 4,000 4.20% 96,000 100%

80,069 5,644 831 86,544

Percentage Number Percentage Number 92.50% 6.50% 1.00% 100%

Percentage 79,041 12,322 891 92,254

Number 85.70% 13.40% 1.00% 100%

62,527 10,273 625 73,425

Percentage Number

82.50% 14.00% 0.90% 100%

61,391 11,064 822 62,094

Percentage Number

83.59% 15.30% 1.12% 100%

Percentage

1989 1996 2003 2006 2012 2017 (from Berlie 1999a) (from Berlie 1999a) (from Bray and Koo 2004) (from DSEJ, Macau) (from DSEJ, Macau) (from DSEJ, Macau)

Table 6.4 Students in three MoI, 1989–2017

Educational language policy in Macau

The Basic Law does not specify a standard variety of Chinese, only that Chinese is official. In fact, as noted in 3.1 above, the Basic Law uses a term for Chinese, zungman, which may easily be interpreted as specifying Cantonese as the official language. This specification of Putonghua as ‘standard Chinese’, however, may not be so unexpected; many Macau speakers of Cantonese would likely agree that Cantonese should be treated as a ‘dialect’ of Chinese and not as a standard language. The designation that standard written Chinese requires the use of simplified Chinese, however, is highly unexpected within the LEP and not clearly related to actual practice within the territory. While the practice of teaching and using traditional Chinese characters is preserved within the policy’s intention to ‘reflect and acknowledge their importance’, the LEP also suggests that a long-term language policy would give preference to the teaching of simplified characters as implementation of Chinese language teaching. Currently there are subsidised schools that use Putonghua as an instructional medium for some courses (e.g. biology, mathematics, etc.) when the teachers of those subjects do not speak Cantonese. In addition, there is a newly established government school (Escola Oficia Zheng Guanying) that adopts Putonghua as the MoI for all grades.4 While the LEP does not attempt to alter current uses of Cantonese as a MoI or traditional characters as the preferred mode of writing Chinese, it does establish a clear preference for the future use of Putonghua and simplified Chinese characters. Currently, the learning of Putonghua and simplified Chinese characters is treated within the LEP as the right of Macau students (and the responsibility of schools to ‘provide the chance to learn’ what it calls ‘standard Chinese’), but future iterations of the policy may attempt to diminish the protected use of Cantonese and traditional Chinese characters within the Macau curriculum. The LEP also specifies the goal to “incrementally raise Chinese teachers’ ability to teach in Putonghua” (p. 4) and for schools to “progressively create conditions in which Putonghua can be used in the teaching of Chinese” (p. 6). Despite the stated objective to teach Putonghua and simplified Chinese characters within Macau schools – and the implied preference to adopt Putonghua and simplified Chinese characters as a MoI – the LEP does not specify any standards for the assessment of students’ learning of Putonghua. The educational attainment goals for students graduating from Chinese medium secondary schools are to “speak relatively fluent Putonghua, write traditional Chinese characters correctly”, become “fluent in written Chinese and understand standardised Chinese characters” (p. 5). In pursuit of these goals, the LEP proposes to “investigate the feasibility of formulating a Putonghua proficiency index that meets Macao students’ actual needs” (p. 6).

4.2  Portuguese language policy Despite the fact that it is the second official language of Macau, Portuguese is the least widely used MoI language in the territory. As described in Table 6.3, Portuguese is offered as medium of instruction in no more than one government and one private school for any particular grade in Macau. The total number of students enrolled in Portuguese medium of instruction schools is 822, but only 319 (38.8%) are enrolled in primary grades and 258 (31.4%) are enrolled in six secondary grades. The largest proportion of students enrolled in Portuguese medium schools are the 245 (29.8%) students enrolled in three years of pre-primary grades. This suggests that, while a number of students are willing to attend one of the two Portuguese medium kindergartens (i.e. Escola Primária Luso-Chinesa da Flora and D. José da Costa Nunes Jardim de Infância), only half of these students will continue on to primary or secondary grades in a Portuguese medium school. There is also a severe imbalance in the number of students enrolled in Portuguese medium government schools and fully private schools. Six hundred and ninetyeight (84.9%) of the students enrolled in Portuguese medium education are in private schools, 89

Andrew Moody

and most of these, 539 (65.6%), are enrolled in the Escola Portuguesa de Macau. This means that there are only 34 students enrolled in primary education in governments schools offering Portuguese MoI and only four students enrolled in secondary grades. Despite the LEP provisions that subsidised (private) schools may offer education in either Chinese or Portuguese MoI, no subsidised schools offer Portuguese MoI. It is, therefore, not surprising that the LEP does not offer very many details about the ways in which Portuguese should be offered as an MoI. Instead, most of the statements in the LEP about Portuguese are an attempt to justify its continued position in the Macau system of education, and this is what ‘focal point’ five of the LEP opening statements suggests.The particular statement used the word ‘advantage’ three times and, at the end of the statement tautologically states that the purpose of teaching Portuguese within the SAR is to take “full advantage of Macao’s regional advantage” (p. 2). However, within the document, the teaching of Portuguese is tempered with the qualification that it should be implemented “in an appropriate and effective way” (p. 2) and that the goal of Portuguese education is to “nurture a certain amount of Chinese-Portuguese bilinguals” (p. 4, emphasis added). In many ways, the LEP harkens back to the failed policy of Portuguese policy of Portuguese-language education that was proposed in the 1980s after the treaty to return sovereignty of Macau had been signed between Portugal and the PRC. The policy to require Portuguese language instruction in Macau schools, however, was resisted by schools, parents and students, and the failed policy was eventually scrapped. Since then any policy to promote Portuguese learning in Macau is usually qualified by noting the limited scope and effect of the policy. Whereas the LEP acknowledged the need to explore a ‘proficiency index’ for student learning of Putonghua, no such index is suggested for the learning of Portuguese, and this demonstrates the differences between the two official languages. The LEP suggests that all students should have the opportunity to learn Putonghua, and the exploration of developing a proficiency index is in response to this universally promoted language. No indexing of Portuguese proficiency is proposed within the LEP, however, because there is no expectation that most – or even many – students will actually learn the language. Despite the fact that government schools must teach in either Chinese or Portuguese MoI, proficiency in Portuguese is not an expectation from the school system. Consequently, there are no clearly articulated expectations of the level of proficiency in Portuguese that might be expected, nor even an articulated desire to explore what levels might be expected. The LEP does express the desire to “cooperate with relevant institutions to strengthen training for Portuguese teachers, so as to raise the quality of Portuguese teaching” (p. 9), but no concrete measures to do this are proposed within the document. It seems very clear from both the LEP document and the actual implementation of a language policy that the desire to “prioritise the teaching of official languages” (p. 4) is to be implemented primarily for Chinese (and especially for Putonghua), but not for Portuguese.

4.3  English language policy The greatest amount of attention (and specification) within the LEP document is related to the use of English as an MoI in subsidised schools. EMI education is forbidden in government schools (which only use Chinese or Portuguese as MoI), but private schools that offer free subsidised education may use English as their medium of instruction. While English medium education is frequently associated with the fully private schools in Macau,Table 6.3 demonstrates that in the 2015/2016 academic year there were 12 subsidised schools offering EMI education at the primary and secondary levels, as compared to the seven fully private schools offering EMI at the same levels. The 6,106 students enrolled in the 12 subsidised schools represent 59.7% of the 90

Educational language policy in Macau

primary and secondary students enrolled in EMI education in Macau, although only 13.4% of all primary and secondary students in Macau. English as a medium of instruction is more closely associated with fully private schools in Macau, where 45.3% of students attending fully private primary and secondary schools receive their education in the medium language of English (and 5.9% receive it in Portuguese). Although Chinese as a MoI is much more closely associated with the subsidised private schools than it is with the fully private schools, EMI education is closely associated with both subsidised and fully private schools. Since subsidised schools are regulated under the jurisdiction of the DSEJ (i.e. Education and Youth Affairs Bureau), it is no surprise that the LEP addresses English as a medium of instruction and as an instructed language. In addition to improving “in particular laws and regulations related to curriculum design as well as the required condition for schools planning to adopt an unofficial language as the medium of instruction” (p. 4), the LEP is designed to ensure that “students, on graduating from secondary school, are proficient in the medium of instruction as well as at least one other language” (p. 4), and this language is usually taken as English. In particular, the LEP requires primary schools to teach students at least one language other than the medium of instruction throughout the primary grades, but “teaching of such language should be more standardised and systematic in the fifth and sixth year” (i.e. the two final years) of primary school (p. 5). Unfortunately, the document does not explain or describe what ‘more standardised and systematic’ might mean. Likewise, the LEP does not mention any requirement of language learning in secondary school, nor the levels of proficiency that students are expected to reach in either primary or secondary school. Instead, the LEP is devoted to specifying the English language proficiency requirements for “non-English subject teachers who teach in English” (i.e. teachers who are expected to teach within the medium of English) (p. 7). Interestingly, the standards only apply to schools that adopt English as a medium of instruction, and not to English teachers in Chinese or Portuguese medium of instruction schools. The LEP’s ‘fundamental requirement’ demonstrates, however, what has motivated the policy for teacher qualifications; the LEP states that “teachers should be able to express his/her ideas clearly in English, while in the meantime his/her English will not create any negative impact on students’ English learning” (p. 7). Although ‘negative impact’ is a vague concept within the document, the purpose of the requirement seems to be focussed on the possible ‘negative impacts’ that might result from learning English from teachers who do not have sufficient proficiency in the language.The purpose of the regulation is to specify that a particular type of English is used in classrooms where English is the medium of instruction.The types of English that satisfy the proficiency requirement are, then, assessed within three preferred proficiency examinations: 1 American English (assessed by the TOEFL); 2 British English (assessed by IELTS); 3 Hong Kong English (assessed by GCE or GCSE). The LEP provides for other possible documentation that may demonstrate English proficiency, but with the allowance that they are “recognised by the education administration” (p. 8). It is not entirely clear from the LEP what the ‘education administration’ is, although it is probably meant to refer to the jurisdiction of DSEJ. The LEP also lists some vague requirements that schools “evaluate and monitor the teaching quality and quantity according to their self-evaluation and external evaluation systems” (p. 8), but does not specify how this should be implemented nor how it will be assessed. The English language proficiency requirements, interestingly, do not apply to English teachers (i.e. language teachers) who teach in Chinese medium or Portuguese medium schools. 91

Andrew Moody

Nor do they apply to teachers who are already teaching in English medium schools. Instead, they apply to “prospective non-English subject teachers who are to teach in English” (p. 8). Despite the number of students who study in English medium schools – 19.1% of primary students and 14.4% of secondary students – the demand for English medium education largely exceeds the number of spaces available for students to study in English medium schools. The LEP ensures that new English medium schools or expansion of existing English medium schools can only happen after meeting the required English-language proficiency.

5  Implementation of language education The framework of the Language Education Policy (LEP), described in 4.0 above, primarily focuses on the adoption of a medium of instruction. Government schools must adopt either Chinese or Portuguese as the MoI, whereas subsidised schools (i.e. privately owned and operated schools that offer free education) may choose another language of instruction. Although this leaves open the possibility of a school offering, say for example, Japanese medium of instruction or French medium of instruction education, the only choices for MoI offered in subsidised schools are Chinese or English.While the LEP describes the selection of an MoI, it has very little to say about so-called ‘second language’ instruction. ‘Second language’ instruction here refers to languages taught in schools in addition to the language used as the medium of instruction. It does not refer to students native or non-native ability, as students are often not native speakers of the MoI in many of the schools. DSEJ (Education and Youth Affairs Bureau) requires schools to offer ‘second language’ instruction at the following rates: •• •• ••

Primary (six years): four–five hours/week; Junior Secondary (three years): four–six hours/week; Senior Secondary (three years): four–five hours/week.

The selection of a ‘second language’ is left up to the school, with the provision that government schools must offer (not necessarily require) the other official language (i.e. Portuguese or Chinese) as the ‘second language’. Most subsidised schools (all of which are English medium or Chinese medium) do offer students the option to take Portuguese as a second language, but there is often not enough interest from students to offer this consistently across many schools. Instead, the most frequently offered ‘second language’ in Chinese medium schools (where 84% of students are enrolled) is English.

6  Languages in tertiary education There are ten institutions of higher education recognised by the Tertiary Education Services Office (GAES: Gabinete de Apoio ao Ensino Superior) of the MSAR government. Four of the institutions are public and the remaining six are privately owned. Table 6.5 lists the ten institutions and the dates when they were founded. The University of Macau is the oldest and largest institution in Macau, and the only university that offers comprehensive undergraduate and graduate education. Table 6.6 describes University of Macau enrolments over the past five years. Several degrees have been eliminated from the university, including a Bachelorato degree and some post-graduate certificate programmes, over the past ten years, and undergraduate education has grown significantly over that same period. The most vibrant growth in the university, however, has been in graduate programmes at the Master’s and PhD levels. Moody 92

Educational language policy in Macau Table 6.5 Recognised tertiary institutions of Macau Year Established

Institution

Status

1981 1988 1991 1992

University of Macau Academy of Public Security Forces Macao Polytechnic Institute City University of Macau (formerly Asia International Open University [Macau]) Institute for Tourism Studies University of Saint Joseph (formerly Inter-University Institute) Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macau Macau Institute of Management Macau University of Science and Technology Macau Millennium College

Public Public Public Private

1995 1996 1999 2000 2000 2001

Public Private Private Private Private Private

Source: Gabinete de Apoio ao Ensino Superior 2017.

Table 6.6 University of Macau enrolments 2006–2016 Programme

Number of students registered in 2005/2006 as of April 13, 2006

Number of students registered in 2011/2012 as of March 26, 2012

Number of students registered in 2016/2017 as of December 18, 2016

Doctoral degree Master’s degree Postgraduate certificate Bachelor’s degree Bacharelato degree Others TOTAL

59 1251 128

279 1925 178

948 2390 119

4399 46 396* 6279

5811 NA 20 8213

6530 NA NA 9987

* includes 375 students in the Centre for Pre-University Studies Source: University of Macau, Registry 2017.

(­forthcoming) describes the history of the university and why it has, since its founding in 1981, been an English medium university. Currently, there are Chinese-language programmes offered in Law and Education and a Portuguese-language programme in Law offered to relatively small numbers of students. All other programmes are ostensibly offered in English as the MoI. General education classes required of all students at the University of Macau are also offered in English.

7  Challenges and opportunities for the future Macau is a very small territory, and much of the language policy that has been discussed in this essay is driven by the fact that the resident population is just over 600,000. In many ways the development of Macau society was dominated by the neighbouring Hong Kong, and this influence is still reflected in much of the educational system that Macau uses. The fact that the DSEJ will continue to accept Hong Kong English-language proficiency credentials for teachers 93

Andrew Moody

in English medium of instruction schools is evidence of this long-standing relationship between the SARs. More recent influence upon Macau society has come from China.There is certainly a ‘soft’ influence seen in the border crossing to China where a number of Macau residents live just across the border in China and cross daily to their jobs in Macau. The city on the PRC side of Macau, Zhuhai, is more than five times the size of Macau and the struggle to maintain a distinction between the two places is on the mind of most residents. The ‘hard’ influence of the PRC, though, results from the limited autonomy that Macau has as an SAR. Many Macau residents will likely see the LEP declaration that Putonghua and simplified Chinese characters are to be treated as ‘standard Chinese’ as an effect of the demographic and political influence from China. While much of the LEP is focused on proficiency standards for EMI teachers, this measure seems primarily to regulate the future development of English MoI education in the territory. With 84% of students enrolled in Chinese medium of education, the more pressing need to is to define and develop so-called ‘second language’ instruction, especially in English. To the extent that Portuguese enables a clear distinction between Macau and its neighbours – Hong Kong and China – Portuguese will likely remain as a commitment within the educational system despite the lack of popularity for Portuguese MoI. Finally, the apparent lack of commitment to instruction in the traditional and majority first language – Cantonese, and the corresponding use of traditional Chinese characters – is quite possibly the most powerful development in recent language policy, and the most likely development to have a permanent effect upon the territory.

Notes 1 The terms ‘usual’ and ‘additional’ language are borrowed directly from the Macau census. 2 I have used here the ‘Jyutping’ style of transcription for Cantonese, which was developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (see Linguistic Society of Hong Kong 2017). 3 This method of counting schools treats pre-primary, primary and secondary sections of a school as separate sections. 4 Currently Escola Oficia Zheng Guanying offers all six grades of primary school and the first year of secondary education. The remaining five years of secondary classes will be added in sequence over the next five years until the school is offering the full 15 years (i.e. three years pre-primary, six years primary and six years secondary) of government education.

References Baxter, A. N. (1996). Portuguese and Creole Portuguese in the Pacific and Western Pacific rim. In S. A. Wurm, P. Mülhäusler & D.T.Tyron (Eds.), Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia and the Americas (pp. 299–338). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Baxter, A. N. (2005). Kristang (Malacca Creole Portuguese) – A long-time survivor seriously endangered. Sociolinguistic Studies, Estudios de Sociolingüística, 6(1), 1–37. Berlie, J. A. (1999a). Macao’s education: A question of language — Chinese, Portuguese, and English. In J. A. Berlie (Ed.), Macao 2000 (pp. 71–104). Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Berlie, J. A. (1999b). Society and economy. In J. A. Berlie (Ed.), Macao 2000 (pp. 20–52). Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Berlie, J. A. (2012). The Chinese of Macau: A decade after the handover. Hong Kong: Proverse Hong Kong. Bolton, K. (2003). Chinese Englishes: A sociolinguistic history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bray, M., & R. Koo. (2004). Postcolonial patterns and paradoxes: Language and education in Hong Kong and Macao. Comparative Education, 40, 215–239. Chan, B. H-S. (2015). A local voice of Macau:Traditional characters, code-switching and written Cantonese in an internet forum. Global Chinese, 1(2), 281–310. Chen, P. (1999). Modern Chinese: History and sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chinese Government. (1993a). Basic Law of Macau (Chinese). Accessed on October 26, 2017 https​:// we ​ b.arc ​ h ive.​ o rg/w​ e b/20​ 0 1041​ 3 2242​ 5 9/ht​ t p://​ w ww.i​ m pren​ s a.ma​ c au.g​ ov.mo​ : 80/b​ o /i/1​ 9 99/ l​eibas​ica/i​ndex_​cn.as​p.

94

Educational language policy in Macau Chinese Government. (1993b). Basic Law of Macau (English). Accessed on October 26, 2017 https​:// we​b.arc​hive.​org/w​eb/20​01032​00242​07/ht​tp://​www.i​mpren​sa.ma​cau.g​ov.mo​/bo/i​/1999​/leib​asica​/ inde​x_uk.​asp. Chinese Government. (1993c). Basic Law of Macau (Portuguese). Accessed on October 26, 2017 https​:// we​b.arc​hive.​org/w​eb/20​01030​91043​30/ht​tp://​www.i​mpren​sa.ma​cau.g​ov.mo​:80/b​o/i/1​999/l​eibas​ ica/i​ndex.​asp. Chinese Government. (2000). Law of the People’s Republic of China on the standard spoken and written Chinese language. National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China. Accessed on June 17, 2015 http:​//www​.npc.​gov.c​n/eng​lishn​pc/La​w/200​7-12/​11/co​ntent​_1383​540.h​tm. Direcção dos Serviços de Administração e Função Pública. (2017). Dados estatísticos trimestrais dos recursos humanos da Administração Pública da RAEM. Accessed on November 22, 2017 http:​//www​.safp​. gov.​mo/wc​mpro/​group​s/pub​lic/@​safp/​@ext/​@info​r mati​on/do​cumen​ts/we​b/wcm​_0079​46.pd​f. Direcção dos Serviços de Educação e Juventude. (2017). Macao SAR Government non-tertiary education: language education policy. Accessed on November 28, 2017 http:​//www​.dsej​.gov.​mo/~w​ebdse​j/www​ /grp_​db/po​licy/​lang_​polic​y_e.p​df. Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos (DSEC ‘Department of Census and Statistical Services’), Macao SAR. (1993). 1991  Census. Accessed on September 21, 2017 http:​//www​.dsec​.gov.​mo/St​atist​ic.as​px?No​ deGui​d=8d4​d5779​-c0d3​-42f0​-ae71​-8b74​7bdc8​d88#P​2d6da​d20-c​766-4​797-a​27f-1​5a174​85629​a. Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos (DSEC ‘Department of Census and Statistical Services’), Macao SAR. (1997). 1996  by-census. Accessed on September 25, 2017 http:// http:​//www​.dsec​.gov.​ mo/St​atist​ic.as​px?la​ng=zh​-MO&NodeG​uid=e​e77eb​29-fd​1b-4f​13-8a​2d-31​81e93​adb05​#P9a8​ab82b​ -203c​-453b​-bff6​-24f6​fa60d​48c. Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos (DSEC ‘Department of Census and Statistical Services’), Macao SAR. (2002). 2001  census. Accessed on June 28, 2006 http://www.dsec.gov.mo/ index​.asp?​ src=/​engli​sh/ht​ml/e_​demgr​aphic​.html​. Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos (DSEC ‘Department of Census and Statistical Services’), Macao SAR. (2007). 2006  by-census. Accessed on June 1, 2015 http://www.dsec.gov.mo/ index​.asp?​ src=/​engli​sh/ht​ml/e_​demgr​aphic​.html​. Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos (DSEC ‘Department of Census and Statistical Services’), Macao SAR. (2012). 2011  census. Accessed on June 28, 2006 and June 1, 2015 http://www.dsec.gov. mo/ index​.asp?​src=/​engli​sh/ht​ml/e_​demgr​aphic​.html​. Direcção dos Serviços de Estatística e Censos (DSEC ‘Department of Census and Statistical Services’), Macao SAR. (2017). 2016  by-census. Accessed on September 21, 2017 http:// http:​//www​.dsec​.gov.​ mo/St​atist​ic.as​px?No​deGui​d=ee7​7eb29​-fd1b​-4f13​-8a2d​-3181​e93ad​b05#P​84ace​dfb-2​1f9-4​a30-8​ ba4-5​e3f66​857f8​9. Fong, R. (1999). Language planning and language policy. Macau Journal of Linguistics, 8(9), 38–55. Gabinete de Apoio ao Ensino Superior. (2017). Higher education institutions. Accessed on November 29, 2017 https​://ww​w.gae​s.gov​.mo/e​ng/ov​ervie​w/lin​ks. Gunn, G. C. (2002). Encountering Macau: A Portuguese city-state on the periphery of China, 1557–1999.Trumble, CN: Weatherhill. Lamas, R.W.-N. (1999). History of Macau:A student’s manual, (2nd ed.). Macau: Institute of Tourism Education. Li, D. (2006). Chinese as a lingua franca in greater China. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 26,149–176. Li, C. S. (2005). The state of bilingualism in Macau SAR. Journal of Macau Studies, 28, 110–114. The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong. (2017). Accessed on October 26, 2017 https://www.lshk.org/. Moody, A. (2008). Macau English: Status, functions and forms. English Today, 24(3), 3–15. Moody, A. (forthcoming). English and language policy in Macau. Dordrecht: Springer. Norman, J. (1988). Chinese. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Macau Government. (2006). Lei de Bases do Sistema Educativo Não Superior. Accessed on December 14, 2017 http:​//bo.​io.go​v.mo/​bo/i/​2006/​52/le​i09.a​sp. Macau Government. (2017). Portal do Governo da RAE de Macau. Accessed on November 21, 2017 http://www.safp.gov.mo. Porter, J. (1996). Macau, the imaginary city: Culture and society, 1557 to the present. Boulder: Westview Press. University of Macau, Registry. (2017). Enrolments. Accessed on November 27, 2017. https​://re​g.uma​ c.mo/​qfact​s/y20​16/st​udent​/regi​stere​d-stu​dents​. Yan, X. (2015). ‘Macao has died, traditional Chinese character have died’: A study of netizens’ comments on the choice of Chinese scripts in Macao. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. DOI 10.1080.014344632.2015.1095196.

95

Andrew Moody

Further reading Baxter, A. N. (1996). Portuguese and Creole Portuguese in the Pacific and Western Pacific rim. In S. A. Wurm, P. Mülhäusler & D.T.Tryon (Eds.), Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia and the Americas (pp. 299–338). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Berlie, J. A. (Ed.) (1999). Macao 2000. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Bolton, K. (2003). Chinese Englishes: A sociolinguistic history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gunn, G. C. (2002). Encountering Macau: A Portuguese city-state on the periphery of China, 1557–1999.Trumble, CN: Weatherhill Moody, A. (2008). Macau English: Status, functions and forms. English Today, 24(3), 3–15. Moody, A. (forthcoming). English and language policy in Macau. Dordrecht: Springer.

96

7 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN JAPAN Nobuyuki Honna and Junko Saruhashi

1 Introduction Since Japan is becoming an increasingly diversified society in sociocultural and linguistic terms, its contemporary language education policy covers a wider range of language issues than previously. In addition to Japanese as a national language and English as an international language, focus of attention has expanded to restoration and maintenance of minority languages and teaching of languages other than English. This paper outlines Japan’s language education policy situation in view of its corpus, status, acquisition, and enrichment planning efforts extended to languages in the Japanese archipelago.

2  Languages in Japanese society Japanese people generally tend to believe that Japan is a mono-ethnic, mono-cultural, and mono-lingual country. This self-characterization was introduced to Japan in the late 19th century of industrialization and modernization, when the idealism of one nation and one state was imagined as the most effective nation-building force. The reality, however, was and is quite different. Japan is a multi-ethnic/cultural/lingual society (Maher & Macdonald 1995), despite the fact that it seems remarkably homogeneous compared with other Asian countries (except, perhaps, Korea). Here is a brief description of some languages heard and spoken in the land of the rising sun.

2.1 Japanese The national language of the country, Japanese is predominantly used in all spheres of life across the country. It uses Chinese characters, hiragana and katakana (two types of phonetic alphabets invented in Japan), and romaji (Roman alphabet). The nation’s current illiteracy rate is close to zero. Regional dialects are abundant, making a sizable number of the population bi-dialectal, occasionally switching from Common Japanese to their respective local forms and structures. The origin of the language is not clearly known. Although not widely accepted, theories connect Japanese to the Altaic family (such as Turkish and Mongolian), and others to Austronesian (like Malay), and still others to a Dravidian heritage. 97

Nobuyuki Honna and Junko Saruhashi

2.2 Ryukyuan Formally the language of Ryukyu Kingdom established in the 15th century in the East China Sea, Ryukyuan is very close to Japanese, believed to have developed separately in the 8th century. The language is now referred to as Okinawa dialects since the island kingdom was incorporated by Japan in the early 17th century and became Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. Spoken by more than a million people of Japan’s southern-most group of 26 inhabited islands (out of the 113 isles), Okinawa dialects are known for their low inter-varietal intelligibility. Furthermore, the dialects are disappearing, with younger generations failing to inherit them from their parents and grandparents. One countermeasure proposed is educational intercession. In the 2011 teaching guidelines for the elementary school issued by the government, the ability to speak a local dialect is defined as an important skill to be acquired. It remains to be seen whether the guidance is really sufficient to maintain Ryukyuan.

2.3 Ainu Ainu was a language spoken by the native Ainu ethnic group living in the northern part (particularly Hokkaido) of the Japanese archipelago. As the government Japanized the Ainu as part of its Hokkaido colonization policy, use of the language was banned, thereby leading to a dramatic decrease of its mother-tongue speakers.Yet, with a law to promote inheritance of Ainu culture, religion, and language introduced in 1997, efforts have been made to restore and maintain those cultural assets of the indigenous settlers. Ainu language classes are conducted in Hokkaido and other parts of the country, and language studies undertaken with the publication of textbooks, dictionaries, and linguistic theses.

2.4  Korean and other oldcomers’ languages Linguistic repertories brought from outside of Japan depend highly on the country’s history of international relations and policies toward immigrants. One of the ways to categorize immigrants in Japan is to distinguish oldcomers from newcomers. Oldcomers are those immigrants who came to Japan from neighbouring countries such as Korea and China before the end of World War II and their descendants. Almost synonymous to oldcomers, Zainichi Korean refers to those who immigrated for reasons related to the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945 and those born to such immigrants while in Japan. Right after World War II, about three million Koreans lived in Japan, but many of them returned to their homeland upon its liberation. About 600,000 who remained in Japan created their Korean communities in various regions of Japan. Now, Korean oldcomer communities are moving to third and fourth generations and some Chinatowns, such as in Yokohama and Nagasaki, have a longer history. It is often said that, linguistically, they have already been deeply assimilated into Japanese society. However, their ethnic schools help preserve their heritage languages.

2.5  Newcomers’ languages The arrival of newcomers enriches the linguistic kaleidoscope of Japanese society. As an insular country migration has always been controlled but this has been further controlled by the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act. At the same time, with its aging workforce, Japan relies more on immigrants in order to resolve its labour shortage. One of these immigration programmes was the acceptance of descendants of Japanese immigrants living in Latin America, especially from Brazil and Peru, as contract workers. With the increase of these immigrants since 1990, the number of Japanese Brazilians in Japan has risen to 350,000.This has 98

Language education policy in Japan

affected the linguistic landscape in many cities. Nowadays, we can see Portuguese and Spanish in public signs and notices in addition to four prevailing languages: Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean. No nation-wide survey has been undertaken to capture the demography of newcomers’ languages; however, increasing societal multilingualism can be observed from governmental responses to linguistic diversity. For example, since 2010, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (2010) has prepared the census questionnaire in 27 non-Japanese languages,1 claiming that they cover more than 90% of the foreign languages in Japan. Moreover, there is a growing recognition that our society needs to respond to incremental linguistic diversity by taking other major languages of visitors and short-term stayers into consideration.

2.6  Japanese Sign Language Japanese Sign Language (JSL) is representative of what happened to minority languages in Japanese society: it was often ignored, underestimated, stigmatized, and banned. However, thanks to the strenuous efforts of the Japanese Federation of the Deaf and an increased understanding of the concept of linguistic rights by the general public, JSL is now being recognized as the legitimate language of the deaf.The Sign Language Competence Test, started in 2006 has attracted close to 100,000 applicants in ten years. A Sign Language Law is now under preparation to be presented to the Diet for deliberation, with the nation’s entire 1,788 local legislatures having said they would support the bill.

3  Language education policy measures and programmes: issues and responses 3.1  Japanese-language education policy There is neither a national nor an official language law declaring the status of languages in Japan. However, Japan’s de facto national language, or Kokugo, is Japanese.The Agency for Cultural Affairs (2006) regards the establishment of the National Language Research Committee (Kokugo Chosa Iinkai) in 1902 as a starting point for Japan’s official national language policy. After changing its name and organization several times, the Subdivision on the Japanese Language of the Council for Cultural Affairs (hereafter, the Council) has dealt mainly with the national language policy of Japan since 2001. Educational issues are also occasionally discussed by the Council; however, the major issues and contributions of the Council are about Japanese orthography (Honna, Tajima, & Minamoto 2000, Gottlieb 2012, Agency for Cultural Affairs 2015). Japanese-language education policy is expected to follow the decisions made by the Council. For example, the number and list of ‘kanji characters in common use’ (joyo kanji-hyo) directly affects school curricula when considering how many characters should be taught in each grade. This linkage between corpus and acquisition planning has a long history, as the first orthographic decision for educational purposes was made along with textbook publishing in 1887 (Okimori 2011: 281). Two further current but separate issues in Japanese-language education, other than writing (kanji and kana) issues, are as follows: one is Japanese as a basic skill of thinking and learning to lower the boundaries between kokugo as a subject and other subjects such as math and science. The other is the increasing number of students whose mother tongue is not Japanese.

3.1.1  National language education in relation to other school subjects School education policy, and national language education in particular, has seen gradual reform based on the changing social and economic situations. The curriculum from kindergarten to high school is required to be in accordance with the Course of Study, which the Ministry of Education, 99

Nobuyuki Honna and Junko Saruhashi

600

National language

English

Math

Science

Social studies 525

500

400

490 455 420 385

455

455

385

420

315

315

315

420 385

350 300

455

315

350

350

420 385 350

295 290

200

100

0

1962

1972

1981

1993

2002

2012

Figure 7.1 Class hours of core academic subjects in junior high school. Sources: MEXT (n.d.), MEXT (2008).

Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) establishes and modifies every ten years. One of the major changes in the recent curriculum reform was the enhancement of language activity. The idea was to change from knowledge-centred learning to performance-centred learning. The importance of language activity was noted in the first section of the first chapter of the new Course of Study at all three levels: elementary, junior high, and senior high school (cf. MEXT 2008). In addition, the MEXT published the Instructional Examples for Enhancing Language Activities to support the practical implementation of the new policy (cf. MEXT 2011c). By positioning language activity as the foundation of the whole learning process the subject of national language (kokugo) was confirmed as the basis of other subjects. At the same time, there is a growing perception that some contents taught in kokugo classes can be introduced in other subjects. A stronger bridge between the national language and English education has been proposed since both involve language education in general. Because of the pressure to improve Englishspeaking ability brought about by accelerating globalization, the overall English language class hours in junior high schools surpass those of the study of the national language for the first time in the history of Japan’s educational policy (Figure 7.1).The status of kokugo education was confirmed as essential in terms of overall policy; however, English education exceeds national language education in terms of its policy implementation.

3.1.2  Teaching Japanese to speakers of other languages One of the unique aspects of Japan’s language education policy is the distinction drawn between national language education and Japanese-language education. The former, kokugo, presupposes that learners are native speakers of Japanese. The latter policy was established in response to the increasing number of immigrants and returnees who needed special assistance in gaining proficiency in Japanese. It is no exaggeration to say that the Japanese language was rediscovered when the nation encountered and responded to people whose mother tongue or language spoken at home was not Japanese (cf. Yasuda 2007: 177). In school, immigrant students take both kokugo 100

Language education policy in Japan Korean, 614, 2% Others 3,113 11%

English, 777, 3% Vietnam, 1,215, 4%

Portuguese 8,340 28%

Spanish 3,576 12% Pilipino 5,158 18%

Chinese 6,410 22%

Figure 7.2 Native languages of students who need Japanese classes (2014). Source: MEXT (2015b).

classes, which are designed for native speakers of Japanese, and Japanese as a second language classes, which are arranged according to their needs. The MEXT has conducted a survey of schools every two years since 1999 to get a picture of the nation-wide situation of students who need assistance learning Japanese. According to the most recent survey (MEXT 2015b), 29,198 students require additional support. Figure 7.2 shows the distribution of these students according to their native languages. Portuguese speakers comprise 28% of total students needing Japanese classes—the tendency which reflects Japan’s immigration policy of accepting Brazilians of Japanese descent or Japanese Brazilians. In addition to the interest shown by policymakers in the linguistic background of students, the Guideline for Accepting Foreign Students published by the MEXT (2011b) points out that assuming students’ linguistic background merely from their nationality is too simplistic in terms of Japan’s increasing multi-ethnic and multi-cultural population. The Guideline mentions that respecting the linguistic background of each student is important. However, as far as implementation is concerned, Japanese language teaching is prioritized (MEXT 2015c) and the children’s first language is regarded as a tool to assist effective acquisition of the host language. There is no bilingual and bicultural education policy for minority children from abroad whose first language is other than Japanese. Therefore, private efforts are being made to serve the educational needs of those who wish to maintain their ethnic and national backgrounds. Major examples of these are Korean, Chinese, and Brazilian schools.The challenges faced by these foreign schools will be introduced in a later section.

3.1.3  Japanese language education overseas Both the central government and education institutions provide and support language-learning opportunities for people living overseas. The number of Japanese schoolchildren who are living outside Japan because of their parents’ job increased to 79,251 in 2015 (MOFA 2015). There are 96 schools in 50 countries implementing MEXT education policy and the Course of Study. Families who are preparing to live abroad have to decide whether their children should continue studying the Japanese educational curriculum or learn at a local school. Non-profit organizations and quasi national agencies, such as the Japan Overseas Educational Services (JOES), provide educational consultations and seminars for people before and after moving abroad.2 From 1972, the Japan Foundation has promoted various programmes in order to cultivate ties between Japan and the world. One of their three main projects is providing direct and indirect 101

Nobuyuki Honna and Junko Saruhashi

support for language education for non-Japanese people.The institution publishes Japanese language learning materials, provides Japanese language teacher training, and offers the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It has 24 overseas offices in 23 countries and organizes cultural events and lectures, offers Japanese language classes, and provides information about Japan and its culture and language.3

3.2  Teaching English as an international language English language teaching (ELT) in Japan is a multi-faceted phenomenon. English itself is used in many places and domains in Japanese society. It is widely recognized as an indispensable language for academic, professional, and occupational purposes in international communication. It is also used for intra-national purposes as in, just to mention two examples, (1) its continuous influx into Japanese language as loan words (Honna 2008: 91–120), and (2) its frequent use in company advertisements, mottoes, and business campaigns (Honna 2016). The language enjoys a prestigious status, and although administrators and educators proclaim it as an international or a global language, generally people and even English specialists still seem to conceive of it as an American or a British language. It is against this background that the MEXT’s ELT policy is planned, implemented, and evaluated. Two current programmes are described below.

3.2.1  Action Plan to Develop Japanese People with a Working Command of English As part of the nation’s response to internationalization trends in business, trade, technological innovation, information, and education, the MEXT proposed a five-year experimental programme in 2003 to study how to intensify Japan’s ELT. Called Action Plans to Develop Japanese with a Working Command of English (MEXT 2003), these initiatives specified initiatives that included, among others, the introduction of English to primary education and the development of communicative abilities in junior and senior school students. Colleges and universities were asked to educate future citizens who could function in English for their specific professional and occupational purposes.The initiatives also created Super English Language High Schools, where teaching English in English (TEE) was experimented with and studies in syllabus improvement and the integration of secondary and tertiary programmes conducted. The Action Plans ended in 2008 with both positive and negative results. The positive results included the government’s decision to introduce Foreign Language (read as English) Activity into the elementary school curriculum from Grades 5 to 6 (both one period per week) starting in 2011. Elementary English was to be established for one period per week in Grades 3 and 4, and two periods in Grades 5 and 6, effective 2018. However, these promising plans were overshadowed by disappointing survey findings. Although the 2003–2008 initiatives required average junior high school graduates to attain Grade 3 of Eiken, or tests administered by the Society of Testing English Proficiency (STEP) and average senior high graduates Grade Pre-2 and Grade 2, only 32.4% of the former and 30.3% of the latter met the respective requirements, according to a 2007 survey conducted by the Ministry. (While TEE was emphasized, teachers’ abilities seemed far behind the norms. Only 24.2% of junior high schoolteachers and 48.9% of senior high schoolteachers scored STEP’s Pre-Grade 1 and above, the proficiency levels deemed necessary for communicative pedagogy (MEXT 2011a).)

3.2.2  Nurturing globally functioning individuals The previous Action Plans were succeeded by other ELT initiatives included in a new government programme called the strategy to nurture globally functional human resources. 102

Language education policy in Japan

Internationalization was replaced by globalization in many educational proposals—a trend also observed in the fields of business and industry. A first report emphasizing the importance of a coordinated effort among industry, education, and government to develop globally competent Japanese individuals was published by the Ministry of Economy and Industry and Technology (METI) in 2010 (METI 2010). While warning Japanese universities and businesses of their insufficient global awareness and the consequent international isolation of Japan, if the inclination continued, the report highlighted improved abilities of English communication and intercultural/multicultural understanding as indispensable elements in a new educational programme specifically designed to develop globally competent personnel. Following the METI recommendation, the Cabinet Bureau’s National Strategic Office drafted action plans to develop globally competent human resources at all levels of Japan’s educational system (Cabinet Bureau 2012). The document listed a whole range of characteristics required of “global personnel” from language and communication competencies through assertiveness and a sense of responsibility to public-mindedness and awareness of ethics. Particularly emphasized among the English competencies were bilateral and multilateral communication abilities, and it was made clear that the government would help with study-abroad opportunities for high-school and college students. Official financial aid would be available to universities with effective ELT and TEE programmes. A 2013 finding demonstrated over 300 graduate and undergraduate departments of some universities (officially designated as Super Global Universities) offered degree programmes for Japanese and overseas students, where English was a medium of instruction.These efforts were made as part of the government’s “Global 30” Project to invite 300,000 international students to Japan by the year 2020. In response to these “globalization” projects, the MEXT issued an ELT guideline for secondary education, making public five proposals and specific measures to develop proficiency of English as an “international common language” in 2011 (MEXT 2011a, 2014a). Recognizing improved English proficiency as an urgent task not only for education, but also across other domains, the guideline identified the ability to communicate with and the ability to understand the interlocutor along with the capability of explanation, counterargument, and persuasion. In view of this, proposals were made to (1) investigate and analyze students’ present attainment level, (2) stimulate their English learning motivation, (3) increase their English using opportunities by taking advantage of Assistant Language Teachers (ALT) and information and communication technology (ICT), (4) upgrade teachers’ English proficiencies and their TEE abilities, and (5) amend college entrance examinations of English in accordance with requirements for a global society. Although these programmes were set to continue until 2016, their in-depth assessment is still not possible at the present time. But some dismal episodes were already published. A 2015 MEXT survey report indicated that the gap between the aim and the reality in terms of English abilities of high school students and teachers had not improved from the 2007 levels mentioned above.

3.2.3  Core issues of teaching English as a language for international communication understanding As Honna and Takeshita (2014) suggested, Japan’s ELT is still based on English as an American language or a British language. Although the MEXT emphasizes English as an international common language, it fails to describe the language in a plural form and the recognition of the existence of world Englishes. Thus, the traditional native speakerism remains intact, and it is often stressed that “if you speak English, speak it the way native speakers do.” Japan’s ELT has a lot of rethinking to do in this respect. 103

Nobuyuki Honna and Junko Saruhashi

ELT in Japan is officially considered as part of a larger endeavour of “international understanding education.” ELT is thus expected to address three challenging issues: (1) how we can understand and teach English as an international language, (2) how we can train our students to be able to talk about themselves, their community and their way of life in English, and (3) how we can encourage our students to become interested in the cultures of people who speak English as a language for international communication around the world. Above all, English needs to be seen as an international language, not as an American language, or not as a British language. People use English not only with its native speakers, but also with individuals from all over the world.We need to realize that there are far more non-native speakers than native speakers when it comes to English. And non-native speakers use English more frequently with other non-native speakers than with native speakers. The essential thing about the current English language situation is that there is no one English, but there are many Englishes. People from different national, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds speak English with “different tone, color, and quality” (Smith, 1983: 2). Specialists in the ELT profession need to understand these trends if English is to be taught as a multicultural language on a global scale. Such an understanding will contribute to a drastic change in the goals, teaching methods, textbooks and other resources, and assessment criteria in ELT (Honna 2016).

3.2.4  Teaching languages other than English in a school curriculum There are various materials and opportunities for learning languages other than English (LOTE). Informal language education plays an important role. For example, there has been a boom in the use of Korean language with the arrival of K-Pop and Korean dramas in Japan. Only 298 students took the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) in 1997. However, the number of exam takers increased and reached a peak of 18,143 in 2012 (The Minden Press-Herald dated January 16, 2014). In terms of formal education policy, teaching LOTE is far from active. In the following sections, a glimpse will be provided of the learning opportunities of LOTE. Since there is no official policy concerning these languages, the MEXT allows that each school can offer language classes according to the needs and interests of students and the community. Accordingly, some parents and leaders of immigrant communities who are not satisfied with Japanese school policies have started their own schools.

3.2.5  Teaching a second foreign language in Japanese schools In the Course of Study, second foreign language education is neither encouraged nor prohibited. It only states that any language can be offered according to the demographics of the school and, when providing such a language programme, the description of the Course of Study for English curriculum should be used as a resource to design the curriculum (MEXT 2008). Table 7.1 shows the languages taught in high schools in 2000 and 2013. The change in the repertoire and the number of learners indicates both the vulnerability in status and the intercultural interest of younger generation. Although the total number of students shows a decrease of 81.7%, according to the longitudinal declining birth rate, the number of students who are learning LOTE has increased from 39,057 in 2000 to 48,129 in 2013.The number of schools that provide second foreign language classes has increased by 130% (from 1,046 schools in 2000 to 1,360 schools in 2014); however, the repertoire of languages has decreased from 23 in 2000 to 15 in 2013. Indeed, although the actual number of LOTE learners is increasing, their proportion compared to the total number of students is still quite low. Only 1.5% of high school students are taking LOTE classes. 104

Language education policy in Japan Table 7.1 Languages taught in high school (2000, 2013) Language

2000

1. Chinese 2. Korean 3. French 4. German 5. Spanish 6. Russian 7. Italian 8. Portuguese 9. Persian 10. Pilipino 11. Ancient Latin 12. Thai 13. Vietnamese 14. Nepalese 15. Turkish 16. Malay 17. Indonesian 18. Esperanto 19. Arabic 20. Swahili 21. Hebrew 22. Burmese 23. Mongolia 24. Sanskrit 25. Ancient Greek Total Overall no. of schools and students in Japan

2013

Schools

Learners

Schools

Learners

424 163 215 107 84 20 7 6 1 – 1 1 3 – 1 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1,046 5,479

17,849 4,587 8,621 4,548 2,584 499 120 101 1 – 23 10 7 – 6 33 20 18 7 7 6 4 3 2 1 39,057 4,061,756

517 333 223 107 109 27 13 12 4 4 4 3 2 1 1 – – – – – – – – – – 1,360 4,981

19,106 11,210 9,214 3,691 3,383 795 356 141 66 41 39 30 46 8 3 – – – – – – – – – – 48,129 3,319,122

Sources: MEXT (2002, 2015a).

3.3  Language education in foreign schools Some foreign residents in Japan worry about sending their children to Japanese schools, fearing their children will become deeply assimilated into Japanese culture, and therefore are motivated to start their own schools. Most of these schools use their respective ethnic language as the medium of instruction. Article 6 of the Basic Act on Education says that “schools prescribed by law are of a public nature, and only the national and local governments and the juridical persons prescribed by law may establish them.” Therefore, the Japanese government does not accord these non-Japanese medium foreign schools the status of “School” but gives them the tag of “Miscellaneous School.” There are about 200 “Miscellaneous Schools” and these are generally called “foreigners’ schools.” Some Japanese parents also choose foreign schools for their children. Chinese schools, especially, are known to have many Japanese students (Shibano 2014). The Korea International School, established mainly by the Zainichi Korean community, attracts not only Koreans but also Japanese (Wakisaka 2015). It is hard to compare the class hours of Japanese schools and foreigners’ schools because each has a different curriculum; however, Table 7.2 helps to show a comparison 105

Nobuyuki Honna and Junko Saruhashi Table 7.2 Weekly curriculum of junior high school Japanese school

Yokohama Yamate Chinese school Year

Kokugo Social studies Math Science Music Art P.E. Home economics English Moral studies Holistic studies Special activities

Year

1st

2nd

3rd

4 3 4 3 1.3 1.3 3 2 4 1 1.4 1

4 3 3 4 1 1 3 2 4 1 2 1

3 4 4 4 1 1 3 1 4 1 2

Chinese Culture and customs Math Science Music Art P.E. Home economics English Japanese Japanese social studies Long homeroom

1st

2nd 3rd

6 2 4 4 1 1 2 2 4 5 3 1

6 2 4 4 1 1 2 2 4 5 3 1

6 1 4 4 1 1 2 2 4 5 4 1

Sources: MEXT (2008), Shibano (2014).

between the two. Foreigners’ schools have fewer class hours of art, music, and physical education. These are filled by the trilingual education provided in Chinese (or Korean), English, and Japanese. Japanese are attracted to foreigners’ schools for the following reasons (Shimizu, Nakajima, & Kaji 2014). First, globalization in these schools is not only a school policy but also the reality of the classroom and among the faculty members who are from multicultural backgrounds. Moreover, they pursue trilingual education, with Japanese as a community language, English as a global lingua franca among people from different linguistic backgrounds, and Chinese or Korean as an ethnic heritage language and international language as well. The biggest difference between Japanese schools and foreigners’ schools is that in Japanese schools, the objective of a second foreign language teaching is merely to get students familiar with the language and culture as a liberal art subject, but in foreign schools, it is to train their children to use the language for practical purposes.

3.4  Establishing Japanese Sign Language as a subject and as a means of instruction in deaf education The language and education problems that deaf people have endured symbolize the plight that has befallen linguistic and cultural minority groups around the world. Although the circumstances surrounding them are still harsh, they have surmounted various obstacles to find themselves in an increasingly improved situation, thereby consolidating their community and their language in Japan. This section focuses on their on-going struggle to establish Japanese Sign Language (JSL) as a core subject and a means of instruction in deaf schools.

3.4.1  Japanese Sign Language in deaf schools The history of advocacy for sign language in deaf education is not brief in Japan. In 1983, an Osaka group initiated a movement to urge the use of sign language in deaf schools. At that time, it was a local campaign and was considered a “protruding nail to be hammered down” even in deaf education circles and deaf affirmative action groups. 106

Language education policy in Japan

The proposal they came up with was specific. They wanted JSL installed as a subject in the curriculum of deaf education.They assumed that, by learning sign language as a subject, children would be introduced to various aspects of deaf culture embedded in their language. They did not intend to ask for sign language to be employed as a medium of instruction in deaf school, because they thought that the situation was not ripe enough to ask for so much.Yet, by demanding that their language and culture be taught at school, the Osaka association of the hearing impaired wished to reject an oralist way of life relentlessly forced upon them. In an attempt to gain official support, the Osaka deaf group organized a series of meetings with representatives from local Boards of Education and schools for deaf children. The deaf tried to persuade the hearing administrators and teachers of the inadequacy of the educational system supposed to be for their benefit. They stressed again and again that they wanted to learn about sign language because that was their indispensable means of social communication in the deaf community. Although this initiative did not bear immediate fruit, it prompted similar drives in many deaf advocacy groups in many localities. The Japanese Federation of the Deaf organized a national campaign to get the Ministry of Education (MOE, now MEXT) involved in initiating improved deaf education practice in Japan. In response to repeated appeals by the Japanese Federation of the Deaf for policy change and instructional innovation, the then Ministry of Education appointed a group of specialists in 1991 to conduct a study on the means of communication needed by hearing-impaired children. The group, of which not a single deaf person was a member, came up with a much-awaited report in March, 1993, after two years of investigation of the ways communication is taught at deaf schools and hard-of-hearing classes at primary and junior high schools. A careful examination of the report indicated that although it claimed to contribute to the promotion and enrichment of deaf education, it failed to take into account accumulated scientific discoveries on the nature of sign language and the desires continuously expressed by deaf people to establish their language as a medium of school instruction. It was clear that these failures emanated from the group members' lack of understanding of sign language as a distinct linguistic system. Of fundamental importance, however, was that the report recognized the fact that sign language was being used as an indispensable means of social communication in the deaf community. Based on this observation, the specialists agreed that deaf students should be given opportunities to acquire the basic ability to use signs and finger letters to prepare themselves as members of the deaf community and to participate in mainstream society independently. By so saying, the report officially recognized the relevance of sign language for the first time, although the sign language they were talking about in this connection was more like Signed Japanese rather than Japanese Sign Language. Despite its extreme limitations, the report generally was received as a good signal by those involved in the promotion of the language rights of deaf people. In order to further their cause, the Japanese Federation of the Deaf decided to take advantage of the extent to which the then MOE had accepted the use of sign language in deaf schools. In response to the human rights aspects of the sign language issues of the deaf, the Japan Lawyers Federation made public its full support for JSL as a medium of instruction in deaf schools in 2005. In the same year, both the MEXT’s Minister and its Elementary and Secondary Education Bureau Director stated their endorsement of the use of sign language in deaf education in a Diet committee meeting. Although there still is no significant official support of the use of sign language in deaf education a decade later, there is an upsurge of awareness among enlightened teachers of deaf children of its legitimacy and desirability. Deaf education in Japan is definitely moving toward the use of 107

Nobuyuki Honna and Junko Saruhashi

sign language.The most influential factor in this trend is the dissemination of information in the latter half of the 1990's concerning the success of bilingual education for deaf children achieved in Sweden and Denmark.The bilingualism in educational contexts of deaf children presupposes use of sign language as their first language and learning of spoken language (writing and reading) through this primary language. Informed of the developments in Sweden and Denmark, Japanese deaf specialists became more critical than before of the traditional oralist practice of deaf education, and organized nation-wide discussion and study meetings on bilingual education. At these meetings attended by deaf schoolteachers, parents of deaf children, and professors of education and linguistics, a wide range of relevant theoretical aspects of language acquisition was explored and shared. Thus, indications are that educational environments of deaf children have a chance of improvement, with an increasing interest in bilingual and bicultural education witnessed at deaf schools. Currently more than 70% of deaf schools have all their teachers use sign language in educational and social activities (Wakinaka 2009: 10). The crux of the matter now is not whether it is desirable to use sign language in deaf education, but how it is taught as a subject and how it is used as a language of instruction. Studies of deaf education in Denmark and Sweden have shown the need for sign language in deaf schools. In those Nordic countries, the goal for deaf children is to become actively bilingual, with sign language successfully taught as their primary language and spoken language as their first foreign language. Yet, teaching methods cannot always be universally applicable, and should be developed in accordance with the pedagogical environment of each country. In order to pave the way for rational and systematic education of deaf children in Japan as soon as possible, the following problems need to be dealt with: 1 to train teachers who teach Japanese Sign Language as a subject, explore teaching methods, and prepare textbooks; 2 to train teachers who teach Japanese reading and writing in sign language and establish teaching methods; 3 to train teachers who teach mathematics, science, social studies, and other subjects in sign language and study teaching methods; 4 to train teachers who teach English as a subject in sign language and construct teaching methods; 5 to study means to make sign vocabulary large and flexible enough to codify knowledge and information from various domains of life in the present world; 6 to train specialists in sign language studies and further develop JSL as a full-fledged language; and 7 to study bilingual education and find methods to bring up persons proficient in JSL and Japanese.

4 Conclusion In this chapter, a number of key issues in Japan’s official language education policies have been discussed with regard to Japanese, English, other foreign languages, and Japanese Sign Language. One important conclusion drawn is that language issues correlate with one another, since they are all products of the sociocultural situations in which language teaching is embedded. Japan is confronted with adjustment problems stemming from the tide of globalization and multiculturalism. Japanese language education used to be based on the concept of language being kokugo 108

Language education policy in Japan

for nihonjin students, but now the pedagogy of Japanese as an additional language needs to be developed for children of migrant workers. Dealing with the linguistic needs of a transnational society poses an exciting challenge for language policymakers, practitioners, and scholars and teachers, and it is hoped that the challenge fosters their creativity and adaptability.

Notes 1 Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, English, Pilipino, Thai, Vietnamese, French, Bengali, Malay, Hindi, Sinhala, Russian, Burmese, German, Nepalese, Arabic, Indonesian, Mongolia, Persian, Urdu, Italian, Lao, Turkish, Khmer, Rumanian (Underlined languages are those added in 2010). 2 For more information, visit JOSE web site; http:​//www​.joes​.or.j​p/inf​o/int​roduc​tion.​html 3 For more information, visit the Japan Foundation web site; https://www.jpf.go.jp/

References Agency for Cultural Affairs. (2006). 言語施策百年史 [A hundred-year history of language policy]. Tokyo: Gyosei. Agency for Cultural Affairs. (2015). Policy of cultural affairs in Japan. http:​//www​.bunk​a.go.​jp/en​glish​/ abou​t_us/​polic​y_of_​cultu​ral_a​ffair​s/ind​ex.ht​ml Cabinet Bureau. (2012). グローバル人材育成会議 [Global human resources development strategy]. http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/global/ Gottlieb, N. (2012). Language policy in Japan:The challenge of change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Honna, N. (2016). English as a multicultural language in Asia and its pedagogical implications: A case study of Japan’s ELT. Intercultural Communication Studies, 25(1), 66–77. Honna, N., & Kato, M. (2003). Establishing sign language in deaf education in Japan: A sociolinguistic approach. Intercultural Communication Studies, 12(3), 37–50. Honna, N., & Takeshita, Y. (2014). English as an international language and three challenging issues in English language teaching in Japan. In R. Marlina and R. A. Giri (Eds.), The pedagogy of English as an international language: Perspectives from scholars, teachers, and students (pp. 65–77). Cham: Springer International Publishing Switzerland. Honna, N.,Tajima,T., & Minamoto, K. (2000). Japan. In H.W. Kam & R.Y. L.Wong (Eds.), Language policies and language education:The impact in East Asian countries in the next decade (pp. 139–172). Singapore: Times Academic Press. Maher, J. C., & Macdonald, G. (Eds.) (1995). Diversity in Japanese culture and language. London: Kegan Paul International. METI. (2010). 報告書:産官学でグローバル人材の育成を [Report: For developing global human resources in cooperation with industry, academia, and government]. www.m​eti.g​o.jp/​polic​y/eco​nomy/​ jinza​i/san​_gaku​_ps/2​010gl​obalh​oukok​usho.​pdf MEXT. (n.d) 小·中学校の授業時数に関する基礎資料 [The basic information about class hours in primary and secondary schools]. http:​//www​.mext​.go.j​p/b_m​enu/s​hingi​/chuk​yo/ch​ukyo3​/siry​o/070​ 61432​/005/​001.h​tm MEXT. (2002). 平成12年度高等学校等における国際交流等の状況(概要) [International exchanges in high schools 2000]. http:​//war​p.da.​ndl.g​o.jp/​info:​ndljp​/pid/​28618​4/www​.mext​.go.j​p/b_m​enu/h​ oudou​/14/0​3/020​310.h​tm MEXT. (2003). 「英語が使える日本人」の育成のための行動計画 [Action plan for developing Japanese with a working command of English]. http:​//www​.mext​.go.j​p/b_m​enu/s​hingi​/chuk​yo/ch​ ukyo3​/015/​siryo​/0404​2301/​011.h​tm MEXT. (2008). 中学校学習指導要領英訳版(仮訳) [Current course of study: Zest for life: English version of junior high school course of study (Tentative translation)]. http:​//www​.mext​.go.j​p/a_m​enu/s​ hotou​/new-​cs/yo​uryou​/eiya​ku/12​98356​.htm MEXT. (2011a). 「国際共通語としての英語力向上のための5つの提言と具体的施策」について [Five proposals and specific measures to develop proficiency of English as an international common language]. http:​//www​.mext​.go.j​p/b_m​enu/s​hingi​/chou​sa/sh​otou/​082/h​oukok​u/130​8375.​htm MEXT. (2011b). 言語活動の充実に関する指導事例集【中学校版】 [Instructional examples for language activities: In order to foster the ability to think, to make decisions, and to express themselves (Junior High School Version)]. http:​//www​.mext​.go.j​p/a_m​enu/s​hotou​/new-​cs/ge​ngo/1​30610​8.htm​

109

Nobuyuki Honna and Junko Saruhashi MEXT. (2011c). 外国人児童生徒受入れの手引き [Guidelines for accepting foreign students]. http:​// www​.mext​.go.j​p/a_m​enu/s​hotou​/clar​inet/​002/1​30466​8.htm​ MEXT. (2014a). 今後の英語教育の改善 充実方策について 報告 ~グローバル化に対応した英語教 育改革の五つの提言 [Report (Summary) on measures of improvement and fulfilment in ELT from now]. http:​//www​.mext​.go.j​p/b_m​enu/s​hingi​/chou​sa/sh​otou/​102/h​oukok​u/135​2460.​htm MEXT. (2014b). 平成26年度·英語教育改善のための英語力調査事業報告 [Summary of result: Survey of English abilities (senior high 3rd graders), 2014]. http:​ //www​ .mext​ .go.j​ p/a_m​ enu/k​ okusa​ i/gai​ kokug​o/135​8258.​htm MEXT. (2015a). 平成25年度高等学校等における国際交流等の状況について [International exchanges in high schools 2013]. http:​//www​.mext​.go.j​p/com​ponen​t/a_m​enu/e​ducat​ion/d​etail​/__ic​ sFile​s/afi​eldfi​le/20​15/04​/09/1​32394​8_03_​2.pdf​ MEXT. (2015b). 帰国·外国人児童生徒等に対する文部科学省の施策 [MEXT policies for returnees and foreign students etc.]. http:​//www​.bunk​a.go.​jp/se​isaku​/koku​go_ni​hongo​/kyoi​ku/ta​ikai/​27/pr​ ogram​/pdf/​shiry​o_02.​pdf. MEXT.(2015c).「日本語指導が必要な児童生徒の受入状況等に関する調査(平成 26 年度)」の結果 について [Survey of the acceptance situation of students who need Japanese classes]. http:​//www​.mext​ .go.j​p/b_m​enu/h​oudou​/27/0​4/__i​csFil​es/af​i eldf​i le/2​015/0​6/26/​13570​44_01​_1.pd​f Minden Press-Herald. (January 16, 2014). 続くか右肩上がり:韓国語能力試験の出願者 [Everincreasing? Applicants of the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK)]. Ministry of Internal Affairs. (2010). 平成22年国勢調査実施計画 [The 2010 implementation plan of the Census: For a precise and practical survey and reliable statistics]. www.s​tat.g​o.jp/​data/​kokus​ei/20​10/ke​ ikaku​/pdf/​sy02.​pdf Okimori,T. (2011). 日本の漢字:1600年の歴史. [Japanese Kanji: 1600 years history].Tokyo: Beret Publishing. Shibano, J. (2014). 時代にマッチした学校を作る·横浜山手中華学校 [Designing a school that fits the times: Yokohama Yamate Chinese School]. In K. Shimizu, T. Nakajima & I. Kaji (Eds.), 日本の外国人学校:トランスナショナリティイをめぐる教育政策の課題 [Foreigners’ schools in Japan: issues of educational policies over transnationality] (pp. 167–180). Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Shimizu, K., Nakajima, T., & Kaji, I. (Eds.) (2014). 日本の外国人学校:トランスナショナリティ をめぐる教育政策の課題 [Foreigners’ schools in Japan: Issues of educational policies over transnationality]. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Smith, L. (1983). English as an international auxiliary language. In L. Smith (Ed.), Readings in English as an international language (pp. 1–5). Oxford: Pergamon Press. Yasuda,T. (2007). 国語審議会:迷走60年 [The Japanese Language Council: Straying for sixty years].Tokyo: Kodansha. Wakinaka, K. (2009). 聴覚障碍者教育これまでとこれから [Education of hearing impaired persons: Up to now and from now on]. Kyoto: Kitaooji Shobo Wakisaka, N. (2015). 混迷する東アジアの越境人教育 [Education for cross-border people in chaotic East Asian period]. Tokyo: Kamogawa Syuppan.

Further reading Gottlieb, N. (2012). Language policy in Japan:The challenge of change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Gottlieb’s work examines the impacts of the influx of immigrants and the development of electronic technologies on current language policy in Japan.) Heinrich, P. (2012). The making of monolingual Japan: lLanguage ideology and Japanese modernity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. (Heinrich’s work investigates modernization of Japanese in terms of language ideology and discusses how Ryukyuans and Ainu were affected.) Honna, N., Tajima, T., & Minamoto, K. (2000). Japan. In W. K. Ho & R. Y. L. Wong (Eds.), Language policies and language education (pp. 139–172). Singapore: Times Academic Press. (This article covers official policies of Japanese as kokugo and Japanese as an international language for overseas learners.) Maher, J. C., & Macdonald, G. (Eds.) (1995). Diversity in Japanese culture and language. London: Kegan Paul International. (This anthology of ethnolinguistic and sociolinguistic papers discusses minorities groups and their language issues including returnee students, women, migrant workers, earlier settlers, and the deaf in Japan.) Suzuki,T. (2001). Words in context:A Japanese perspective on language and culture.Tokyo: Kodansha International. (An English translation of an influential work by Takao Suzuki, this well-read book refers to language policy issues involved in Japanese and English.)

110

8 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICIES IN SOUTH KOREA Jihyeon Jeon

1 Introduction The language education policies of South Korea are affected by political and economic f­actors (Choi 2007). Due to the dark period for the Korean language during 36 years of Japanese colonization, Koreans have a special affection for the Korean language. At the same time, due to the alliance with the United States after liberation, English has become an important foreign language to learn. The advent of the Internet and the concept of ‘English as a lingua franca’ in the globalized world have only strengthened the status of English as the most important foreign language in South Korea today. Other foreign languages, all categorized as second foreign languages, are not treated as importantly as Korean or English. In this section, a general introduction will be provided: first, on who lives in South Korea and what languages are spoken, and second, on the national education system. Language education policies will then be presented, mainly for Korean language education, including Hanja education, English language education, and foreign language (all foreign languages other than English) education.

2  Language and people of South Korea Koreans speak the Korean language and use Hangul (the Korean alphabet) for its writing system (for a brief linguistic history of Korea, see Song, this volume). Identified as a monolingual society since the 7th century (Song 2012), Koreans had spoken the Korean language, for a long time borrowing Hanja (Chinese characters) as their writing system until the invention of Hangul. Even after the invention of Hangul, developed by King Sejong in 1443, Chinese characters were preferred to Hangul by the noble class. Hangul consisted of 28 phonetic letters when first introduced in 1446 and was reduced to 24 letters in 1933 (Korean Culture Encyclopaedia n.d.). Although Chinese characters still appear in some Korean books and some documents used by elders or by pro-Hanja users to express well-established loanwords from Chinese or abbreviated terms formed from Chinese-character syllables, many young Koreans speak Korean and write using only Hangul, and are poor at recognizing all but a few Chinese characters. Until very recently, Korea has been identified as an ethnically homogeneous country. Although there have been infusions of other ethnicities, speaking one common language has 111

Jihyeon Jeon

been identified as a source of a unified identity: Koreans as a single race (Kang 2010). However, some analysts are now beginning to say that Korea has been transforming into a multi-racial country since 1990 due to the increasing number of foreign nationals (Kang 2010). In fact, foreign residents in South Korea have tripled in the last ten years. There were 540,000 foreign residents (1.1% of the total South Korean population) in 2006 and 1,740,000 (3.4% of the population) in 2015. This increase in non-Korean residents is partly due to a growing number of Koreans marrying foreign spouses. Looking at rural areas only, for example, about 50% of the registered marriages are interracial marriages. The interracial marriages have been increasing since the late 1980s due to high urbanization (82.7% in 2009) and young Koreans shunning life in rural areas. In addition to these foreign spouses, mainly wives of rural Korean men, there is also a growing number of foreign workers and foreign students coming to South Korea to seek opportunities. Job opportunities for foreign workers are increasing as there are certain jobs (manual-labour intensive, low-paying) that Korean college graduates tend to avoid. The nationalities of economically active foreign residents in Korea consist largely of Chinese (55%, of which 43.5% are Korean-Chinese and 11.5% are Chinese), Vietnamese (8.9%), Uzbekistanis (2.8%), Filipinos (3.3%), Indonesians (2.8%), Japanese (1.7%), Thai (1.9%), Mongolians (1.2%), other Asians (12.2%), North Americans (6.4%), Europeans (2.2%), Oceanians (0.7%), and others (0.9%) (Korean Statistical Information Service 2015).

3  Education in South Korea South Korea has a 6-3-3-4 education system, consisting of 6 years of elementary school, 3 years of middle school, 3 years of high school, and 4 years of university education. Free education is currently provided for elementary and middle school education, but starting in 2017, free education is now provided through high school as well. South Koreans value education and view it as a key to success both for the individual and for the nation (ICEF Monitor 2014). With the belief that education is the only way to survive, the South Korean government has invested heavily in education since the Korean War (1950–1953). After the Korean War, the South Korean government began to reform education by establishing national curricula. The national curricula for elementary and secondary schools have been changed about eleven times since 1955, as ‘five-year plans’ until 2006, when needs-based curricula were established. The current reiteration is the 2015 Revised National Curriculum (2015) (WK Lee 2015). On the surface, the national curricula have framed Korean public education. At a deeper societal level, however, the college entrance criteria have a greater impact on what happens at schools and to students than does the national curriculum. As higher education is no longer a luxury but rather a requirement in Korea (99.7% of middle school graduates enter high school; and nearly 80% of high school graduates go on to university), what matters most for Koreans is which university they can get into rather than whether to get a university education or not (Kwon 2013). Believing that getting into a prestigious university can open the door to privileged opportunities in the future, university entrance is a big issue and influences all aspects of education in South Korea (ICEF Monitor 2014). Sometimes, the competition for university entrance begins as early as elementary school (Jeon 2010). As 93% of parents expect their children to get a university education (Grossman 2012), many students are expected to study hard to become better prepared than others. In fact, 75% of South Korean children attend one or more of the nation’s 100,000 private institutes (hagwon) to gain a competitive edge, spending US$17.9 billion on private education, a large part of which is spent on English study (ICEF Monitor 2014). 112

Language education policies in South Korea

Having limited opportunities for application, as of 2016, the ratio of early application (susi) success is 7.4:1 to 33.6:1 for major universities in Seoul, and the average ratio of regular-term application (jeongsi) success was 6.15:1. For example, out of all similarly competitive applicants, only 1 applicant out of every 33.6 applicants is accepted. Due to this highly competitive rate, any changes made in the college admission system or CSAT seriously affects all aspects of Korean education including language education.

Language education policies in South Korea The language education policies in South Korea will be sketched in relation to (1) Korean language education, (2) English language education, and (3) second foreign languages education. Each language education policy will be discussed as they apply to the national curricula after the Korean War (see Song, this volume, for information prior to the Korean War).

3.1  Korean language education Currently, Korean language education policy in South Korea aims (1) to guide the use of Korean language by general Koreans, and (2) to guide instruction on Korean language at elementary and secondary schools (I.J. Lee 2009). The policy for Korean language use by general citizens is managed by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism (MOCST). Every five years, the minister of MOCST is required to plan the basics for Korean language development regarding (1) developing basic directions and goals for Korean language planning, (2) making and revising regulations for the use of the Korean language, (3) improving Korean language ability and the language use environment, (4) connecting Korean language policy and Korean language education policy, (5) preserving and promoting Korean language and culture, (6) promoting overseas Korean education, (7) digitalizing the Korean language, (8) standardizing Korean language use between North and South Korea, (9) resolving difficulties in Korean language use for handicapped Koreans and resident foreigners, (10) promoting Korean language development activities, and (11) using, developing, and preserving the Korean language (Kwon 2010; I.J. Lee 2009). MOCST plans and implements various Korean language related matters with the Department of Korean Language Policy and the National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL), which is in charge of managing most policies relating to the Korean language, such as how to spell in Hangul, improving domestic Koreans’ Korean language ability, and promoting overseas Korean as a Second/Foreign Language education. On the other hand, the policy related to Korean language education for schools is managed by the MOE. Korean language education can be divided into three aspects: (1) Korean as a National Language (Gugeo) education for Koreans at elementary and secondary schools, 2) Hanja (Chinese character) education, and (3) Korean as a Second/Foreign Language (KSL/KFL) for those whose first language is not Korean.

3.1.1  Korean as a National Language (KNL) education: Gugeo education Korea has over 5,000 years of history consisting of the Ancient Joseon Kingdom (BC 2333–BC 108), the three kingdoms (Koguryo, Baekje, and Silla, BC 108–676), Unified Silla (676–935), Koryo (918–1392), and the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910). Until the Joseon Dynasty, language education was open only to some privileged classes. Commoners did not have opportunities to learn to read or write. Therefore, 80–90% of the Korean people were illiterate before the Japanese colonial period. 113

Jihyeon Jeon

Since the independence movement, which developed under Japanese colonial rule (1910–1945), however, Korean leaders began to recognize the importance of the common people’s literacy, realizing that people’s illiteracy is a stumbling block in any social movement. The illiteracy rate during the Japanese colonial era is hard to assess accurately because Koreans’ daily life in those days involved the use of two languages—Korean and Japanese—with traditional use of Hanja (Chinese characters), Hangul (Korean alphabet), and Japanese script. Based on a survey conducted by the Japanese administration, the percentages of Koreans who were illiterate in both Japanese and Korean were 77.73% (male 63.92%; female 92.04%); Koreans who were literate only in Japanese were 0.03% (male 0.04%; female 0.01%); Koreans literate in only Korean were 15.44% (male 25.41%; female 6.02%); and people who could read or write in both Japanese and Korean were 6.78% (male 15.4%; female 1.91%) (Noh 1994). The number of Japanese-speaking people increased about 40 times during the Japanese occupation (92,261 in 1913 compared with 3,573,338 in 1940, representing about 15% of the population), but that did not affect the overall illiteracy rate. Immediately after liberation in 1945, most of the people were still unable to read or write in Hangul since the Japanese imperialists prohibited the use of the Korean language and Hangul, and did not provide Korean language education. For this reason, the US military government organized an Adult Education Committee to oversee the illiteracy issue and set up and run a Korean language teaching centre. They also implemented educational policies for children, adolescents, and adults who did not have access to elementary education beyond school age. As a result, the illiteracy rate in 1948 was reduced to 41.3% when the Korean government was established. Since the establishment of the Korean government, the government has placed the nation’s enlightenment through “literacy” as the primary task of education. However, this plan did not work out due to the Korean War (1950). After the armistice agreement, the government established the Six-Year Plan for Compulsory Education (1954–1959) and the Five-Year Literacy Plan (1954–1958). According to a governmental report (Ministry of Education 1958: 463), among people over 12, the illiteracy rate of South Korea was 78% in 1945, 41% in 1948, 26% in 1953, 14% in 1954, 12% in 1955, 10% in 1956, 8.3% in 1957, and 4.1% in 1958. According to the UNDP (2008), Korea’s illiteracy rate is now less than 1%. The reduced illiteracy rate among Koreans can be attributed to compulsory Korean education and the ease in learning the Korean alphabet, Hangul. Government initiation of language policy seems to have had a powerful effect. Gugeo education includes the policies for curriculum, materials, tests, and teachers at elementary and secondary schools. The Department of School Policies, which includes the Division of Teacher Policy and the Division of Curriculum, is responsible for Korean language education. As with English education, the Korean Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) is in charge of developing curriculum, materials, and assessments related to Gugeo education (Min 2009; I.J. Lee 2009; S.Y. Lee 2009). After the Korean War, Korean language education has been modified from the first national curriculum through to the 2015 Curriculum. Looking at the high school context, in the first National Curriculum (1955–1963), the basic curriculum began with Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing. High School Korean II included Hanja and Classical Chinese to provide both Korean and Hanja education together. From the Second Curriculum (1963–1973), High School Korean II began to include Classical Korean. In the Third Curriculum (1973– 1981), Writing was divided into Writing and Penmanship. Hanja education was offered as a separate subject, detached from the Korean language curriculum. In the Fourth Curriculum (1981–1987), Understanding Expressions, Language, and Literature were included instead of Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing. High School Korean II consisted of Classical 114

Language education policies in South Korea

Literature, Modern Literature, Writing, and Grammar. In the Fifth Curriculum (1987–1992), Understanding Expressions was changed back to Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing. Literature, combining Modern Literature and Classical Literature, was newly created; Korean II was eliminated. In the Sixth Curriculum (1992–1997), Speech and Reading were added as electives, and six areas (Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing, Language, Literature) and five electives (Speech, Reading, Writing, Grammar, and Literature) were set up at this period. In the Seventh Curriculum (1997–2008), the subjects offered as Korean language class were Life with Korean Language, Speech, Reading,Writing, Grammar, and Literature. In the 2007 Curriculum, the six subjects for Korean language were Reading, Writing, Speech, Grammar, Literature, and Media Language. However, from the 2009 Curriculum, the six subjects were changed to Reading & Grammar I, II, Speech & Writing I, II, and Literature I, II. In the 2011 Curriculum, the subjects for Korean Language are Korean I, II, Speech and Writing, Reading and Grammar, Literature, and Classical Korean (Cheon 2011; Min 2009; Min et al. 2011). The Korean language portion of the test for university entrance has gone through changes from the Yebi-gosa to the CSAT. Through the changes made in the national test, the reading area has gradually been increased while the grammar and literature areas have been somewhat reduced (Jo 2013). Since the status of Korean language classes after the first year of high school has been changed from mandatory to elective (Cheon 2011), students’ selection of these classes are disproportionate. For example, under the Seventh Curriculum, the selection rate was Speech (6.0%), Reading (26.9%), Writing (20.3%), Grammar (6.2%), and Literature (40.6%) (Jeong 2009). The selection rates are directly linked to what is tested on the CSAT.

3.1.2  Hanja education Hanja (Chinese character) education has been an important part of Koreans’ education because Hanja had been co-used with Hangul in Korean written documents for a long time. The Korean vocabulary includes a large number of words derived from Chinese and, therefore, from Chinese characters. In fact, 52.1% of the total entries in a comprehensive dictionary of Korean are SinoKorean words borrowed from Chinese or Korean creations using Chinese characters (Song 2012: 9). Koreans pronounce these Sino-Korean words with the Korean pronunciation (often differing considerably from their Chinese pronunciations) and can easily write them in Hangul (the Korean alphabet). Some people advocate the co-use of Hanja with Hangul because (1) seeing their Chinese character origin can be helpful to understand the meaning of Korean vocabulary, (2) it can reduce the problems in understanding Korean homonyms, (3) it provides word understanding independent from the context, (4) it preserves the use of less frequently used Chinese characterderived words appearing in academic texts, (5) it prevents vocabulary loss due to Chinese character illiteracy, (6) it supports the easy coining of new words based on Chinese characters, (7) it prevents a disconnect with traditional culture, (8) it prevents isolation within East Asian cultures, which have historically shared Chinese character use, and (9) the use of Chinese characters in the Korean language cannot be abandoned and thus they should be better utilized (Kim 2013, 2014). Hangul advocates, on the other hand, argue that (1) ambiguity in getting meaning across occurs in any human language and is not a problem specific to Hanja and Hangul, (2) many homonyms exist in any human language, and they can be understood from their context, (3) due to the advancement of electronic devices, the meaning of any unknown words, including homonyms, can easily be identified through searches on those devices, (4) the use of Hanja with Hangul does not guarantee a better understanding of word meaning, (5) it is economical to have a Hangul-only policy so that students learn how to spell Sino-Korean words in Hangul only rather than mandatorily requiring them to learn how to read and write complex Chinese 115

Jihyeon Jeon

characters, and (6) suggestions regarding the problems associated with using Hanja in Korean have not been adequately considered (Kim 2013, 2014). In 1968, President Chung Hee Park announced a five-year plan to implement a Hangul-only policy and tried to discontinue Hanja education. However, due to strong resistance, Hanja education was revived. From 1990, however, newspapers and books began to print only in Hangul, and from 2000, it is hard to find any co-use of Hanja in newspapers. Indeed, Hanja is now found only in a few books and newspapers, and can no longer be readily found in everyday life (C.H. Kim 2011). Hanja education was included as part of Korean as a National Language education in the first (1955–1963) and second National Curricula (1963–1973). From the third National Curriculum (1973–1981), Hanja education was separated from Korean language education. Hanja was taught as a required subject in the third National Curriculum (1973–1981) for high school students and in the sixth National Curriculum (1992–1997) for both middle school and high school students. In the following national curriculum periods, however, Hanja has been taught as an elective subject or in “special activity classes” (Heo 2011; Kim 2013;Yoon 2011). Since Hanja education is no longer mandatory, the rate of electing to take the Classical Chinese (Hanmun) option on the CSAT has dropped.There were 22,056 CSAT-takers of Classical Chinese (Hanmun) in 2005, while only 5,732 CSAT-takers selected the Hanmun option in 2015.

3.1.3  Korean as a second/foreign language education: Hangugeo education Hangugeo education includes the policies for curriculum, materials, tests, and teachers for those who are not proficient in the Korean language both within and outside of Korea. The governmental policies for Hangugeo education began in the 1990s and were expanded in the 2000s. Due to the different nature of the target population to be educated, six different government ministries—MOCT, MOE, Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Ministry of Employment and Labour (MOEL), Ministry of Justice (MOJ)—are involved in Korean as a second/foreign language (KSL/KFL) education (Cho 2009; Kim 2012; Ko 2013). KSL education is for resident foreigners in Korea—foreigners working in Korea and foreign spouses married to Koreans and their children—and non-registered foreigners in Korea. As of 2015, there were 1,373,000 resident foreigners in Korea—712,000 (51.9%) migrant workers, 124,000 (9.1%) foreign spouses, 88,000 (6.4%) foreign students, 301,000 (21.9%) Koreanheritage foreign nationals, and 148,000 (10.7%) unclassified. Most KSL education for these people is performed outside of the national education system by regional multicultural centres, NGOs, or by universities charging tuition (Song 2012). The children of families where one parent is not Korean (a so-called ‘multicultural’ family) have notably increased from 25,000 in 2006 to 208,000 in 2015.The ages of these children are under 6 (56.8%), 7–12 (27%), and 13–18 (16.2%). The Korean government is currently planning to support these children under the age of 18 as they grow up through 81 nationwide multicultural family support centres (Nam 2016). KFL education targets overseas Koreans and their descendants and overseas foreigners who are interested in learning Korean language and culture. As of 2014, overseas Koreans numbered 7,184,872 in 181 countries. The MOTC began to provide KSL/KFL materials in diverse languages in the 1990s. Since the 2000s, when government funds were available for providing overseas Korean language education, the work of carrying out KSL/KFL policies was transferred to the National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL) beginning in 2004 (Cho 2009; Kim 2012). Since 2007, Korean language schools, Sejong Hakdang, have increased support to Korean language and Korean culture education to KSL/KFL learners in response to an increase in 116

Language education policies in South Korea

the demand for Korean language education due to the spread of Hallyu (the so-called ‘Korean Wave’), the increase in international marriages, expansion of Korean businesses’ overseas markets, and an increase in foreign workers. Since the establishment of the Sejong Hakdang Foundation, KFL education has expanded and improved in quality through the development of a standard curriculum, providing standardized materials, and the placement and training of professional teachers. The Foundation also tries to localize study materials by publishing them in relevant languages such as English, Spanish, Mongolian, and Vietnamese. Under the presidency of Myongbak Lee in 2009, promoting overseas Korean language education was one of the ten projects proposed by Korea’s Presidential Council on Nation Branding. The plan was to increase the number of Sejong Hakdang to 500 world-wide (through opening 150 Sejong Hakdang, and reorganizing 350 Hangul Schools, Korean Education Centres, or Korean Culture Centres to be renamed Sejong Hakdang) to support the ever-increasing need for Korean language learning. Since 2013, as the presidency of Geunhye Park began, the plan for expanding Sejong Hakdang was discontinued (Naver News 2009; Cho 2011; Choi 2013). As of 2014, people taking Korean language classes at Sejong Hakdang numbered 45,000, a ten-fold increase since they first began. Now there are 140 Sejong Hakdang in 54 countries – 86 in Asia, 26 in Europe, 20 in the USA, five in Africa, and three in Oceania – which is a considerable expansion from the original 13 schools in three countries. Together with 16,000 learners who joined Nuri-Sejong Hakdang (Online Sejong Hakdang), there are about 60,000 learners studying Korean language at Sejong Hakdang annually. According to a 2014–2015 survey of 28,000 learners, these learners are learning the Korean language because they want to get a job in Korea, study in Korea, or understand Korean pop music. One out of two learners is learning the Korean language because of an interest in Korean pop culture (People.cn 2015). A KSL/KFL test called TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean) was developed in 1997 and has been administered to those who need evidence of their Korean language proficiency. TOPIK, which includes listening, reading, and writing sections, is managed by NIIED (National Institute of International Education). Those who take TOPIK are Korean language learners, foreign students applying to Korean universities, job seekers, and overseas ethnic Koreans. As of 2016,TOPIK is being administered six times a year in 36 domestic and 107 overseas locations in 70 countries (NIIED 2016, pers. comm., 31 March) having over 200,000 test-takers.

3.2  English education English has been the most important post-Korean War foreign language in South Korea. As English language skills are considered vital for competitiveness of both the individual and the nation in the globalized era, learning English is a lifelong concern for most Koreans. In fact, English is recognized as the gateway to opportunities: to admission to prestigious schools, to getting a high-paying job, and to promotion in one’s career (Jeon & Paek 2009; Jeong & Jeon 2013; HS Kim 2011; Noh & Jeon 2012). English education in Korea got its start at Dongmunhak, a government school established in 1883 to teach government interpreters, using the direct method to teach English because the teachers were not able to speak Korean. The first modern school, Yugyong Gongwon, opened in 1886, taught English through the rote learning method. During the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945), however, English was not taught systematically. In 1911, English was taught two hours a week in junior colleges and high schools along with Japanese (four hours a week), but, during World War II, English teaching in South Korea was forbidden. After the Korean War, the Korean government included English as a major subject in the national curriculum (Choi 2007; Moon cited in Kwon 2000). 117

Jihyeon Jeon

Major educational policies regarding English education are all centrally controlled by the MOE (Ministry of Education). The MOE is the body authorized to make any decisions related to language education policies for planning, implementing, and evaluating, with support from related government research institutes such as the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI) or with advice from the presidential office. KEDI generally presents a big picture by providing research on enhancing the quality of Korean education for Korea’s dynamic growth. The Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), on the other hand, typically provides detailed support by providing curricula, materials, and evaluations. The provincial offices of education (POE) then manage and coordinate the implementation of educational policies in their regions by providing official meetings to introduce the policies to the public, training teachers, and so forth. Local schools request relevant funding and support from the 17 POEs in nine provinces and eight special cities. Through the changes in the national curriculum, English language education has developed from promoting rote learning to advocating the communicative approach. In the First National Curriculum (1955–1963), English was taught focusing on a fixed number of vocabulary and language structures rather than for communicative skills. In the Second Curriculum (1963–1973), listening and speaking drills were included. The Fourth Curriculum (1981–1987) emphasized “live English,” introducing phonics for pronunciation for the first time. The Sixth Curriculum (1992–1997) included some major changes in English education since the national exam was changed to include an assessment of listening ability. In 1997, English was included as a subject to be taught in elementary schools from the third grade, and the communicative approach began to be emphasized. In the Seventh Curriculum, student-centred classes—teaching students according to their achievement levels—and performance assessments were emphasized. In the 2006 National Curriculum, teaching methods and assessment methods were further detailed. In the 2008 Curriculum, under the presidency of Myongbak Lee, English education was intensified by providing more resources and by creating a special task force, the English Education Intensifying Team, within the MOE. Aiming to make it possible for all Koreans to communicate in English with the public education system, the MOE added an additional class hour per week for elementary school English, required at least one hour per week of English conversation class for secondary schools, recruited “English conversation lecturers” (Koreans with near-native English proficiency who are not necessarily Korean English teachers certified by MOE) for these added English classes, and developed an Internet-based English test, NEAT (National English Ability Test). English education policies developed during this period were more detailed than ever before in Korea in terms of specifics and resources spent with two main goals: (1) to improve Koreans’ English proficiency and (2) to reduce the English divide between those who could have more access to English and those who could not (Jeon et al. 2015). In the 2011 Curriculum, English education was further specified to avoid overlaps and gaps between policy stages, and suggestions were made for stronger connections between the curriculum, school classes, and NEAT (WK Lee 2015). Currently, a revised version of the 2015 Curriculum of English has been announced to be in effect from March 2017. The English language test, which is mandatory for university entrance, has gone through numerous changes. From 1947 to 1968, the universities evaluated applying students’ English ability with their own English language tests. From 1969 to 1981, the Preliminary Test (Yebigosa) was used along with each college’s own test for university entrance. The introduction of the Yebi-gosa can be viewed as the beginning of government intervention in university entrance. From 1982 to 1993, the Academic Ability Test (Hangnyeok-gosa) was used. Since 1994, the CSAT English language test (Suneung) has been used (Kwon 2015).The CSAT assesses students’ listening and reading comprehension along with indirect testing of writing ability. Under President 118

Language education policies in South Korea

Lee’s government (2008–2013), the Internet-based English test (NEAT, National English Ability Test) was developed with the aim of replacing (1) the CSAT to assess all four skills of English, including speaking, and possibly (2) imported English proficiency tests such as TOEIC and TOEFL, for which Koreans spend an estimated US$2 billion annually (Kwon 2013). The test, software, and manuals for managing school English classes had all been prepared to replace CSAT with NEAT by the start of the presidency of Geunhye Park (2013). The plan for deployment of NEAT, developed over five years (2008–2013), however, was suddenly curtailed in 2014. Recently, in a government forum for suggesting policies for practical English education, the abandonment of NEAT pointed to a shift back to English language education focusing on only listening and reading (Cha 2015).

3.3  Foreign languages (other than English) education policies All foreign languages other than English are categorized as ‘second foreign languages.’ Foreign language education has not been considered seriously by the Korean government.While foreign languages are included in the national curriculum, they are treated merely as useful minor subjects rather than as important subjects like Korean itself, English, and mathematics. Foreign language education began with the first National Curriculum (1955–1963), which included only German and Chinese. In the second National Curriculum (1963–1973), French and Spanish were added, and in the third National Curriculum (1973–1981), Japanese was added.These five languages remained mandatory subjects through the fifth National Curriculum (1987–1992). In the sixth National Curriculum (1992–1997), Russian was added but the total curriculum time was reduced because they were no longer mandatory subjects. In the seventh National Curriculum (1997–2008), Arabic was added.With the addition of Vietnamese in 2015, there are now a total of eight foreign languages that may be offered at public schools in South Korea. As foreign languages are now only offered as electives, however, students naturally choose English because English is a mandatory subject on the CSAT. When the government began to use the CSAT for college entrance in 1994, foreign languages were not included. As a result, second foreign language education began to be neglected by students. From 2001, the second foreign languages were included as optional sections of the CSAT. With the inclusion of second foreign language sections in the CSAT, it was expected to improve second foreign language education at schools. However, only a few majors in a few universities required a second foreign language score on the CSAT. In 2001, there were 73 out of 180 universities requiring a second foreign language test score, but in 2002, only 30 universities required it. As a result, students began to lose interest in taking second foreign language classes. The effort of including second foreign language test sections in CSAT alone was not successful in increasing student motivation and interest in learning second foreign languages (Lee 2001). On the CSAT, second foreign language test sections have been offered for eight languages from 2014. In 2016, the number of second foreign language test-takers was 90,752: Arabic (46,822), Vietnamese (16,752), German (1,971), French (2,110), Spanish (2,143), Chinese (5,626), Japanese (8,260), Russian (1,336), and Classical Chinese (5,732). The number of test takers for each language fluctuates not always because of the popularity of the language but because of the expected ease of attaining high scores in these languages on the CSAT.

4  South Korea’s language education policy: the future Future language education policies should provide more balanced language education. Looking at the allotted time for subject areas in the 2015 National Curriculum, the hours allotted to each 119

Jihyeon Jeon

subject area seem reasonable. However, if one examines a student’s transcript, they will find that the reality is different. For example, the allotted hours for a high school student focusing on the area of math/science are 510 hours for Korean language, 510 for English, 646 for Mathematics, 646 for Science, 102 for Japanese, and 68 for Classical Chinese for graduation (S Park 2016, pers. comm., 7 January). From this example, one can easily see the relative weight given to languagerelated classes. Equal hours are allotted to Korean and English classes whereas one-fifth as many hours are allotted to learning Japanese, the second foreign language subject. This is because of the negative washback effect of the CSAT on education. As most universities are requiring scores for Korean, English, Math, and focus subjects—two science subjects for a ‘science focus’ (Eegwa) or two social subjects for a ‘liberal arts focus’ (Mungwa)—students tend to select the subjects that are most likely to help them attain a high score on the CSAT for college entrance. Korean as a National Language classes at primary schools and secondary schools need to be diversified in terms of contents, teaching methods, and exams to accommodate emerging needs. Korean as a National Language education has been offered in elementary and secondary schools as if all Korean students have similar economic and social backgrounds. In the future, however, Korean as a National Language education should take into consideration students from families of foreign residents, students from multi-cultural families, and those Korean returnees from overseas education (Cho 2008; Choe 2014; Nam 2015: 112). Korean as a Second Language education within Korea for migrant workers or families from a multi-cultural family must be provided more systematically to make adaptation to the education system more seamless (Lee & Lee 2013). It is very unlikely that Hanja education will again be made mandatory. Although there have been debates on the co-use of Hanja until recently, it would be quite difficult to return to the use of Hanja again because South Koreans already depend on digital systems that use Hangulonly input systems, and developing a new input system that allows for the use of both Hangul and Hanja would require a high social cost and much endeavour. However, Hanja education will continue to be offered in the national curriculum as Hanja represents an important part of Korean vocabulary (Heo 2013; Min 2011). English language is important in Korea now and will continue to be in the future. As English learning begins early with private education, and parents’ academic background and socioeconomic status is related to children’s English ability (MS Kim 2011), the English divide should not be neglected in future English education policies (Jeon 2014). The study of foreign languages other than English should be increased to strike a balance. Since the national curriculum includes second foreign languages only as electives and they are not required for college entrance, students tend to choose not to study them. In the future, the national curriculum and the CSAT should together aim for more balanced foreign language education (KY Lee 2015). The planning of language education policies needs to be done more systematically by allowing enough time from their inception for implementation and evaluation (Jeon & Paek 2009; Lee 2010) and for steady development and management. The cases of NEAT for English education and expanding Sejonghakdang for KFL education are evidence of Korean language education policies being vulnerable to sudden change with changes in the presidency or the government. In the future, policymakers in South Korea need to design policies that are practical and that take into account due process, responsibility, and feasibility in terms of time, budget, resources, consistency, specificity, and sustainability (Jeon & Paek 2009). The national curriculum needs to take a longterm view rather than continually fluctuating back and forth at the whim of short-term goals. In addition, the language education policies for Korean as a national language, Korean as a second/foreign language, English, and other foreign language education, all need to be planned and managed together by one government body for systematic and efficient use of resources. 120

Language education policies in South Korea

References Cha, H. A. (2015). Policies should be focused on practical English education (Siryongyeongeo jungsim yeongeo gyoyuk jeongchaegeuro gaya). Daily UNN, 23 April. Available from: http://news.unn.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=146646. [23 April 2015]. Cheon, G. (2011). Analyzing the educational policy of Korean language curriculum. Korean Language Education Research (Gugeo gyoyuk yeongu), 28, 185–217. Cho, H. R. (2008). Changes of the Korean language education environment and the tasks for development. Korean Language Education (Hangugeo gyoyuk), 10(1), 1–25. Cho, N. H. (2009). Understanding the policy on the Korean language education. Research for Our Language Education (Urimal gyoyuk hyeonjang yeongu), 3(1), 155–176. Cho, T. R. (2011). Nation brand and Korean language education policy. Hangul, 294, 199–224. Choe, J. S. (2014). Policy-tasks of Korean language and culture education due to the switch into the multicultural society. New Korean Language Education (Saegugeogyoyuk), 101, 401–436. Choi, S. M. (2013). Are there Korean brand? Korea Economics, 25 October. Available from: http://economy. hankooki.com/lpage/entv/201510/e20151025180155118120.htm. [23 April 2015]. Choi,Y. (1998).The history and the policy of English language education in Korea. In Y. Choi & B. Spolsky (Eds.), English education in Asia: History and policies (pp. 33–66). Seoul: Asia TEFL. Grossman, S. (2012). And the world’s most educated country is… TIME, 27 September. Available from: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/09/27/and-the-worlds-most-educated-country-is/. [8 February 2016]. Heo, C. (2011). Research trends and issues field of “Han character education” in Korea. Classical Chinese Education Research (Hanmun gyoyuk yeongu), 37, 121–187. ICEF Monitor. (2014). High performance, high pressure in South Korea’s education system. Available from: http:// monitor.icef.com/2014/01/high-performance-high-pressure-in-south-koreas-education-system/. [23 January 2014]. Jeon, J. (2010). Issues of English tests and assessments: A view from Korea. In Y. Moon & B. Spolsky (Eds.), Language assessment in Asia: Local, regional or global? (pp. 55–80). Seoul: Asia TEFL. Jeon, J. (2014). English education policies in Korea: A suggestion for sustainable management. Paper presented at the Asia TEFL International Conference, Kuching, Malaysia. Jeon, J., Lee, H., & Lee, J. (2015). Can native-speaker English teacher recruitment program do more than English education in Korea? Insights from the TaLK program. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 12(1), 19–51. Jeon, J., & Paek, J. (2009). A study on policy assessment for English education. English Teaching, 64(2), 47–25. Jeong G. H. (2009). Research for the revising curriculum of high school Korean language (CRC2009043). Seoul: KICE. Jeong, J., & Jeon, J. (2013). The English divide as perceived by college students: A case study. Journal of Research Institute of Curriculum and Instruction, 17(1), 71–90. Jo,Y. (2013). A study on historical changes in the Korean language test of national college entrance examinations. Ph.D. thesis, Korea University, Seoul. Kang, C. (2010).The social historical formation of the racially homogeneous nation view of history and the future for multicultural education. Korean Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(4), 1–25. Kim, H. S. (2011). A research on investment and fairness of the investment on English education (Yeongeogyoyuk tujaui hyeongpyeongseonggwa hyoyulseonge gwanhan yeongu). Seoul: KDI. Kim, J. H. (2012). A study on Korean language education policy: With focus on the roles of Korean language education related government departments. Asia Cultural Studies, 25, 259–281. Kim, S. C. (2015). The trace of Hangul (Hangeuri georeoon gil ). National Archives of Korea. Available from: http://theme.archives.go.kr/next/hangeulPolicy/business.do. [15 April 2017] Kim, W. J. (2013). A critical review on the Korean language education system and policy with regard to Chinese character education. Chinese Characters and Classical Chinese Education (Hanja hanmun gyoyuk), 32, 25–57. Kim,W. J. (2014). Pending issues and problems in relation to Chinese character education. Chinese Characters and Classical Chinese Education (Hanja hanmun gyoyuk), 35, 7–48. Ko, H.Y. (2013). Present state and task of the policy on the Korean language education. Hansung Language and Literature (Hanseongeomunhak), 30, 197–215. Korean Culture Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Hangul. The Academy of Korean Studies. Available from: http:// terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=795707&cid=46674&categoryId=46674.

121

Jihyeon Jeon Korean Statistical Information Service. (2015). Foreign resident statistics. Available from: https://kostat.go.kr/ portal/korea/kor_nw/3/index.board?bmode=read&aSeq=270116. [10 February 2016]. Kwon, J. I. (2010). Korean language policy and globalization. Korean Language and Literature (Gugeogung­ munhak), 155, 5–17. Kwon, O. (2000). Korea’s English education policy changes in the 1990s: Innovations to gear the nation for the 21st century. English Teaching, 55(1), 47–91. Kwon, O. (2013). Roles of the state, the society, and the professionals in English education in South Korea. Paper presented at the Stony Brook University, USA. Kwon, O. (2015). A history of policies regarding the English section of Korea’s College Scholastic Ability Test. English Teaching, 70(5), 3–34. Lee, H. S. (2010). Analyzing the policy-making process of English education and exploring its improvement. Journal of the Korea English Education Society, 9(2), 193–215. Lee, I. J. (2009). Intension and theme of Korean language education policy: In case of curricular policies. Research for Our Language Education (Urimal gyoyung hyeonjang yeongu), 3(1), 93–139. Lee, S.Y. (2009). Policies about Korean language textbook. Korean Language Education Research, 36, 71–98. Lee, K. N. (2001). The problems and recommendations for the improvement in the second foreign languages education in Korea. Foreign Language Education Research, 4, 87–107. Lee, K.Y. (2015).Toward sustainable balance of foreign language education in Korea. Paper presented at the 2015 ALAK International Conference, Seoul, 19 September. Lee Y. S., & Lee H. S. (2013). Integration and the policy of Korean language education in the multicultural era: Focusing on analysis of the participation of the migrants. Journal of Korean Language Education, 24(2), 285–316. Lee, W. K. (2015). Revisions of the national curriculum of English and challenges of English education. English Teaching, 70(5), 35–52. Min, H. S. (2009). The domestic Korean language educational policy: The reflection and outlook. Korean Language Education Research, 36, 5–40. Min, H. S. et al. (2011). Developing protocols for revising the Korean language curriculum (Gugeogwa gyoyukgwajeong gaejeongeul wihan sian yeongu gaebal). Seoul: Ministry of Education. Ministry of Education. (1958). Mungyogaegwan. Seoul: Korea. MOCST. (2013). Expanding Sejong Hakdang from 52 to 120 countries. Available from: http://www.mcst. go.kr/web/s_notice/press/pressView.jsp?pSeq=13253. [13 January 2016]. MOE. (n.d.). National curriculum. Available from: http://www.kice.re.kr/resrchBoard/list.do?cate=0&m= 030101&s=kice. [20 December 2015]. Nam, J. W. (2016). Expanding supports for 200,000 multicultural family children. Available from: http://news. khan.co.kr/print.html. [16 February 2016]. Nam, G. Y. (2015). Analyzing Korean language education policies for returnee students. Korean Language Education Research (Gugeo gyoyukhak yeongu), 50(4), 108–142. Naver News. (2009). National branding committee confirming 5 areas 10 projects. Available from: http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=100&oid=003&aid= 0002577637. [20 February 2016]. Noh, Y. T. (1994). Illiteracy rate of the Japanese occupation era. (Iljeshidaeeui munmaengryul chui). Korean History Research, 51. Seoul: National Institute of Korean History . Noh, H., & Jeon, J. (2012). English divide perceived by employees: A case study of “A” corporation. Foreign Languages Education, 19(2), 201–224. Park, G. B. (2015). Expanding foreign language education policies to the third country languages. The 300. Available from: http://the300.mt.co.kr/newsView.html?no=2015123110527624056. [31 December 2015]. People.cn. (2015). Interview with Hyang-guen Song, the chair of the Sejong Hakdang. 13 August. Available from: http://kr.people.com.cn/n/2015/0813/c203219-8935674.html. [26 December 2015]. Song, J. (2012). South Korea: Language policy and the planning in the making. Current Issues in Language Planning, 13(1), 1–68, DOI: 10.1080/14664208.2012.650322. Available from: http://dx.coi.org/10.10 80/14664208.2012.760322. Seth, M. J. (2010). A history of Korea: From antiquity to the present. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. UNDP (United National Development Programme). (2008). HDI (Human development indicators). Available from: http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/bulletin/2016/02/24/0200000000AKR20160224138 400848.HTML?input=1195m. [21 February 2016].

122

Language education policies in South Korea Yoon, J. M. (2011). Curriculum of Korean Classical Chinese education. Chinese Characters and Classical Chinese Education (Hanja hanmun gyoyuk), 26, 219–260.

Further reading Choi,Y. (1998).The history and the policy of English language education in Korea. In Y Choi & B. Spolsky (Eds.), English education in Asia: History and policies (pp. 33–66). Seoul: Asia TEFL. (Choi’s work provides a detailed introduction to the development of English language education in Korea covering the period 1883–2007.) Song, J. (2012). South Korea: Language policy and the planning in the making. Current issues in language planning, 13(1), 1–68, DOI: 10.1080/14664208.2012.650322. (Song’s work provides a through and detailed introduction to South Korea’s sociolinguistic situation in the context of language policy and planning.) Seth, M. J. (2010). A history of Korea: From antiquity to the present. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. (This book presents Korean history in an easily readable manner.)

123

9 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN NORTH KOREA Jae Jung Song

1 Introduction North Korea is probably “the world’s most closed, impenetrable [society], with a totally controlled press, sharp restrictions on travel in and out of the country” (Cumings 1990: 53). North Koreans have no access to basic information about the rest of the world, let alone alternative political views or ideologies. In fact, “[t]here is no debate on policy, or readiness to criticise past mistakes, since all decisions emanated from one who was supremely wise [namely, Kim Il Sung (1912–1994), North Korea’s founding leader]” (Lone and McCormack 1993: 180), and, subsequently to his death, from his son Kim Jong Il (1941–2011), and his grandson Kim Jong Un (1983/1984? – ). Moreover, virtually no contact is permitted between North Koreans and the few foreigners allowed into the country. Not surprisingly, in this totally controlled society, education, particularly language education, has been exploited to serve as a major medium through which the leaders’ authority, power relations, and the like are legitimised, propagated, and conserved. As promulgated in Kim Il Sung’s Theses on Socialist Education (1977), the primary goal of education in North Korea is “to rear students as revolutionaries, equipped with a revolutionary outlook and the ideological and moral qualities of a communist.” More importantly, education in North Korea must at the same time serve the interest of the Kim family’s dynastic rule. To that end, language education policy in North Korea has been formulated and implemented largely under the tutelage of Kim Il Sung. Though he died over two decades ago, Kim Il Sung’s influence still looms large in North Korea’s language education policy—and virtually all other areas for that matter. In fact, what is so remarkable about North Korea’s language education policy is that how little it has deviated over the last five decades from what Kim Il Sung initially envisaged in the two directives that he gave to North Korean linguists in 1964 and 1966. There are two themes that have been strongly pursued in North Korean’s education: (i) idolisation of the Kim leaders, based on Kim Il Sung’s Juche ideology; and (ii) science and technology education, more recently computer technology in particular. Following the Korean War (1950–1953), Kim Il Sung began to consolidate his political power. To that end, in 1955 he also expressed his own political thought called Juche, ‘self-reliance’, which encompasses politicoideological, economic, and military independence (Scalapino and Lee 1972: 861–873). While it is claimed to be based on Marxism-Leninism, Juche is nothing but a “political shibboleth to evoke a fiercely nationalistic drive for North Korean independence” and “to legitimize Kim 124

Language education policy in North Korea

Il-Sung’s Koreanization of ‘Marxism-Leninism’” with a view to perpetuating “the Stalinist system under Kim Il-Sung’s [and his direct descendants’] personal power in North Korea” (Lee 2003: 105, 112). North Korea’s emphasis on science and technology in education was motivated largely by Kim Il Sung’s belief that North Korea must have a solid foundation in science and technology, on the basis of which to achieve economic independence. This, in turn, has led to North Korea’s strong emphasis on mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and, since the late 1990s, computer technology in the school curriculum. In this context, Kim Il Sung may also have been well aware of South Korea’s push for science and technology-based economy. The importance of science and technology in education has implications for foreign language education, as access to scientific and technological knowledge may require a certain level of competence in English in particular. The remainder of the chapter is structured as follows. Section 2 provides a brief linguistic history of Korea. Section 3 describes the post-World War II division of Korea into North and South Korea. Section 4 characterises North Korea as a monolingual country and section 5 briefly outlines North Korea’s education system. Section 6 discusses North Korea’s language education policy, including Hanja ‘Chinese characters’ education. The chapter ends in section 7 with remarks on the future of North Korea’s language education policy.

2  Brief linguistic history of Korea Korea was not linguistically homogeneous until the mid-7th century CE, when three kingdoms were unified by Shilla. It is possible to say—on the basis of extant Chinese sources—that other languages had been spoken on the Korean Peninsula before and at the time of the unification, i.e. Tungusic and Japanic languages. By the time Koryo overthrew Unified Shilla and established its capital in Songhak (now Kaesong) in the 10th century CE, the linguistic homogenisation of the Korean Peninsula is said to have been completed. With the establishment of Yi Choson in 1392, the variety spoken in its new capital, Hanyang (now known as Seoul), became the linguistic norm for Koreans. The first recorded event of language policy and planning in the history of Korea is King Sejong’s invention of the Hangul writing system in the 15th century CE (Song 2005: 45–54). Between King Sejong’s death in 1450 and Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910, however, there was little language policy or planning to speak of, as Hanja had been upheld by the ruling class as the writing system of the country, with Hangul used by noble women and commoners only. Note that, while they wrote in Hanja, the ruling class spoke Korean, not Chinese.The Japanese colonial government (1910–1945) made a serious attempt to abolish the Korean language and eventually to annihilate the whole indigenous culture. To that end, Japanese began to be taught in 1911, accounting for 40% of all school hours in primary school up to the conclusion of World War II (Hirataka 1992, 94). In 1938, the study or use of Korean became ‘voluntary’ in schools under the new Korean Education Statute. By 1941, Korean had been removed completely from the education system (Rhee 1992). The ban on Korean was later enforced to the extent that Japanese was promoted in all areas of daily life to the exclusion of Korean. This state of affairs continued until 1945 when Korean gained independence upon Japan’s defeat to the Allied Forces.

3  Post-World War II division: North Korea and South Korea No sooner had Korea gained independence from Japan in 1945 than the country was divided into North Korea and South Korea, the former under Soviet influence and the latter under US influence. In North Korea, the communists, led by a former Soviet Army captain named Kim Il Sung, came to power in 1946, with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea coming 125

Jae Jung Song

into existence in 1948. In South Korea, Syngman Rhee, a US-educated anti-communist, was appointed by the US in 1945 as head of the provisional government and he went on to win the first presidential election of the newly established Republic of Korea in 1948. Relations between North and South Korea grew tense and bellicose, resulting in the Korean War in 1950. Since then, virtually no communication between the two has been possible, except for intermittent high-level governmental dialogues, and infrequent and brief family reunions.

4  Monolingualism in North Korea North Korea does not allow immigrants into the country unlike South Korea (cf. Jeon, this volume). Nor does it allow its citizens to migrate to other countries. North Koreans who have moved to other countries, typically South Korea, are refugees and defectors who escaped North Korea. There are also about 50,000–60,000 North Korean workers abroad but they are closely watched by North Korean government minders (Mendelson 2015). Moreover, the only foreigners allowed into the country are a small number of foreign diplomats, reporters, intrepid travellers, and foreign nationals whom North Korea abducted from Japan and other countries, to teach languages and customs to North Korean secret agents (Guardian, 12 November 2015). These foreigners are totally shielded from the general public and it is thus correct to conclude that North Korea is a completely monolingual country.

5  Education system in North Korea North Korea has traditionally placed more emphasis on secondary education than tertiary education, and more emphasis on preschool and primary education than secondary education. By 1947, North Korea had put comprehensive preschool education in place, and by 1956, it had established compulsory primary education of six years in addition to preschool education (i.e. seven years in total). In 1967, North Korea extended the length of its compulsory education to nine years—the first country to do so in East Asia (Worden 2008: 121). In 1975, North Korea’s compulsory education was further extended to 11 years, one year of preschool education, four years of primary education, six years of secondary education. In 2013, North Korea further increased the length of compulsory education to 12 years, while dividing secondary education into two three-year-long components (Cho 2014: 177–178). North Korea’s current education system is a single track 2-5-3-3 pattern, two years of preschool, five years of primary school, three years of junior high school, and three years of high school. Note that the first year of preschool education is not compulsory.

6  North Korea’s language (education) policy As pointed out in section 1, North Korea’s language (education) policy was shaped by one individual, namely Kim Il Sung, and has since undergone few significant changes. When Kim Il Sung died in 1994, his son Kim Jong Il took over and ruled North Korea until he died in 2011. Unlike his father, Kim Jong Il hardly played a role, except for maintaining the status quo of North Korea’s language education policy. There appeared some official publications that explained Kim Jong Il’s views on language education but they were probably manufactured in order to legitimise his status in the mould of his father (Ko 1999: 268). One needs to ask, however, what kind of role North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong Un, will play in the country’s language education policy. Will he, like his grandfather, set an agenda for language education policy, or will he, like his father, play only a custodian role in conserving Kim Il Sung’s legacy? 126

Language education policy in North Korea

It may perhaps be too early to answer this question but it needs to be raised because, as will be shown section 6.2, there is a major difference between Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un in the way they were put at the helm of the country. Moreover, Kim Jong Un, with a western educational background, is an unknown quantity and he is still very much in the process of consolidating his power. In view of all this, it may be useful to divide North Korea’s language education policy into two periods: (i) language education policy under the first two leaders—from the end of the Korean War in 1953 to the end of Kim Jong Il’s rule in 2011—and (ii) language education policy under the current leader—from 2011 to present.The first period may be characterised by Kim Il Sung-led/inspired language education policy, and its implementation and preservation through to the end of Kim Jong Il’s reign. The second period may be characterised by anticipation of some changes to language education policy, especially in relation to foreign language education, in view of Kim Jong Un’s extended exposure to the West. Indeed, there are already indications that some interesting changes may be in the offing.

6.1  Language education policy under the former leaders As pointed out earlier, Kim Il Sung proclaimed that the goal of education is to train students to become revolutionaries with the ideological and moral qualities of a communist. The ideological and moral qualities of a communist referred to here come directly from Kim Il Sung’s Juche ideology. In other words, what education should do is to inculcate Juche into North Koreans, and this inculcation should also start from very young age, when students are the most receptive or least resistant to what they are taught. The ultimate goal of Juche, in turn, is to perpetuate the Stalinist system under the Kim family’s control in North Korea. Thus, what North Korea’s education aims to do is to imbue North Koreans with absolute allegiance to the Kim dynasty. The efficacy of North Korea’s indoctrination could not be more evident from Cha’s (2012: 9–10) observations: [T]he North Korean people, despite all of their hardship, believe that they are the chosen people. … Even those who defect from the country do so not out of political dissension but because of economic hardship. Nearly nine out of ten defectors today, many of whom settle in South Korea … still self-identify as ‘North Korean’ rather than ‘Korean’ or ‘South Korean’. And 75 percent of them say that they still retain affection for the Great Leader Kim [Il Sung], Dear Leader Kim [Jong Il], and the Great Successor Kim [Jong Un]. Within the domain of education, there is no better place to teach Kim Il Sung’s Juche ideology and loyalty to the Kim family than language education, as language is regarded, within communism, as “a powerful weapon for revolutionary strife and construction” (C. Kim 1991: 242).

6.1.1  Korean language education Soon after World War II, the North Korean government recognised tackling illiteracy as worthy of top priority in its national language education policy. There were 2. 3 million illiterates in North Korea, one quarter of its total population (Choi 2003: 183). Illiteracy would have been an enormous hindrance to the speedy diffusion of communism and Kim Il Sung’s Juche ideology. Indeed “if the rate of literacy could be increased, the regime would be better able to exert control over the population” (Cooper 1989: 26).The policy of the exclusive use of Hangul was adopted as a matter of course, since in compliance with the ethos of communism the use of Hanja ‘Chinese 127

Jae Jung Song

characters’ “was condemned as obsolete and reactionary” (Kaplan and Baldauf 2011: 157). But on a pragmatic level, the North Korean government may have realised that Hanja could only delay or complicate its plan to eliminate the illiteracy problem (but cf. 6.1.3). By early 1946, North Korea started to operate Sengin hakkyo ‘adult schools’ and Hangul hakkyo ‘Korean language schools’ in virtually every village. It is claimed that by the end of 1948 illiteracy completely disappeared in North Korea (Kim 1978: 166). If true, this was indeed a remarkable feat, especially when South Korea had more than 3.1 million illiterates as late as in 1954 (Clarke 1982: 21). In his 1964 directive, Kim Il Sung alluded to the ineradicable connection between the Korean language and Koreanness, highlighting the language as one of the most important defining properties of being Korean. This was subsequently pursued further in the [North] Korean Workers’ Party’s 1973 document on language policy, which stipulated that all language issues should be dealt with by connecting them closely with North Korea’s independence and class struggle. Not surprisingly, Korean language education is thought to lay the foundation for ideological education. Moreover, ideological education can be most efficient if started from young age. All this is clearly manifested in the following quotation from a government language journal: The prerequisite for rearing inheritors of our revolution is improved and strengthened Korean language education. We must train our new generation of communist revolutionaries in order to ensure that the task of accomplishing our Juche revolution be transmitted from one generation to the next. The issue of teaching our children the Korean language well, in both theory and practice, has emerged as a crucial one as we must ensure that they, as the protagonists of the Korean revolution, perform their duties efficiently and carry out revolutionary work and construction. [author’s translation] (Munhwaehaksup 1984: 1) There are six specific goals in Korean language education, as enumerated, in order of importance, in the book Great Leader of Revolution Kim Il Sung’s educational philosophy of genius (Kim 1990: 163): 1 2 3 4 5 6

to arm students with the [North] Korean Workers’ Party’s ideology; to arm students with [Juche] socialism and patriotism; to develop students’ cognitive ability; to develop students’ revolutionary outlook; to nurture students’ ability to carry out socio-political activities; and to develop the national language independently (i.e. in Juche’s style), providing the people’s foundation for developing Korean literature.

The first and second goals pertain to Kim Il Sung’s Juche ideology, and only after these initial goals have been accomplished, can the remaining goals begin to be dealt with. Note that the crux of Juche is idolisation of the Kim leaders, who epitomise the spirit of Juche. The primacy of idolisation of the Kim family, based on Juche, is well reflected in North Korea’s Korean language textbooks. For instance, Kim (1990: 249–250) found in his text analysis of North Korean primary Korean language textbooks that idolisation of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and other Kim family members accounts for 63%, communist morality including love of labour, hostility towards enemies (i.e. South Korea and the US) and the like 21%, and grammar, lexis, comprehension, writing, and other linguistically focused lessons 16%. In terms of number of lessons (a total of 196 lessons), there were 124 lessons on Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, 40 128

Language education policy in North Korea

lessons on communist morality, and 32 Korean language lessons. Moreover, the two leaders’ names were always set in bold Gothic font, and preceded by unique honorific titles, e.g. Grand Marshall and Great Leader. For instance, Lesson 20 in the Year One Korean language textbook concerns the terms of address reserved for Kim Il Sung and Kim Jung Il: We must always address Father Grand Marshall and Great Leader with our warm hearts of loyalty. When we greet Father Grand Marshall and Great Leader, we must respectfully say “We thank you, Admirable Grand Marshall Kim Il Sung”, “We thank you Endearing Great Leader Kim Jong Il”. [author’s translation] The Kim family is the topic of Lesson 26 in the Year Three Korean language textbook: In the living room, there were photographs of a young Admirable Father Grand Marshall, his father Kim Hyung Jik, his mother Kang Pan Suk and other family members. As we were looking at the photographs, we came to understand better that Father Grand Marshall’s family is truly a revolutionary one, many generations of which have sacrificed everything for the Korean revolution. … We left Mankyengday [where the house in which Kim Il Sung was born and raised is preserved as a national museum] with a burning desire to hold Father Grand Marshall in great esteem forever, generation after generation. [author’s translation] Moreover, there are study subjects that deal exclusively with Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and other Kim family members.There are 13 study subjects in total taught at the primary school level, and three of them are devoted to the childhood of Dear Leader Grand Marshall Kim Il Sung, the childhood of Great Leader Kim Jong Il, and the childhood of anti-Japanese heroine Kim Jong Suk, who was Kim Il Sung’s first wife, Kim Jong Il’s mother, and Kim Jong Un’s grandmother.1 There is also one study subject dealing with communist morality (read Juche). These study subjects are on a par with other conventional ones such as Korean, mathematics, science, music, and the like. Thus, nearly one-third of the study subjects at the primary level concern Kim Il Sung’s Juche ideology and idolisation of the Kim family. The situation is not very different at the secondary school level. There are two study subjects that deal exclusively with Kim Il Sung, namely his revolutionary activities and revolutionary history. There are also two study subjects that discuss communist morality and the current [North] Korean Workers’ Party policy.

6.1.2  Foreign language education Initially, foreign language education was not an important item on North Korea’s education agenda. This is understandable, because the focus of education was on communist ideology— through the medium of the national language. Nevertheless, two foreign languages were taught as school subjects until 1950: Russian and English. Russian rapidly emerged as the most important foreign language, because political and military affairs were supervised by Soviet advisers. Moreover, North Korea received a substantial amount of agricultural, industrial, and military technology from the Soviet Union, and North Korean educators may have perceived the practical need to learn Russian, as machinery operating manuals and instructions were written in Russian. English continued to be taught at the secondary level for two or three years after the liberation from Japan but, following the Korean War, it was completely removed from the school curriculum, making Russian the only foreign language taught in secondary schools. This hardly comes as a surprise. English was—and is—the language of the US, North Korea’s archenemy. 129

Jae Jung Song

This state of affairs continued until 1964, when the Central Committee of the North Korean Workers’ Party—probably at the instigation of Kim Il Sung—issued an edict on the promotion of foreign language education. One consequence of this edict was the reinstatement of English in the secondary school curriculum. (Possible reasons for this development will be discussed below.) Thus, from 1964 until 1974, Russian and English were taught on a 50:50 basis, i.e. one half of all students taking Russian and the other half English—regardless of students’ preferences (Daehan Ilbo March 3, 2000). By the mid-1970s, however, English had begun to emerge as the main foreign language in North Korea’s secondary school curriculum (Baik 1994: 127). By 1980, English had undisputedly established itself as the most important and popular foreign language in North Korea—so much so that 80% of North Korean students learned English and only 20% Russian. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, Russian was removed completely from the school curriculum in 1995, with only English taught in secondary schools. Moreover, in 1986 English language education was extended down to Year Four, i.e. the final year of North Korean primary education. (In contrast, it was not until 1997 that South Korea, a staunch ally of the US, introduced English language education into its primary school curriculum (cf. Jeon, this volume).) However, North Korea’s English language education at the primary level was discontinued in 1992, probably because of its economic crisis and a lack of competent teachers (Park et al. 2001: 46). As anticipated by Song (2004: 122–123), English language education was brought back into the second half of North Korea’s primary education (i.e. grade three to grade four) in 2008. It is worth noting that since the 1964 edict of the Central Committee of the North Korean Worker’s Party the importance of foreign language education, especially English language education, had been reiterated by the Great Leader himself on many occasions. For instance, in his 1980 address to a group of North Korean educators, Kim Il Sung reinforced the view that: “[t]he great significance of the strengthening of foreign language education lies in the nation’s development of science and technology” (Kim 1990: 275–276). Reference to foreign language education in Kim Il Sung’s remark is reference to English in particular because, as pointed out earlier, it had by 1980 become the most important foreign language in North Korea. This was indeed a most remarkable change: the language of the archenemy brought back, as it were, from the wilderness, and then promoted as the most important foreign language. There have been reasons for this change. First, the emphasis on English language education seems to have been motivated by North Korea’s need for scientific and technical knowledge. North Korea has traditionally placed strong emphasis on science and technology in its school curriculum—under the influence of the Marxist-Leninist thinking that theory and practice are to be inextricably intertwined in socialist education. Most scientific and technical knowledge, however, originated, and still does, from the US and other English-speaking nations. Kim Il Sung and his cabal may have come to the conclusion that scientific and technical knowledge would be more easily obtained through English than any other language. Second, there was the need on the part of Kim Il Sung and his supporters to propagate Juche. From the 1960s, North Korea sought to participate in the Non-Aligned Nations movement as part of its diplomatic initiative, one objective being to propagate Juche. Such propagation was very important to Kim Il Sung and his supporters because it also gave them an opportunity “to persuade [North Koreans] that their leader was also recognised as world leader, genius, hero and statesman”, thereby “reinforc[ing] the domestic importance of the [leader] cult” (Lone and McCormack 1993: 199). To propagate Juche to the rest of the world, however, would undoubtedly have led Kim Il Sung to realise the role of English in international communication. 130

Language education policy in North Korea

The reinstatement of English in North Korea’s school curriculum may thus seem to have been motivated by pragmatic considerations. But in reality, English is not taught to enable North Koreans to have access to scientific and technological information in English or to explain Juche to foreigners. It is extremely doubtful that foreign materials in English, scientific or otherwise, are freely imported into the country and then made readily available to the general public. In fact, North Koreans, with their radios or TVs pre-set to receive only local broadcasts, cannot even tune in to foreign radio stations or TV channels.The Internet is also out of North Koreans’ reach even if its existence is known to them.2 Moreover, contact between North Koreans and foreigners is strictly prohibited. Foreign visitors are not allowed to travel freely and talk to North Koreans, but, under the watchful eyes of official minders, they must visit only designated places. In North Korea, English is confined largely to English language classrooms. Most North Koreans are exposed to English only through the medium of English language textbooks produced and distributed by the North Korean government. This indeed makes one wonder if the need to learn English in North Korea has been overly exaggerated, insofar as the general public is concerned. In fact, English language education also has been exploited as one of the many conduits for idolising Kim Il Sung and his family, and inculcating Juche into North Korean students. Thus, English language education in the North Korean context places far more emphasis on the content than the form of English language textbooks or materials (Baik 1994: 137). Lessons on grammatical rules, pronunciation, and the like take a backseat to lessons on Kim Il Sung and his family, and Juche. Indeed, the idolisation of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il is the most frequent theme in the secondary level English language textbooks, once at Year One, four times at Year Two, four times at Year Three, five times at Year Four, nine times at Year Five, and three times at Year Six (Park et al. 2001: 74–75). For example, the following extract from a secondary English textbook concerns Kim Il Sung’s ideological instruction and his revolutionary activities (H.-C. Kim 1990: 277): “Have belief in our victory. Grow up fast and quickly. And become excellent workers of our revolution! …” This is a teaching of Marshall Kim Il Sung, the great leader of revolution and the benevolent father of our youth and children. It happened when the main unit led by Marshall Kim Il Sung advanced to Mt. Maan-san. The Marshall met many children there whose parents had been killed by the enemy. Though their lives were saved by guerrillas, they had almost nothing to eat or to wear. Their faces were swollen with hunger.Their clothes were torn to rags and they were shaking with severe cold. At the sight of the children the Marshall felt his heart aching very much. “Come to me! Quick!” the Marshall said. The final lesson in the Year 6 English textbook provides a summary of Kim Jong Il’s treatise on his father’s Juche ideology. An Immortal Classic Treatise of the Dear Leader Mr. Kim Jong Il: The Juche idea is a new philosophical thought which centres on man. As the Leader said, the Juche idea is based on the philosophical principle that man is the master of everything and decides everything. The Juche idea raised the fundamental question of philosophy by regarding man as the main factor, and elucidated the philosophical principle that man is the master of everything and decides everything.That man is the master of everything means that he is the master of the world and of his own destiny; that man decides everything means that he plays the decisive role in transforming the world and in shaping his destiny. The philosophical principle of the Juche idea is 131

Jae Jung Song

the principle of man-centred philosophy which explains man’s position and role in the world. The purpose—or the justification—of English language education in North Korea is manifested most clearly in the following extract from another secondary English textbook: Teacher:

Now close your books everybody. Han Il Nam, how do you spell the word “revolution”? Student A: R-e-v-o-l-u-t-i-o-n Teacher: Very good, thank you. Sit down. Ri Chol Su, what’s the Korean [word] for “revolution”? Student B: hyekmyeng Teacher: Fine, thank you. Have you any questions? Student C: No questions. Teacher: Well, Kim In Su, what do you learn English for? Student D: For our revolution. Teacher: That’s right. It’s true that we learn English for our revolution. One wonders how North Korean students, by means of such ideology-laden textbooks, will ever be able to learn much practical English. In addition to English and Russian, six foreign languages are taught in North Korea: Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, and Spanish. However, these six languages, along with English and Russian, are taught at special foreign language (secondary) schools (Ministry of Unification 2012: 230–231). These special schools operate in major cities and provinces, providing students with intensive courses in foreign languages in addition to the normal six-year secondary curriculum. Admission into these special foreign language schools is not based on academic merit alone. Students must also come from revolutionary families (recognised for revolutionary struggle against colonial Japan) or decorated soldiers’ families (e.g. decorated Korean War veterans). Unfortunately, little is known about the way students at these special schools (are allowed to) choose which foreign languages to study.The second most popular foreign language in North Korea is undoubtedly Chinese, as it has been since the mid-1990s (Ko et al. 2004: 193). North Korea recognised the importance of Chinese in the late 1980s, when China was achieving rapid economic growth. It is not an unreasonable assumption that Chinese may at the moment be far more important, in practical terms, to North Korea than English, because China is by far the biggest of a very small group of North Korea’s trading partners, and probably the only international supporter of North Korea’s regime, as the country is experiencing increasing isolation because of its nuclear weapons programme.

6.1.3.  Hanja ‘Chinese characters’ education By early 1949, North Korea had already begun to place restrictions on the use of Hanja, banning it three or four years later. This is in stark contrast with the situation in South Korea, where the government, under public pressure, changed its position on Hanja more than once (see Jeon, this volume). Subsequently, however, Kim Il Sung had a change of heart, arguing in his 1964/1966 directives that the teaching of Hanja should be resurrected in North Korea’s educational system. His justification for the reinstatement of Hanja was predicated on the belief that the two Koreas would eventually be reunited and mutual intelligibility in writing should be maintained in the event of reunification (Song 2001: 144). At the behest of Kim Il Sung, Chinese characters have 132

Language education policy in North Korea

been taught at the secondary and tertiary levels since 1968 (Choi 2003: 215–217). North Korean students learn more Chinese characters (i.e. 1,500 characters at the secondary level, and 500 or 1,000 additional ones at the technical-college or university level, respectively) than South Korean students (i.e. 1,800 characters in total). Moreover, Hanja is only an elective subject in South Korea, while this is not the case in North Korea (Ministry of Unification 2012: 234).

6.2  Language education under the current leader North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong Un, succeeded his father Kim Jong Il in 2011. Kim Jong Il had been groomed by his father as North Korea’s next leader since before 1980, and he took control of the country in 1994. Moreover, Kim Jong Il never received western education, and his exposure to the West was second-hand at best. In contrast, Kim Jong Un was chosen by his father as the heir apparent only a year before the latter’s death. Moreover, Kim Jong Un received English-medium western education in Switzerland and thus has a first-hand understanding of the world outside North Korea, especially the West. These differences may have a bearing on what Kim Jong Un wants to do. For instance, one of the major projects in which Kim Jong Un showed a great deal of personal interest after his assumption of power—in the midst of the country’s extreme financial hardship—was the development of a luxury ski resort and amusement parks, and one of the few foreigners that he personally invited to North Korea was a former American basketball player—he is known to be obsessed with basketball and computer games. North Korea’s new leader certainly seems to be interested in things that the previous leaders would have regarded as counter-revolutionary or pro-American. Moreover, Kim Jong Un is still in the process of consolidating his power, as evident from his on-going Stalinist purges of political opponents. In view of all this, one may wonder whether he will be able to remain in power, and, assuming that he does, whether he will deal with language education issues. There are reasons to believe that he will (have to) engage in language education policy as much as, if not more than, his own father did. First, Kim Jong Un’s status as the Great Successor has to be taught to North Korean children from a young age. If the Kim family’s rule is to continue, as it has for the last seven decades, North Koreans must be taught to believe that, thanks to the Great Successor’s virtue and benevolence, they are the wealthiest and happiest people in the world, just as they believed in the two previous leaders. Second, Kim Jong Un has first-hand experience with the West through his extended time at international schools in Switzerland. One thing that he must be well aware of is the role of English in international communication, and he will thus be able to recognise the need to emphasise foreign language education, especially English, in North Korea’s school education much more clearly than his predecessors. In 2012—one year after Kim Jong Un assumed the leader’s role—the North Korean government announced an education reform. There are three notable outcomes that have already emerged out of this reform. First, a new study subject on Kim Jong Un’s revolutionary history and activities has been created (Cho 2014: 193, 196–197). Second, as already noted, compulsory education has been increased from 11 to 12 years. The one additional year of compulsory education is really an increase in primary education from four to five years. Prior to Kim Jong Un’s ascension to power, there were already three Kim family members that constitute a study subject each. Now, there is one additional Kim family member to receive the same level of textbook treatment. Moreover, unlike his father, Kim Jong Un was not introduced to the public as the heir apparent over a long period of time, and his status has consequently had little time to establish itself in the minds of North Koreans. Seen in this light, one extra year of compulsory primary education may perhaps be needed quickly to establish Kim Jong Un in the image of his grandfather and father. Third, one of the goals of the 2012 education reform is to provide 133

Jae Jung Song

students with general basic education, with a strong pragmatic emphasis, in conjunction with foreign language education as well as training in information technology and basic technologies, the latter depending on regions’ needs, e.g. mining, fishery, etc. (Cho 2014: 190–191). In particular, Kim Jong Un has highlighted the importance of foreign language education in a number of speeches, averring that the country must strengthen its foreign language education in order to enable North Koreans to learn advanced technology from other countries and to contribute more to improving North Korea’s debilitated economy (Korea Herald, 6 October 2014). North Korea’s Education News reported that the strengthening of foreign language education is “the will of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un” (Korea Herald, 6 October 2014). There have appeared media reports that Kim Jong Un made foreign language education compulsory from the age of four after assuming the leader’s position in 2011 (The Guardian, 12 August, 2015). This has not been verified by academic research and the details of this early foreign language education, if true, are not available. In view of its worsening economic situation, however, it is difficult to imagine that North Korea has the necessary resources to make foreign language education compulsory at the preschool level—South Korea, one of the most affluent countries in the world, does not have compulsory foreign language education at the preschool level. Emphasising the importance of foreign languages in obtaining advanced technology is nothing new, as Kim Il Sung made the same connection as early as in 1980. What is different, though, is that Kim Jong Un has explicitly stated that foreign language education can potentially make a positive contribution to resurrecting North Korea’s economy.

7  North Korea’s language education policy: looking ahead The primary task for the Great Successor Kim Jong Un is to ensure the survival of the Kim family’s “carefully constructed system of control and the prospects for [their] long dynastic rule” (Lone and McCormack 1993: 200–201). Language education, whether national or foreign, has over the last seven decades, been one of the major conduits for idolising North Korea’s first two leaders and inculcating Juche into North Korean students. Kim Jong Un, the third-generation leader from the Kim family, has the urgent need to build the legitimacy of his leadership in the image of his grandfather and father, just as Kim Jong Il did in the image of his father, while conserving his predecessors’ demigod status at the same time.What this entails is that even more ‘space’ will have to be created within North Korea’s school curriculum to accommodate the idolisation of Kim Jong Un as well. Not unexpectedly, Korean and English language textbooks will—if they already do not—have lessons not only on Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s wisdom and benevolence but also on Kim Jong Un’s. On a number of occasions, Kim Il Sung spoke of the connection between foreign language education and North Korea’s development in science and technology. Four decades later, his grandson Kim Jong Un is constructing the same narrative, albeit also emphasising the role of foreign language education in resuscitating North Korea’s economy. Unlike the two former leaders, Kim Jong Un received English-medium western education. Thus, he must be a reasonably good speaker of English and may thus be fully aware of the importance of practical, as opposed to ideology-laden, English in science and technology, and economic growth. Does this entail that North Korea, under Kim Jong Un’s leadership, will abandon ideology-laden English language education in favour of practical English language education? Probably not, because practical English language education would inevitably allow North Koreans to learn about the capitalistic value systems and cultures of English-speaking countries, and it would thus be out of sync with the rest of the curriculum. Practical English language education—or, generally, foreign language education—cannot be carried out without exposing learners to cultural, eco134

Language education policy in North Korea

nomic, political, and social contexts in which the language is used. This could threaten, indeed jeopardise, North Korea’s ideological foundation. For this reason alone, North Korea will retain ideology-laden English language education as long as it can. What is more likely to happen is that, while maintaining the status quo of ideology-laden English language education in the mainstream school curriculum, North Korea will confine practical English language education to special foreign language schools. These special schools have been established for students selected to learn important foreign languages. The English language curriculum in these special schools may thus be radically reformed so that students can learn practical English and also have access to accurate, unbiased descriptions of English-speaking peoples and their cultures. The potential conflict between reformed English-language education and the rest of the ideologyladen curriculum may not be a serious problem for the regime as long as only a carefully chosen few with absolute faith in Juche and a demonstrated sense of loyalty to the Kim family are admitted into the special schools, and also provided that their allegiance to the regime is closely monitored. For the foreseeable future, two-tiered English language education may be the only option for North Korea.

Notes 1 The focus on the childhood of the Kim family is intended to create the impression that they were extraordinary people even when they were children. 2 North Korea has a domestic-only computer network with no internet access. Internet access is strictly controlled and available only to a small group of government officials and foreigners. Cell phones are available for domestic calls only but illegal cell phones with international coverage have been smuggled from China into North Korea, especially China–North Korea border regions.

References Baik, J. M. (1994). Language, ideology, and power: English textbooks of two Koreas. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Baik, J. M., & Shim, R. J. (1995). Language, culture, and ideology in the English textbooks of two Koreas. In M. L. Tickoo (Ed.), Language and culture in multilingual societies: Viewpoints and visions (pp. 122–138). Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. Cha,V. (2012). The impossible state: North Korea, past and future. New York: HarperCollins. Cho, J.-A. (2014). Kimcengunsitay pwukhan kyoyukcengchayk panghyangkwa cwungtungkyoyukkwaceng kayphen [Kim Jong Un and North Korea’s education policy directions and secondary school curriculum reform]. Thongilcengchaykyenkwu, 23(2), 177–206. Choi,Y.-K. (2003). Nampwukhan kwuke cengchayk pyenchensa yenkwu [A study of the history of North and South Korea’s language policy]. Seoul: Pagijong. Clarke, H. D. B. (1982). Linguistics and language policies of North and South Korea. Korea Journal, 22(1), 20–23. Cooper, R. L. (1989). Language planning and social change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cumings, B. (1990). The two Koreas: On the road to reunification? New York: Foreign Policy Association. Daehan Ilbo. (March 3, 2000). Pwukhanui oikwuke hanca kyoyuk [Foreign language and Chinese characters education in North Korea]. Guardian. (August 12, 2015). Why North Koreans are developing an appetite for foreign languages? Guardian. (November 12, 2015). North Korea systematically abducted foreign citizens, Japanese paper claims. Hirataka, F. (1992). Language-spread policy of Japan. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 95, 93–108. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. B. (2011). North Korea’s language revision and some unforeseen consequences. In J. A. Fishman & O. García (Eds.), Handbook of language and ethnic identity (pp. 153–167). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kim, C.-W. (1978). Linguistics and language policies in North Korea. Korean Studies, 2, 159–175.

135

Jae Jung Song Kim, C.-W. (1991). Korean as a pluricentric language. In M. Clyne (Ed.), Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations (pp. 239–260). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kim, H. C. (1990). Cwungtung kyoyuk [Secondary education]. In H. C. Kim (Ed.), Pwukhanui kyoyuk [Education in North Korea]. Seoul: Ulyumwunhwasa. Kim, I. S. (1977). Theses on socialist education. In Kim Il Sung: Selected works, vol. 7 (1979). Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House. Ko, Y.-K. (1999). Pwukhanui enemwunhwa [North Korea’s language culture]. Seoul: Seoul National University Press. Ko, Y.-K., Ku, P. K., Si, J. K., & Yoon, J. H. (2004). Pwukhanui mwunpepyenkwuwa mwunpepkyoyuk [North Korea’s grammar research and grammar education]. Seoul: Pagijong. Korea Herald. (October 6, 2014). N. K. stresses foreign language education. Lee, G. (2003). The political philosophy of Juche. Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, 3(1), 105–112. Lee, P.,Yang, H.-K., & Kwon, O.-H. (2005). Pwukhan yengekyoyukui silsang [The current state of English education in North Korea]. Foreign Language Education, 12(4), 267–297. Lone, S., & McCormack, G. (1993). Korea: Since 1850. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. Mendelson, S. E. (2015). Outsourcing oppression: Trafficked labor from North Korea. Foreign Affairs. Retrieved from https://www. forei​gnaff​airs.​com/a​rticl​es/no​rth-k​orea/​2015-​05-28​/outs​ourci​ngop​press​ion. Ministry of Unification. (2012). Understanding North Korea. Seoul: Ministry of Unification. Park,Y., Park, K. H., Kim, J. C., Ko, K. S., & Jeong, K. J. (2001). Pwukhan yenge kyokwase pwunsek [An analysis of North Korea’s English textbooks]. Seoul: Hankwuk Mwunhwasa. Rhee, M. J. (1992). Language planning in Korea under the Japanese colonial administration, 1910–1945. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 5, 87–97. Scalapino, R. A., & Lee, C.-S. (1972). Communism in Korea – Part II: The society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Song, J. J. (2001). North and South Korea: Language policies of divergence and convergence. In N. Gottlieb & P. Chen (Eds.), Language planning and language policy: East Asian perspectives (pp. 205–212). London: Curzon Press. Song, J. J. (2004). English language teaching in North Korea: Pragmatism meets ideology (but not vice versa). In P. Lee & H. Azman (Eds.), Global English and primary schools: Challenges for elementary education (pp. 115–128). Melbourne: CAE Press. Song, J. J. (2005). The Korean language: Structure, use and context. London: Routledge. Worden, R. L. (Ed.) (2008). North Korea: A country study.Washington DC: US Government Printing Office.

Further reading Baik, J. M., & Shim, R. J. (1995). Language, culture, and ideology in the English textbooks of two Koreas. In M. L. Tickoo (Ed.), Language and culture in multilingual societies: Viewpoints and visions. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. B. (2011). North Korea’s language revision and some unforeseen consequences. In J. A. Fishman & O. García (Eds.), Handbook of language and ethnic identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ko,Y.-K. (1999). Pwukhan-ui enemwunhwa [North Korea’s language culture]. Seoul: Seoul National University Press. Ko, Y.-K., Ku, P. K., Si, J. K., & Yoon, J. H. (2004). Pwukhanui mwunpepyenkwuwa mwunpepkyoyuk [North Korea’s grammar research and grammar education]. Seoul: Pagijong. Song, J. J. (2015). Language policies in North and South Korea. In L. Brown & J.Yeon (Eds.), The handbook of Korean linguistics. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

136

10 MONGOLIA Language education policy Phillip Marzluf and Myagmar Saruul-Erdene

1  Language background Although this country profile focuses on the language education policies that have circulated within the modern, national borders of Mongolia, examples of language policies are addressed occasionally to indicate larger, transnational, historical, and imagined ideas of Mongolia, which, in the 13th and 14th centuries, included the massive Mongol Empire established by Chinggis Khan and the imperial state that immediately followed, the Yuan Dynasty centered in Beijing. Beginning in the 16th century, Tibetan Buddhism as well as Tibetan cultural and intellectual traditions became extremely authoritative, and from 1691 to 1911, Mongolia was absorbed as a colony into the Qing (Manchu) empire. The lay terms for referring to Mongolia, ‘Outer’ and ‘Inner’, come from this period of Manchu colonization: ‘Outer’ Mongolia refers to northern Mongolia, the focus of this chapter, whereas ‘Inner’ Mongolia refers to the ancestral Mongolian lands that now fall within northern China. For much of the 20th century, Mongolia was a quasiindependent satellite of the Soviet Union ruled by the authoritarian communist Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party. After the collapse of Soviet support in 1990, democratic and freemarket reforms were instituted. This historical sketch demonstrates that Mongolia has been a contested space, fought over by Mongolian elites as well as by external forces, such as the Tibetan Buddhist church, Manchu leadership, and the Soviet Union. Mongolians have thus experienced flows of political power, religions, cultures, languages, scripts, and explicit and implicit language policies. As the most significant member of the Mongolic language family, Mongolian—or,‘Common Mongolian’—is the dominant language of Mongolia. It includes several dialects or languages, although attempts to classify these varieties of language have been contentious and inconsistent (Binnick, 1987; Janhunen, 2012). One of the earliest statements about languages and dialects in Mongolia occurs in the 13th-century Secret history of the Mongols, in which a challenger to Chinggis Khan is described as collaborating with “people of nine tongues” (Möömöö and Mönkh-Amgalan, 1984: 12; Rachewiltz, 2006: 878); in this case, these ‘tongues’—either languages or dialects—are recognized as having important identity-related and political consequences. In the 20th century, the attempts to classify Mongolian language varieties differed significantly. Soviet and Western scholars came to different conclusions about how to categorize these dialects, the former basing their taxonomy on whether the dialect included vowel 137

Phillip Marzluf and Myagmar Saruul-Erdene

harmony (e.g. Khalkha, Buriat) and the latter along a geographical axis of northern/eastern (e.g. Khalkha, Buriat), western (e.g. Oirat, Kalmuck), and isolated dialects (Binnick, 1987: 179–180). Janhunen (2012: 5) notes that Mongolian scholars have a tendency to group these dialects together as one language, while Western and Russian linguists prefer to consider these varieties as distinct languages. A socialist-era Mongolian source divides Common Mongolian into four dialect families (Möömöö and Mönkh-Amgalan, 1984: 162), whereas a contemporary linguistic account divides Common Mongolian into six dialects (Janhunen, 2012: 5); although Janhunen (2012: 5–6) doubts whether Common Mongolian dialects that are “separated by a physical distance” may be mutually intelligible, in Mongolia itself speakers of different dialects have little trouble communicating with each other. Khalkha Mongolian is the dominant dialect in Mongolia. It is spoken by the majority Khalkha Mongolian ethnic group, which constitutes 82% of the population (Mongolian National Statistical Office, 2010). The prestigious Khalkha dialect spoken in Ulaanbaatar, the major Mongolian-speaking urban center (Janhunen, 2012: 9–10), moreover, is responsible for a great deal of linguistic innovation. In addition to Khalkha, 21 Mongolian-ethnic minority groups, with their respective dialects, exist. The majority of these speakers live in far western Mongolia and identify with ethnic groups, such as the Dorvod (2.8% of the 2010 population) and Bayad (2.2%), that compose the larger Oirat Mongolian ethnic group and language community. Other Mongolian ethnic minority groups exist, including the Buriat (1.7% of the 2010 population) and speakers of Inner Mongolian dialects (Mongolian National Statistical Office, 2010). Several dialects are also undergoing khalkhization—becoming more like the central Khalkha dialect (Möömöö and Mönkh-Amgalan, 1984: 16, 159)—or disappearing altogether (Janhunen, 2012: 14). A written form of Mongolian, Mongol Bichig, has existed since the end of the 12th century (Sanzheyev, 1988: 12), and the earliest textual evidence of it is found on the 1224 Chinggis Stone (Nadmid, 1967: 32). Adapted from the Uighur alphabet, Mongol Bichig persists to this day despite several attempts to reform it or replace it with other state-mandated alphabets, including the ‘Phags-pa Script (also known as Dörvöljin Bichig, or ‘Square Script’) mandated by Khubilai Khan for the administration of the Yuan Empire, alphabets crafted for Oirat and Buriat purposes, and, in the 20th century, Latin and Cyrillic. In 1941, communist Revolutionary Party leaders proclaimed the adoption of Cyrillic as the official script and fixed, therefore, the Khalkha dialect as the literary language of the modern Mongolian state (Möömöö and Mönkh-Amgalan, 1984: 91). After the collapse of the socialist state, Mongol Bichig has been revived for cultural and ceremonial purposes (Grivelet, 2001), and it is still the official script of Inner Mongolians in China. The Kazakhs, the largest non-Mongolian minority group, speak a Turkish-based language and live predominantly in the far western aimags (provinces). The Kazakhs began migrating to Mongolia in the 19th century; in 1924, census data reported 1,870 Kazakh households in Mongolia (Diener, 2009: 99); by 1989, the Kazakh population reached 120,500 people (Barcus and Werner, 2010: 212–213), 78% of whom lived in the far western Bayan Ölgii aimag. During the socialist period, Kazakh was regarded as the most important minority language, and Kazakh was taught as the first language for public school students of this ethnic group. Although the Kazakh ethnic group once represented close to 6% of the Mongolian national population, the number of speakers has significantly decreased because of emigration to Kazakhstan after the lifting of Soviet travel restrictions in 1990 (Barcus and Werner, 2010: 211). One final nonMongolian language is Tuvan, a Turkic language that predates Mongolian in western Mongolia (Janhunen, 2012: 14). It is spoken by increasingly small speech communities in north-western Mongolia and threatened by majority Khalkha dialects (Janhunen, 2012:14). 138

Mongolia

Other languages that have played a significant cultural and political role in Mongolia have been Chinese and Manchu, during the colonial Qing empire, and Tibetan, beginning with the formation of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition in Mongolia in the 16th century. Although Manchu and Chinese were important administrative languages in the Qing empire, they had little impact upon Mongolian and language policies in the 20th century, beyond the fact that Mongolian includes a small percentage of Chinese loan words. Tibetan, unlike Chinese, became such a dominant language and script in the Buddhist monasteries, that, according to Kara (2005: 180), it detracted from the Mongolian literacy of Buddhist lamas, who may have ended up using the Tibetan script to write down notes in Mongolian. As the following section will show, the Revolutionary Party dramatically reduced the cultural power of Tibetan and the Buddhist Church through the use of literacy programs and language policies as well as, in the late 1930s, state-mandated violence. Russian and English have been two dominant second languages in the 20th and 21st centuries. During the socialist period, Russian was a vital language for political discourse and social mobility. Many Mongolians studied in the Soviet Union at the post-secondary level, and many Russian teachers were invited to Mongolian schools to teach content areas, in which they might by paired with a ‘translation teacher’, a Mongolian native speaker who would translate the lecture from Russian. Ginsburg (1999: 258) reports that “tens of thousands of Soviet workers and troops” were present in Mongolia in the 1970s. Beginning in the 1960s, national education policy dictated that Russian was taught as a second language beginning in the fourth grade and, for general public schools, two to four lesson periods per week. Elite Mongolians, furthermore, went to Russian-language schools in Mongolia and studied in Soviet postsecondary institutions outside of Mongolia. As one researcher commented, to appear ‘literate’ in socialist Mongolian meant being fluent in Russian as well as in Mongolian (Cohen, 2005: 204). Mongolian absorbed many loan words from Russian during this period, including the jargon of ‘modernization’ from the Soviet Union (Kara, 2005: 185). After 1990, English quickly transplanted Russian as the dominant second language.This drastic transformation was caused by several forces, including the influence of aid and development organizations that replaced the Soviet Union in supporting the educational sector, national policies to secure the recognition of ‘Third Neighbors’ beyond China and Russia, and individuals’ interests in global trade and culture as well as multinational mobility. The governmental investment in English became so intense that, in the early 2000s, there were active discussions in making English an official second language. Recent foreign language education policies, adopted in 2015, however, may curb English instruction in the public schools. Foreign language instruction cannot start before fifth grade; moreover, at ninth grade, students are also required to take Russian classes. Table 10.1 shows the number of classes per year in Mongolian, Mongol Table 10.1 Class per year in Mongolian (Ministry of Education 2015b) Primary Education (Grades 1–6)

Lower Secondary (Grades 7–9)

Upper Secondary (Grades 10–12)

Grade

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

Student age Mongolian language Mongol Bichig English Russian

6 224

7 224

8 238

9 238

10 238

11 105 70 105

12 70 70 105 70

13 70 70 105 70

14 70 70 105 105

15 140*

16 140

17 140

105

105

105

68

*At the Upper Secondary Level, Mongolian language and literature classes are combined.

139

Phillip Marzluf and Myagmar Saruul-Erdene

Bichig, and the required foreign languages for the new 12-year general education system, which was in effect starting the 2014–2015 school year.

2  Pre-modern and modern Mongolian language education policy Before the establishment of the Mongolian People’s Republic in 1924, language education policies reflected the administrative needs and ideologies of the several khanates, foreign empires, and religious institutions that flowed through this geographical space. Literacy origins stories mark the advent of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century, narrating how Chinggis Khan and his leaders recognized the potential of literacy. For example, after a victorious battle against the Naiman, a powerful foe in far western Mongolia, Chinggis Khan’s generals captured Tatatunga, a Uighur scribe and administrator serving the Naiman khan. What interested the Mongolian generals was the administrative seal (tamga) that Tatatunga clutched to his chest and which enabled him to carry out the orders of the Naiman leadership. According to several variations of this legend, Chinggis Khan bestowed Tatatunga with the title of ‘teacher’ (bagshi) and ordered him to teach the Uighur script to the children of the Mongolian leadership (Khorloo, 2012: 18–19; Nadmid, 1967: 24). Although Soviet and Mongolian scholars have disputed the veracity of these literacy origins stories (e.g. Nadmid, 1967: 16–17), the ideology that underwrites these legends and stories is clear: the resources of literacy were of vital interest to Mongolian leadership, in particular the ways in which literacy could enable the administration of nonMongolian groups. Chinggis Khan’s successor, Ögedei, established a school for elite sons and daughters to learn Chinese (Khorloo, 2012: 8–9). Khubilai Khan, moreover, in 1269, decreed the ‘Phags-pa Script the universal script to unite all of the various languages of the Yuan Empire— Mongolian, Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Turkish—and established a school. In the following years, Khubilai called for the use of the ‘Phags-pa Script for all religious and official state business (Nadmid, 1967: 52–54). Despite this official sponsorship, the ‘Phags-pa Script rarely spread beyond ceremonial uses and did not survive the dissolution of the Yuan Empire in the following century. From the late 17th century to the first ten years of the 20th century, the Manchu leadership of the Qing empire sponsored sporadic policies to develop the Mongolian, Manchu, and Chinese language and literacy repertoires of Mongolian elites (Sharkhüü, 1965). The influential Mongolian scholar, Rinchen (1964), proposed a three-part educational taxonomy that reflected the official and implicit language policies of the Manchu: scribal schools, which taught mainly Manchu, enabling Mongolians to work for the colonial administration; Buddhist monastery schools, in which Tibetan represented the language of liturgy; and ‘home schools’, in which Mongol Bichig was passed on from older literate males to younger learners as a form of cultural heritage (see Marzluf, 2015a). According to Rinchen (1964: 29–31), resistance by Mongolians limited the authority of the official scribal schools. Manchu policies, moreover, which attempted to isolate Mongolia from too much Chinese influence, limited the role of the Chinese language. For example, at the beginning of the 19th century, the Qing Ministry for Administering the Outer Mongolian State prohibited Mongolian nobles from giving their children Chinese names; later, a Manchu 1876 decree prohibited Mongolians from using the Chinese script (Laikhansüren, 2015). Towards the end of the Qing empire, however, there were movements to reform the Mongolian education system and establish Manchu and Chinese script schools (Sharkhüü, 1965: 4); by that point, the Manchu rulers were indistinguishable from the Han Chinese. The Buddhist Church was undoubtedly the dominant literacy institution of pre-modern Mongolia, as it suppressed (and in turn was shaped by) local shamanist faiths, which rejected 140

Mongolia

the textual transmission of their belief systems and practices (Heissig, 1980: 2). Additionally, the Buddhist Church sponsored large-scale translation projects of sacred Tibetan texts into Mongolian, which required the development of translation schools and orthography textbooks (Heissig, 1980: 30–31); finally, Buddhist leaders and intellectuals devised new scripts and attempted to reform Mongol Bichig (Taupier, 2015). In short, Mongolians came into contact with many languages and scripts because of the ideological, administrative, and religious interests of, oftentimes, powerful entities in distant centers. Language education policies encouraging multiple languages and scripts was the norm, in particular for elite Mongolians. After the dissolution of the Qing empire, the Ministry of the Interior of the semi-independent Mongolian government established multiple literacy schools for elite children between the ages of ten and 20 (Jigmedsüren and Baljirgarmaa, 1966: 7–9). Although resolutions called for literacy classes in Manchu, Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian, in practice, the vast majority of classes were in Mongolian and Russian, the latter taught by Russian Buriat educators. Beginning in 1915, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs invited the first British teacher to Mongolia to teach English (Jigmedsüren and Baljirgarmaa, 1966: 124–125). However, as several historians have commented, the government education policies directly before the 1921 communist revolution largely replicated those of the previous Qing colonial administration.

3  Socialist language education policy The official creation of the socialist Mongolian People’s Republic and the consolidation of political power by the communist Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party radically changed language education policy in the 20th century. Mongolia became, in part, a modern state because of language education policy, which made literacy resources more accessible to women and non-elites and, in the second half of the 20th century, made Russian language instruction a necessity for Mongolian students. Similar to their pre-revolutionary colonial precedents, though, the language education policy of the Revolutionary Party was highly authoritarian and unilateral. Furthermore, it is still debated whether these educational policies reflected local Mongolian interests or whether they were put in place to appease the ideological interests of the Soviet Union. The key national ideological conflict was that between the Revolutionary Party and the Buddhist Church over which institution would dominate as the economic, cultural, educational, and health sponsor for the Mongolian population. In the first 30 years of the socialist state, the language education policies of the Revolutionary Party can be summarized in the following ways: •• •• •• ••

resolutions that called for the mobilization of literacy instruction for adults; government plans to establish and formalize a mass public school system, one that closely followed a Soviet model and a centralized curriculum; decrees restricting the use of Tibetan for educational and religious purposes in Buddhist monasteries; legislation to adopt Cyrillic as the official script.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Ministry of Education, the government, and the Revolutionary Party passed resolutions to sponsor the international education of select children in Soviet Russia, Germany, and France; invite Soviet teachers to teach content-area classes; develop Mongolian language and literacy curricula; establish schools in Ulaanbaatar and the countryside (Shagdar, 2003: 36–38); and, in step with the script reform policies of the Central Asian Soviet Republics, develop the Latin alphabet for the purposes of 141

Phillip Marzluf and Myagmar Saruul-Erdene

standardizing Mongolian (Grivelet, 1997). For adult learners, the military-like metaphors and practices of ‘literacy campaigns’ were imported from the Soviet Union, including, for example, the Illiteracy Eradication Union, formed in 1929, as well as learning cells, literacy circles, committees, councils, reading rooms, and propaganda-centered ‘red gers’ and ‘red corners.’ These various strategies persisted throughout the 1950s and 1960s, during other phases of the ‘cultural campaigns’, in which Cyrillic literacy instruction to adult, countryside workers was connected to national goals, such as health, hygiene, and ideology (Tsenddoo, 2007; Tsetsentsolmon, 2014). The language education policies promulgated by the Revolutionary Party during the first half of the 1930s exemplified how language instruction and literacy can get directly involved in the serious and violent conflicts between institutions and groups vying for economic and cultural power. During the early 1930s, the Revolutionary Party legislated several policies to limit the cultural influence of the Buddhist Church and blunt its influence. Examples of policies that directly affected language and literacy were reduced taxes for Buddhist lamas who became literate in Mongolian (Bawden, 1968: 361) as well as decrees that all new church codes had to be written and all religious services had to be conducted in Mongolian (Bawden, 1968: 365). Similar to the other literacy campaigns for adult workers, Bawden (1968: 368) reports that 160 literacy circles with a total of 8,000 students had been established for Buddhist lamas. The Revolutionary Party sponsored a newspaper written in Mongol Bichig for lamas and also held a Saturday discussion meeting for them (Bawden, 1968: 368). Another non-violent strategy was to use the Tibetan script as a way to teach Mongolian (Kapiŝovská, 2005: 58). The sudden 1941 decision to adopt Cyrillic as the official script, after several sporadic attempts to adopt the Latin alphabet, was the single most significant language education policy in the 20th century. It was a decision made by the central leaders of the Revolutionary Party, who rationalized the adoption of Cyrillic on the basis of orthographic deficiencies in Mongol Bichig and Latin as well as on the close relationship with the Soviet Union. It rendered Buddhist intellectuals ‘illiterate’—as they would no longer have a privileged access to the literacy of the state administration—and further distanced non-elite Mongolians from the cultural influence of the Buddhist Church, completing the violent anti-religious purges in the late 1930s (Kaplonski, 2014) with a non-violent yet ideologically driven linguistic and ‘modern’ solution (Morozova, 2009). These language policies also had profound effects upon the interaction of Mongolians with other ethnic Mongolians in Russia and China. Russian Buriats, similarly, adopted a Cyrillic script, yet based it on a dialect distant from Khalkha (Janhunen, 2012: 6). Chinese Inner Mongolians still used Mongol Bichig, despite experiments with Cyrillic in the late 1950s (Kara, 2005: 188). For the Turkic-speaking Mongolian ethnic groups, the Constitution of the Mongolian People’s Republic assured them the right to “develop national culture and to study and conduct correspondence in the native language” (qtd. in Sanders, 1987: 44), a policy which was consistent with those of the Soviet Central Asian Republics, where officially recognized ethnic groups had the right to an education in their mother tongue (Ferrando, 2012: 257). In the late 1930s, the socialist government became far more active in integrating the Kazakh Mongolians within the socialist state and the ‘internationalism’ of the Soviet Union (Brown and Onon, 1976: 343). The traditional Kazakh script underwent similar transformations as Mongolian, shifting from the traditional Arabic script to, briefly, Latin, and then Cyrillic (Sanders, 1987: 46); in 1942, the Kazakh Mongolians were officially compelled to adopt Cyrillic and to import textbooks from Soviet Kazakhstan (Shagdar, 2003: 49). For the Mongolian-speaking ethnic minorities, though, beyond scholarly linguistic interest (Möömöö and Mönkh-Amgalan, 1984), there is no evidence from a policy standpoint of attempts to protect these non-Khalkha dialects and 142

Mongolia

make them a part of the official school curriculum. In fact, whereas such superficial cultural differences as dress and music were used to make Mongolian ethnic diversity visible (Pedersen, 2011: 188; Sanders, 1987: 45), government policies advocated inter-ethnic solidarity (Bulag, 1998; Pedersen, 2011: 55–56). In Mongolia itself, these non-Khalkha Mongolian dialects were not officially classified as separate languages from Khalkha Mongolian and, therefore, were not afforded protection from the socialist state (Jargalsaikhan, 2015: 5). During the second half of the 20th century, Russian dominated foreign language instruction in Mongolia. In fact, the high level of Russian competence among elite and non-elite Mongolians bestowed upon them an important insider advantage within the Soviet world (Steiner-Khamsi and Stolpe, 2006). Several Revolutionary Party resolutions loudly proclaimed the importance of the Russian language and the development of Russian language teachers. Beginning in 1961, Russian was taught as a foreign language starting in the fourth grade in the ten-year, Soviet-styled education system; in that same year, the first Russian language faculty was established at the college level (Shagdar, 2003: 87). Russian continued to expand as an institution in the 1980s with the establishment of a higher-level language school to develop Russian language teachers (Sanders, 1987: 131; Shagdar, 2003: 86), from which 1600 teachers graduated (Tseyeregzen, 2006). Furthermore, approximately 50,000 Mongolians studied Russian and other subjects in the Soviet Union (Tseyeregzen, 2006: 60). Yet, despite this linguistic infrastructural development, leaders in the socialist government continued to express their concern about the lack of properly trained Russian teachers. As part of the Education Law of 1982, it was declared that Russian would be taught starting at the Kindergarten level; furthermore, the study of Russian was officially proclaimed as important for both education and national development (Sanders, 1987: 130–131). Lost in all the attention and official support given to Russian language instruction, far less is known about the instruction of other foreign languages in the socialist period. Though Russian was the sole language offered at the primary and secondary level, post-secondary foreign language programs such as those at the Mongolian State University offered classes sporadically in English (since 1956), Chinese (since 1957), French (since 1963), German (since 1968), and Japanese (since 1975) (Mongolian State University, n.d.). Post-secondary students hoping to develop their language skills in these languages studied in the Soviet Union or in Eastern Europe. Chinese language instruction was more controversial. Despite the fact that a small postsecondary language program opened in the 1950s, reflecting the positive economic and political relationships between the two socialist nations at that time (Rupen, 1964: 272–274), the socialist Mongolian government, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, crafted an anti-Chinese message and stoked many Mongolians’ historical fears and anxieties about China; at this time, intellectuals who were researching Chinese-related language and cultural topics were held under official suspicion (Jargalsaikhan, 2015: 9). Finally, instruction in Tibetan was officially allowed by the socialist government at the Gandantegchinlen Monastery in Ulaanbaatar, the sole remaining active Buddhist institution, where a college was established in 1970.

4  Post-socialist language education policy After the 1990 democratic and free-market reforms in Mongolia, in which the Revolutionary Party surrendered its monopoly over the political process, Mongolian was affirmed, in Article 8 of the new 1992 Constitution, and then re-affirmed in 2003, as the official language; this official language status, however, “shall not affect the right of national minorities of other tongues to use their native languages in education and communication and in the pursuit of cultural, artistic and scientific activities” (State Great Khural, 1992). Throughout the first two decades of 143

Phillip Marzluf and Myagmar Saruul-Erdene

post-socialist Mongolia, language education policies and institutional practices have navigated the educational reorientation from the Soviet Union to Western policies and practices (SteinerKhamsi and Stolpe, 2006), the dramatic rise of English instruction as well as the Latin script, and a revival of interest in the traditional Mongol Bichig script. Language education policies have focused on the dramatic rise of English as a foreign/second language and the demise of the status of Russian and Russian language teaching. Although English was taught for highly specialized purposes at the post-secondary level in the socialist period (Altan-Od and Khongorzul, 2006), English instruction quickly spread to all levels in post-socialist Mongolia, supported by many international aid, development, and religious organizations, including the United Nations, British Overseas Development Agency, Volunteer Service Organization, and Peace Corps (Altan-Od and Khongorzul, 2006). Private foreign language schools, specializing primarily in English as well as in Korean and Japanese, have also altered the landscape of foreign language instruction. The dominance of English as a foreign language has had several consequences for national language policy. In addition to the consideration of making English an official second language, the dominance of English has helped form the government’s laissez faire attitude towards the instruction of other foreign languages. Despite the government’s geopolitical policy of establishing strong trading and political ties with ‘Third Neighbors’, its national language education policy beyond that of English has not been strongly guided by these goals. Another consequence is that the interest in English in tandem with new communication technologies have stimulated the use and visibility of the Latin script, rekindling discussions about how to standardize the Latin alphabet for Mongolian that have not been held since the official adoption of Cyrillic 1941. Resolutions have examined the role of Latin and the ways in which it can coexist with Cyrillic; that being said, some Mongolians feared that Latinization would make the Mongolian alphabet too similar to Chinese pin yin (Ginsburg, 1999: 254). The National Academy for Language Policy was established in 2006 to discuss these issues of script usage. In addition to English language education and Latin script policy, legislation related to reviving Mongol Bichig has demonstrated the official investment in using language to shape contemporary Mongolian identities. Early resolutions, in 1990 and 1994, called for the revival of Mongol Bichig in the school system. Resolution #43, for example, was implemented in 1995, which made Mongol Bichig the first script and, therefore, the basis of general education for all students (Zegiimaa, 2006). This scriptal policy, however, was highly unpopular, and Cyrillic Mongolian quickly returned as the first script for instruction with Mongol Bichig taught in later grades for purposes of cultural enrichment. Additional status planning legislation in the early 1990s attempted to compel publishers of print media to use Mongol Bichig, though these efforts were not enforced (Grivelet, 2001: 88). More recently, the National Library of Mongolia has sponsored Mongol Bichig writing contests and exhibitions, and Mongol Bichig calligraphy has been recognized as an ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding’ (UNESCO, 2013). Despite these status and prestige planning activities, Grivelet’s (2001: 91) claim made a decade after the 1990 economic and political reforms is still accurate: Mongolians are satisfied with the highly restricted and ceremonial use of Mongol Bichig and do not have an appetite for expanding its role. In this ceremonial role, Mongol Bichig helps the post-socialist state shape a new nationalist identity centered around Chinggis Khan and other symbols from the reconstructed distant past. It is fitting, therefore, that the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (2015b: 24) refers to Mongol Bichig officially as the ‘national script’ (ündesnii bichig), defining its instructional purpose as a strategy to endow students with a ‘national consciousness’ and to stimulate not only pride for this traditional script but a desire to protect and develop it. 144

Mongolia

5  Current language education policies 5.1  Debates about English as an official language In the first two decades of the 21st century, government and non-government stakeholders, as well as educators and public intellectuals, have debated the merits of making English the official second language of Mongolia. With the support of most of the educational institutions, the Mongolian legislators in 2005 proposed a resolution making English mandatory for all students (Jargalsaikhan, 2011). One influential public intellectual, D. Jargalsaikhan (2011), further promoted the policy of making English an official language. Basing his argument on the examples of such countries as Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Singapore, he correlated English language learning strongly with educational and economic advantages:“If your children speak, understand and think in English, they will change. That is because the content of books and other sources in English is rich with many choices. If one can fluently speak, write and translate in Mongolian and English, they will always have a job with a good salary.” Although many language policy and literacy studies scholars might challenge such a strong connection between English and success, Jargalsaikhan’s faith in English is representative of many Mongolians’ beliefs: English is a global language that makes ‘change’—especially in terms of mobility and access—possible. Although it did not specifically endorse an official status for English, the United Nationssponsored Millennium Development Goals, endorsed in 2008 by the Mongolian Parliament, shaped language policy for several years. In addition to improving the ‘public teaching of Mongolian language and script’, a goal primarily focused on the development of Mongol Bichig instruction, two English language objectives were included: •• ••

“Ensure that English become the lead publicly-taught foreign language by 2015” (State Great Khural, 2008). “Improve the quality of English language teaching by 2015 and ensure that possessors of higher education be able to use professional information and data in English. Ensure that the civil service be competent to function in English by 2021” (State Great Khural, 2008).

As the following section demonstrates, English has undoubtedly become the most important foreign language, although such direct links of English to government employees is now no longer emphasized. Indeed, the once popular proclamations to make English an official language have been replaced by anxiety over the standards of contemporary Mongolian. For example, several researchers have identified non-standard spellings, pluralization, verb tenses, and other errors in government documents, newspapers, and online media, reinforcing the perception that Mongolian is becoming more chaotic and losing orthographical and grammatical consistency (e.g. Shagdarsüren, 2010). Saruul-Erdene (2013), on the other hand, argues that the visibility of error reflects the fact that many more Mongolians in the post-socialist era, as opposed to the socialist period, actively distribute their writing to the public though social media and other online platforms.

5.2  Current status of English and other foreign languages in the public schools English remains the dominant foreign language in Mongolian public secondary schools and post-secondary institutions. In 1997, the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science declared that “from the academic year of 1997–1998, all levels of educational organizations should teach English as a primary foreign language” (Tenger Institute, n.d.). All students beginning in the fifth 145

Phillip Marzluf and Myagmar Saruul-Erdene

grade are required to take English until they graduate. In the 2014–2015 academic year, 298,258 students (59% of the overall student population) studied English in all of the public secondary schools. A total of 2,213 teachers taught English, not including an additional 494 who taught English and Russian, usually in countryside schools without the resources to support a large foreign language teaching staff (Ministry of Education, 2015a). An indication of the importance of English is the fact that there were slightly more teachers of English than the 2,191 Mongolian language and literature teachers (Ministry of Education, 2015a). Russian remains the only other foreign language that is officially recognized and required by the general education curriculum. Students study Russian for three years, from seventh through ninth grades, for a total of 245 contact hours (Ministry of Education, 2015b: 14). In 2014–2015, 112,410 students (22%) took Russian (Ministry of Education, 2015a), and there were 501 Russian teachers, approximately a fifth of the number of English teachers. Foreign language programs in universities and specialized secondary schools offer courses in English and Russian as well in other foreign languages, including German, French, Japanese, and Chinese, which were taught at the university level in the socialist period, as well as Korean, Czech, Polish, Turkish, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic, which are arranged according to when they were first offered at the university level in the post-socialist period (Mongolian State University, n.d.). In comparison to English and Russian, the availability of and access to these alternative foreign languages are far more limited. In the secondary-level general education system, there were only 291 teachers of foreign languages besides English and Russian; moreover, 200 of these teachers taught in Ulaanbaatar, the capital (Ministry of Education, 2015a). Importantly, at the primary and secondary level, the current education policies of the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sciences do not limit or prohibit these alternative foreign language courses within specialized schools. For example, there are a couple of secondary schools specializing in travel and tourism that offer intensive French programs (Tsevelsüren and Buyannemekh, 2006: 78).The list below arranges the enrolment figures of the five most popular intensive secondary-level language classes in Ulaanbaatar for the 2014–2015 academic year (Metropolitan Education, 2015a). •• •• •• •• ••

English (9,116 students, or 45% of all students in specialized language courses); Chinese (3,804 students, or 19%); Russian (3,731 students, or 18%); Japanese (1,385 students, or 7%); Korean (911 students, or 4%).

It is not surprising to see the popularity of intensive English classes in these specialized public programs, and the interest in Japanese and Korean reflects both the high number of tourists from these countries (Jargalsaikhan, 2015: 12) as well as the number of Mongolians living and working in Japan and South Korea. However, the fact that Chinese represents the second most studied language, edging out Russian, is striking, given the lack of official visibility of Chinese language instruction in Mongolia as well as the negative feelings that Mongolians have historically held against Chinese people and culture (see Billé, 2014; Jargalsaikhan, 2015). Indeed, the 90 Chinese foreign language teachers in Ulaanbaatar make them the most numerous group of teachers besides those who teach English and Russian (Metropolitan Education, 2015b).

5.3  Mongolian Language Law Superseding the 2003 ‘Law on the Official State Language’, the ‘Mongolian Language Law’, approved in 2015 and in effect at the start of the 2015–2016 academic year, is the most recent 146

Mongolia

and all-encompassing national language policy. Most importantly, it regulates foreign language instruction, the use of scripts for official and public purposes, and the institutions responsible for language policy development. According to this new law, general education schools—that is, not including the several specialized language schools in Ulaanbaatar—are restricted from teaching foreign languages before the fifth grade (Article 6.3). Moreover, two additional laws bolstered the authority of the Mongolian Language. Article 6.5 stipulates that scientific terminology, at all levels of education, must be translated in Mongolian. In addition to this, the traditional ‘national’ script, Mongol Bichig, must be taught beginning at the sixth grade in all general education schools (Article 7.3). Throughout the post-socialist period, Mongolian politicians and public intellectuals have debated the roles of Mongol Bichig, Cyrillic, and Latin. The ‘Mongolian Language Law’, for educational and official purposes, has re-affirmed the Cyrillic Mongolian script and determined, in the future, the use of Mongol Bichig for all official and legal purposes (Article 7.2). Currently, the law stipulates the use of Mongol Bichig in all correspondence between the president, parliament speaker, and prime minister and their foreign counterparts (Article 7.5), a biscriptal policy of Mongolian Cyrillic and Mongol Bichig that was practiced by the former president, T. Elbegdorj, in his foreign correspondence. Finally, the ‘Mongolian Language Law’ defines the institutional authority responsible for crafting language policy. Previously, during the post-socialist period, issues about language policy and orthography have been addressed by the National Academy of Sciences, the National University of Mongolia, the Mongolian State University of Education, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science. The ‘Mongolian Language Law’ stipulates the centralization of these policy decisions, establishing a National Language Policy Council under the authority of the president (Article 21.1). Even though the Council has yet to be organized, Article 21.7.2 announces a wide-sweeping mission for this group: “The Council has the task of developing policy on studying, protecting, and developing the dialects of ethnic minorities, and supporting and widening the usage and study of the Mongolian language and script in the international level for the benefits of Mongols living abroad.” Although the implications of such a mission specifically for education are unclear, it is one of the few places in which the management of non-Khalkha dialects is addressed. In fact, before the passing of the ‘Mongolian Language Law’, Mongolian National Broadcasting Television had started to broadcast programming in Oirat and Buriat dialects as well as in Tuvan. Additionally, the Council’s mission also addresses concerns over the language maintenance of Mongolians and their children living abroad. Currently, volunteers in several major cities across US, Europe, and South Korea have sporadically set up Saturday Mongolian language schools, yet this mission statement hints at the anxiety that some Mongolians feel about language loss, in particular because of the number of Mongolians working and studying abroad.

6 Conclusion As Mongolians approach the 100-year anniversary of the 1921 People’s Revolution, a convenient historical marker to define Mongolia as a modern nation-state, language education policies will more than likely persist as a balance between pragmatic, global, economic, and individual goals on the one hand and ‘traditional’, identity-based objectives on the other hand. Indeed, language education policies will need to contend with the fact that Mongolia is economically and politically tied to its two powerful neighbors, Russia, its largest import partner, and China, its largest export partner. Beyond these countries, young Mongolians are finding employment and educational opportunities in South Korea, Malaysia, Japan, and other ‘Third Neighbor’ 147

Phillip Marzluf and Myagmar Saruul-Erdene

countries. Repeating a common practice in the history of Mongolian education, language education policies will continue to enable middle-class and elite Mongolians to access English and other foreign language instruction, at both the secondary and post-secondary level. What is striking, however, is the degree to which urban Mongolian spaces demonstrate these pragmatic, global goals—and ignore the power of Russia and China.A recent linguistic landscape study (Marzluf, 2015b) reported that, in Ulaanbaatar, 86% of signs included Mongolian and 51% included English; Russian and Chinese appeared on only 2.3% of the signs. The same study reported that 84% of the signs included the Cyrillic script, 58% included Latin, and 4% Mongol Bichig. The Mongolian language education policies will need to continue to contend with the fact that Mongolians are quickly creating bilingual and multiscriptal urban environments, yet ones that may exaggerate urban and countryside identity differences as well as construct social class differences (Honeychurch, 2014: 23–24). Additionally, Mongolians will experience the dissonance between such popular urban language and scriptal usage as opposed to official, topdown language legislation, which requires official “public advertisements” (Article 6.1.10) and “information, advice, and warnings” (Article 6.1.11) to be in Mongolian. Official legislation will continue to shape and define Mongolian national identity through largely ceremonial language policies, such as those making Mongol Bichig instruction a requirement at sixth grade as well as those that advocate the protection of cultural practices such as traditional calligraphy. Baabar (1999) uses the metaphor of the ‘navel’ when it comes to the efforts of a nation to protect its fundamental cultural and linguistic identifying characteristics. This fear of losing its ‘navel’—of a country losing its essential identity—is a constant part of Mongolian political and educational discourse. It is apparent in fears of elite Mongolians educating their children abroad in China in order to provide them access to the possible future economic advantages connected to Chinese fluency. It is also apparent in the concerns for the vitality of Mongolian—especially when they are expressed in terms of superficial orthographic errors or in Mongolian–English code-switching. In this case, these traditionalist fears may be unfounded: such ‘errors’ may not represent a decay or corruption but, instead, an indication of vitality, difference, and language change, one that comes from Mongolians communicating globally across a wide range of virtual platforms.

References Altan-Od, D. and Khongorzul, D. (2006). Angli khelnii bodlogin zarim asuudal [Some issues on English language education policy]. In B. Shirnen and U. Suvdantsetseg (Eds.), Mongol ulsin khelnii bodlogo [Mongolian language policy] (pp. 33–35). Ulaanbaatar: National Academy for Language Policy. Baabar. (1999). Twentieth century Mongolia. Cambridge: White Horse Press. Barcus, H. and Werner, C. (2010). The Kazakhs of western Mongolia: Transnational migration from 1990– 2008. Asian Ethnicity 11(2), 209–228. Bawden, C. R. (1968). The modern history of Mongolia. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Billé, F. (2014). Sinophobia: Anxiety, violence, and the making of Mongolian identity. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press. Binnick, R. I. (1987). On the classification of the Mongolian languages. Central Asiatic Journal 31(3–4), 178–195. Brown, W. and Onon, U. (trans.) (1976). History of the Mongolian People’s Republic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bulag, U. (1998). Nationalism and hybridity in Mongolia. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cohen, R. (2005). English in Mongolia. World Englishes 24(2), 203–216. de Rachewiltz, I. (2006). The secret history of the Mongols: A Mongolian epic chronicle of the thirteenth century, (vol. 2). Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. Diener, A. C. (2009). One homeland or two? The nationalization and transnationalization of Mongolia’s Kazakhs. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

148

Mongolia Ferrando, O. (2012). Policies and practices of language education in post-Soviet Central Asia: Between ethnic identity and civic consciousness. In M. Bassin and C. Kelly (Eds.), Soviet and post-Soviet identities (pp. 254–277). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ginsburg, T. (1999). Nationalism, elites, and Mongolia's rapid transformation. In S. Kotkin and B. Elleman (Eds.), Mongolia in the 20th century: Landlocked cosmopolitan (pp. 247–276). Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe. Grivelet, S. (1997).The Latinization attempt in Mongolia. In A. Berta (Ed.), Historical and linguistic interaction between Inner-Asia and Europe (pp. 115–120). Szeged, Hungary: University of Szeged. Grivelet, S. (2001). Digraphia in Mongolia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 150, 75–93. Heissig, W. (1980). The religions of Mongolia. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Honeychurch, W. (2014). Inner Asia and the spatial politics of empire: Archaeology, mobility, and culture contact. New York: Springer. Janhunen, J. (2012). Mongolian. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Jargalsaikhan, D. (2011). Official foreign language. Jargal Defacto, [Online]. Available: http:​//jar​galde​facto​ .com/​forei​gn-la​nguag​e/ [21 Dec 2015]. Jargalsaikhan, M. (2015). Lingering anti-Sinic sentiments in post-communist Mongolia: Why dislike the Chinese? Voices from Central Asia 19. Jigmedsüren, S. and Baljirgarmaa, B. (1966). Mongolin avtonomit üyeiin surguuli [Schooling during the Mongolian autonomous period]. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Khevleliin Khereg Erkhlekh. Kapišovská,V. (2005). Language planning in Mongolia I. Mongolica Pragensia 55–83. Kaplonski, C. (2014). The lama question:Violence, sovereignty, and exception in early socialist Mongolia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Kara, G. (2005). Books of the Mongolian nomads: More than eight centuries of writing Mongolian, trans. Krueger, J. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Research. Khorloo, P. (2012). Mongolin nuuts tovchoon dakhi ardin aman zokhiolin khelkhees [Index of folklore in the Secret History of the Mongols], (vol. 5). Ulaanbaatar: National Academy of Sciences. Laikhansüren,A. (2015).About prohibiting Mongolians to use Chinese script. The 9th Annual International Mongolian Studies Conference, Washington, DC. Marzluf, P. (2015a). The pastoral home school: Rural, vernacular, and grassroots literacies in early Soviet Mongolia. Central Asian Survey 34(2), 204–218. Marzluf, P. (2015b). Linguistic landscapes research and Mongolian urban publics. Central Eurasian Studies Society Conference, Washington, DC. Metropolitan Education Department. (2015a). Bolovsrolin salbarin statistikiin medeelliin emkhetgel—III, 2014–2015 khicheeliin jil [Compilation of statistical information for the education sector, academic year 2014–2015], [Online]. Available: http:​//www​.slid​eshar​e.net​/mbgm​uugii​/nbg-​garii​n-avl​aga-2​014 [21 Dec 2015]. Metropolitan Education Department. (2015b). Gadaad khelnii bolovsrol – zaakh arga züi 2015 olon ulsin seminar zokhion baiguulav [Foreign language education: 2015 international methodology seminar], [Online]. Available: http://www.edub.edu.mn/v/2015-04-14-1 [21 July 2016]. Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. (2015a). Baga dund bolovsrolin salbarin 2014–2015 oni khicheeliin jiliin statistik medee [2014–2015 academic year primary and secondary education statistics], [Online]. Available: http:​//www​.meds​.gov.​mn/da​ta/15​03/BD​B14-1​5.pdf​ [21 July 2016]. Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. (2015b). Suuri bolovsrolin surgaltin tsöm khötölbör [Basic education core curriculum], [Online]. Available: http://setgemj46.edu.mn/core [21 July 2016]. Mongol khelnii tukhai khuuli [Mongolian language law]. (2015). Erkh züin medeelliin negdsen sistem [Legal information integrated system], [Online]. Available: http:​//www​.lega​linfo​.mn/l​aw/de​tails​/1093​ 2 [30 Jan 2016]. Mongolian National Statistical Office. (2010). Khün am, oron suutsni, 2010 oni ulsin toollogin ür dün [2010 population and housing census results], [Online]. Available: http:​//tuv​.ubse​g.gov​.mn/u​pload​s/use​ rs/4/​files​/XAOC​T%20u​ls.pd​f [8 Aug 2016]. Mongolian State University. (n.d.). Khümüünlegiin ukhaani salbar [Division of humanities], [Online]. Available: http://sas.num.edu.mn/?page_id=218 [29 July 2016]. Morozova, I.Y. (2009). Socialist revolutions in Asia:The social history of Mongolia in the 20th century. New York: Routledge. Möömöö, C. and Mönkh-Amgalan,Yu. (1984). Orchin üyeiin Mongol khel, ayalguu [Contemporary Mongolian language and dialects]. Ulaanbaatar: National Academy of Sciences. Nadmid, J. (1967). Mongol khel, tüünii bichgiin tüükhen khögjliin tovch toim [Summary of the history and development of Mongolian language and its written form]. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences.

149

Phillip Marzluf and Myagmar Saruul-Erdene Pedersen, M. A. (2011). Not quite shamans: Spirit worlds and political lives in Northern Mongolia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Rinchen, B. (1964). Mongol bichgiin khelnii züi [Grammar of written Mongolian]. 1, Ulaanbaatar: National Academy of Sciences. Rupen, R. A. (1964). Mongols of the twentieth century. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Publications. Sanders, A. J. K. (1987). Mongolia: Politics, economics and society. London: Frances Pinter. Sanzheyev, G. (1988). The old-script Mongolian language and its development in Khalkha. Bloomington, IN: Mongolian Society. Saruul-Erdene, M. (2013). Tolgoid garsan böös bolood bui, zöv bichig dürmiin aldaag yakh ve? [What about grammatical errors once the ‘fleas have reached the head’?], [Online]. Available: http:​//sar​uul. n​iitle​lch.m​n/con​tent/​4920.​shtml​ [31 July 2016]. Shagdar, S. (2003). Mongolin bolovsrolin tüükhiin toim [The history of Mongolian education]. Ulaanbaatar: Sogoonuur. Shagdarsüren,Ts. (2010). Ekh khelee evdekhgüi yum san [Preserving our mother language]. Ulaanbaatar: Bit Press. Sharkhüü, Ts. (1965). Manjiin daranguillin üyeiin Mongolin surguuli [Mongolian schools under Manchu colonization]. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Khevleliin Khereg Erkhlekh Khoroo. State Great Khural (Parliament) of Mongolia. (1992). The constitution of Mongolia, [Online]. Available: http:​ //www​.parl​iamen​t.mn/​en/fi​les/d​ownlo​ad/26​558 [21 Dec 2015]. State Great Khural (Parliament) of Mongolia. (2008). Endorsement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)-based comprehensive national development strategy of Mongolia. [Online]. Available: http:​// cab​inet.​gov.m​n/fil​es/no​m/UHT​SB-En​g-Mon​-2008​.3.24​.doc [21 Dec 2015]. Steiner-Khamsi, G. and Stolpe, I. (2006). Educational import: Local encounters with global forces in Mongolia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Taupier, R. (2015). The western Mongolian clear script and the making of a Buddhist state. In V. Wallace (Ed.), Buddhism in Mongolian history, culture, and society (pp. 23–36). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tenger Institute (n.d.). Mongol orond gadaad khelnii surgalt yavuulj irsen tüükhees [History of foreign language study in Mongolia], [Online]. Available: http:​//www​.teng​er.ed​u.mn/​wp-co​ntent​/uplo​ads/2​ 012/0​1/gad​aad-O​tgonb​ayar.​doc [21 Dec 2015]. Tsenddoo, B. (2007). Soyolin dovtolgoo: Ankhni khet gürnees süülchiin nüüdelchin [Cultural campaign: From the first empire to the last nomad]. Ulaanbaatar: Nepko. Tsetsentsolmon, B. (2014). The ‘gong beat’ against the ‘uncultured’: Contested notions of culture and civilization in Mongolia. Asian Ethnicity 15(4), 422–438. Tsevelsüren, G. and Buyannemekh, G. (2006). Frants khelnii bodlogin talaar [French language policy]. In B. Shirnen and U. Suvdantsetseg (Eds.), Mongol ulsin khelnii bodlogo [Mongolian language policy] (pp. 78–80). Ulaanbaatar: National Academy for Language Policy. Tseyeregzen, D. (2006). The role of Russian language in Mongolian history and its prospects for the future. In B. Shirnen and U. Suvdantsetseg (Eds.), Mongol ulsin khelnii bodlogo [Mongolian language policy] (pp. 60–62). Ulaanbaatar: National Academy for Language Policy. UNESCO. (2013). Mongolian calligraphy, no. 873. [Online]. Available: http:​//www​.unes​co.or​g/cul​ture/​ich/ e​n/USL​/mong​olian​-call​igrap​hy-00​873 [10 Aug 2016]. Zegiimaa, Ch. (2006). Dayaarshlin üyeiin Mongol ulsin khelnii bodlogo [Language policy of Mongolia in the context of globalization]. In B. Shirnen and U. Suvdantsetseg (Eds.), Mongol ulsin khelnii bodlogo [Mongolian language policy] (pp. 170–176). Ulaanbaatar: National Academy for Language Policy.

Further reading Billé, F. (2014). Sinophobia: Anxiety, violence, and the making of Mongolian identity. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press. Kara, G. (2005). Books of the Mongolian nomads: More than eight centuries of writing Mongolian, trans. Krueger, J. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Research. Rossabi, M. (2005). Modern Mongolia: From khans to commissars to capitalists. Berkeley: University of California Press. Steiner-Khamsi, G. and Stolpe, I. (2006). Educational import: Local encounters with global forces in Mongolia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

150

11 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN TAIWAN Li-ying Wu and Ken Lau

1 Background Taiwan’s language education policy, as is the case with many developed and developing countries, is being shaped by ‘nationalism and national unification’ as well as ‘modernisation and economic growth’ (Tsao 2000). To pave the background for discussing the language education policy in Taiwan, this initial section presents the ethnolinguistic profile of Taiwan and is followed with a description of the history and political developments in Taiwan before turning to a discussion of earlier language education policies.

2  Ethnolinguistic profile of Taiwan Taiwan, earlier known to the Western world as ‘Ilha Formosa’ which literally means ‘beautiful island’ in Portuguese, is named the Republic of China (abbreviated as ROC). In this chapter, Taiwan is used as an interchangeable term with the ROC and includes the main island of Taiwan and the offshore islets of Penghu, Kinmen,Wuchiu and Matsu.The connection between Taiwan and the ROC is foremost political. The ROC was established in 1912 in Mainland China after the Qing Dynasty was overthrown by republican forces and hence became the first republic in East Asia. Apart from its vast Chinese mainland, the ROC had Taiwan under its rule. In 1949, the then Nationalist government of the ROC retreated to the island of Taiwan after the second Chinese Civil War (1946–1949). Ever since then, Taiwan has become an equivalent term to the ROC. In spite of diverse labelling for the various ethnic groups in Taiwan, the Taiwanese society has gradually accepted the existence of ‘the four great ethnic groups’ (Sìdàzúqú 四大族群), more so after 1987 when martial law was lifted, marking a significant ethnological development for contemporary Taiwan (Makeham 2005). According to a census investigation conducted in 2011 by the Hakka Affairs Council (HAC) of the Central Cabinet, the four main ethnic groups are as follows: the Holo (also known as Mǐnnánrén 閩南人), people from Southern Min, because of their ancestral connection to the Chinese coastal province of Fujian which is alternatively named Min, 67.5%; the Hakka, originating from the Fujian and Guangdong provinces of China, 13.6%; the indigenous Austro-Polynesian peoples, being recently re-categorised into 16 tribes, 1.8%; and Wàixǐngrén 外省人, literally meaning people from outside of Taiwan and referring to those who arrived in Taiwan after the second 151

Li-ying Wu and Ken Lau

Chinese Civil War along with their offspring, 7.1%. Although not mentioned in the HAC census report, so-called New Residents (Xīnzhùmín 新住民) have recently emerged as a distinct ethnic group consisting primarily of Southeast Asians now residing in Taiwan as a result of interethnic marriages. The Holo, the Hakka and the Wàixǐngrén are typically considered as Han Chinese but, since the 1990s, each has been considered a distinct ethnic group in Taiwan (Her 2009). Derived from a version of the language for the officials (Guānhuà 官話) in the Qing Dynasty, Mandarin Chinese obtained its official status as the national language of the Qing Dynasty.When the ROC replaced Qing, it inherited Mandarin Chinese as its national language. Subsequently, Mandarin Chinese, or its localised equivalent, Taiwan Mandarin, is typically viewed the official language in Taiwan. This is de facto though (Her 2009), as Mandarin Chinese has never been declared as an official language. It is the lingua franca despite the fact that the largest ethnic group of Taiwan is the Holo whose native language is Hokkien (also known Southern Min and later more commonly termed as Taiwanese).Taiwan is indeed a multilingual society. Apart from using Mandarin Chinese as the lingua franca, different ethnic groups also use their respective native languages. The Holo speak Hokkien; the Hakka speak Hakka. The Wàixǐngrén speak Taiwan Mandarin.The 16 Austro-Polynesian aboriginal peoples speak their respective Austronesian languages: Amis, Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, Tsou, Rukai, Puyuma, Saisiyat,Yami, Thao, Kavalan, Truku, Sakizaya, Sediq, Hla’alua and Kanakanavu (Council of Indigenous Peoples 2015). In a nutshell, the Taiwanese are exposed to a multilingual environment in which people of diverse ethnic backgrounds are juggling their linguistic resources on day-to-day contexts of language contact which for a densely populated society of Taiwan (24 million people inhabiting the total area of 36,193 km) is highly frequent.

3  Historical development of Taiwan and a critical discussion of earlier language education policies This section highlights significant sign-posts in the development of Taiwan’s language education policy over different historical eras amid the succession of regime changes from which a macro trend of language policy and language planning can be traced. The 17th century marks the beginning of Taiwan’s recorded history as before then the prehistory of Taiwan is obscure because of a lack of written historical records. Anthropological evidence, however, suggests that the original inhabitants of Taiwan were the Austro-Polynesian peoples who had inhabited Taiwan for approximately 8,000 years before the arrival of the Han Chinese (Blust 1999). In 1994, the then President of Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui, expressed his “sadness of being born a Taiwanese” (Shēng wèi táiwānrén de bēi’āi 生為台灣人的悲哀) in an interview given to the Japanese writer, Ryōtarō Shiba. Lee’s sadness can be questioned, but what compelled him to express his feeling has to do with the fact that Taiwan has seen a succession of political regimes stretching over four hundred years comprising: European colonisation, namely, the Dutch and the Spanish; the ruling of the Qing Dynasty; the Japanese colonisation; and the present ROC.

3.1  European colonisation: the Dutch (1624–1662) and the Spanish (1626–1642) The Dutch East India Company occupied Southwestern Taiwan near the former capital of Taiwan, Tainan, in 1624 and later built Fort Zeelandia to secure its occupancy. Two years later, the Spanish set up settlements in Northern Taiwan and built Fort San Salvador to secure its control. In 1642, the Dutch drove out the Spanish with the assistance of Taiwanese aborigines. 152

Language education policy in Taiwan

Compared with the Spanish, the influence of Dutch on language policies in Taiwan was so much greater. After securing trading posts, the Dutch introduced language education through converting the aboriginal people to Christianity. As revealed by Wu (2011: 102), “the missionaries gave sermons in and translated the Bible and many religious books into the Austronesian languages.” Religion became a key reason for language education. In 1636, the Dutch set up the first ever school for religious education in the area of Sinkang where the aboriginal tribe of Siraya lived. In order to facilitate the introduction of Christianity, a Romanised written form for the Siraya language, Sinkang (Xīngǎngwén 新港文), was created based on the Latin alphabet. Thus, Xīngǎngwén, literally Xīngǎng script, became the first writing system of an indigenous language and was also the first Romanised writing system in Taiwan. Xīngǎng script was employed not only to teach the aboriginal people Christianity but also to cultivate their literacy. After 1648, the Dutch decided to implement Dutch language education and trialled the teaching of Dutch to aboriginal children. Aboriginals were even given Dutch names. All these measures came down to the then governor-general’s belief in the need for a lingua franca (Gau & Chiu 2009). However, as the trials did not yield good results, teaching Dutch was soon abandoned. The Dutch ruled Taiwan till 1662 when Zheng Cheng-gong (also known as Koxinga in Dutch), a former Ming general, arrived in Taiwan with military forces loyal to the Ming Dynasty and gained control of Taiwan from the Dutch colonisers.

3.2  The Zheng family and the Qing rule (1662–1895) Zheng Cheng-gong and his family ruled Taiwan from 1662 to 1683. In 1684, the Qing Dynasty officially added Taiwan to the map of its empire after Qing general, Shi Lang, submitted the ‘Memorial to the Emperor on the Taiwan Issue’ arguing for keeping Taiwan under Qing sovereignty.The Qing Dynasty discouraged Han Chinese migrating from Mainland China to Taiwan in fear of rebellions and at one time even instituted a ban on migration to Taiwan. In particular, the Hakka Chinese from Guangdong and other coastal provinces were at one time banned from migrating to Taiwan as most of Zheng’s followers were Hakka Chinese. The migration ban has had a significant impact on the demographic composition of present-day Taiwan in that the Holo Chinese, outnumbering the Hakka, became the largest sub-Han ethnic group in Taiwan. The Holo migrants brought with them their vernacular dialects of which Hokkien was the most commonly spoken. To facilitate communication, mainly for doing business, Hokkien and other vernaculars started to borrow lexicon from the former colonisers’ language, Dutch, as well as that of the Austronesian languages (Dong 1998). Such lexical hybridity created a Taiwanese variety of Hokkien which differed from the variety spoken and used in Fujian Province. The fact that the Holo population outnumbered the Hakka also meant that Hakka speakers were obliged to become bilingual in Hakka and Hokkien (Chen 2006). Starting in the mid-19th century, foreign powers such as the British and the French began to show their interest in establishing trading posts along Qing coastline provinces for obtaining economic profits. Trading posts in Taiwan’s port cities like Kaohsiung and Tainan were established as a result of the Qing being defeated in the Second Opium War (1856–1860). Foreign interest led to the Qing Emperor’s decision to establish Taiwan as an independent province rather than being a region within Fujian province. The desire to extend its language policy to teaching Mandarin Chinese to the aboriginal population had grown under the Qing governance. According to Tsao (2000), the aboriginals thus gradually abandoned the Romanised systems such as the Xīngǎng script, so that Mandarin Chinese eventually became a lingua franca. Nonetheless, the majority local Taiwanese would still speak/use Hokkien or Hakka in their daily life. Moreover, Hokkien and Hakka were also 153

Li-ying Wu and Ken Lau

employed as the facilitating media of instruction for teaching Classical Chinese (Scott & Tiun 2007) along with Mandarin Chinese as the main instructional media from the early 18th century. In 1885, Liu Ming-Chuan, the first governor of Taiwan in the Qing Dynasty, laid the foundation of Taiwan’s modern infrastructure. It is Liu who set up the so-called ‘Western Learning Hall’ (Xīxuétáng 西學堂), the first site in Taiwan dedicated to the learning of Western languages such as English and French. The Qing rule of Taiwan ended in 1895 after it lost the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) to Japan, resulting in the dynasty’s ceding to the Japanese Empire territories including Taiwan in the treaty of Shimonoseki (Mǎguān tiáoyuē 馬關條約). Thus began a half-century of Japanese colonisation of Taiwan.

3.3  The Japanese colonisation (1895–1945) The Japanese Empire ruled Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. Marking the end of World War II, the year 1945 also saw the empire lose the second Sino-Japanese War. The consequence of the Japanese Empire’s defeat significantly altered the course of Taiwan’s language education policy. In the initial rule of Japanese colonisation, the language education policy showed no particular favouritism to any language. Mandarin Chinese was taught as a required subject in schools in tandem with the colonisers’ language, Japanese. Even in the schools established by the Japanese, Mandarin Chinese was allowed to be taught to students. Later, however, Mandarin Chinese was taught only as an elective subject and was eventually banned from the school curriculum along with a complete prohibition of speaking/using local vernaculars including Hokkien and Hakka in all private domains. Prohibiting local vernaculars from being used in private domains reflects the Japanese regime’s ambitious scheme for the total Japanisation of Taiwan. The estimated percentage for the population that could understand Japanese reached 71% by 1944 (Huang 1993). The effect of implementing Japanese along with prohibiting local vernaculars sparked an interest in and enhanced language awareness and a sense of identity of the Taiwanese. Languages for the first time in Taiwan’s history became a marker of identity. The elite Taiwanese started to promote a local identity through language reforms that used Hokkien in literary writing as a vehicle of resistance to Japanese colonisation. At the same time, Japanese penetrated into people’s daily language use. With two forces interacting, one advocating Hokkien in literary writing to represent the revival of Chinese culture and the other the penetration of Japanese in local people’s language usage, Hokkien furthered its linguistic hybridity by incorporating literary creativity and aspects of the Japanese language, vocabulary and syntactic structure, to enrich its already hybrid, linguistic base that borrowed earlier from Dutch and aboriginal languages.

3.4  The ROC in Taiwan (1945–the present) The Kuomintang Nationalist government (KMT) of Mainland China officially gained sovereignty over Taiwan from the Japanese Empire in 1945. Four years later, the KMT regime retreated to Taiwan after losing the second Chinese Civil War (1946–1950) to the Chinese Communist Party-led military forces. Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), the then leader of the KMT government, arrived in Taiwan along with some one million troops and their families, also naturally affected Taiwan’s language ecology and ensuing language education policy. The KMT government in Taiwan considered the Chinese mainland to be part of its political entity despite the fact that its political power was delimited to Taiwan and its offshore islets. The language education policy during this period of the KMT rule was characterised with ideologies of in favour of unification with Mainland China and was motivated by 154

Language education policy in Taiwan

nation-building ambitions and programmes (Dreyer 2003). Simultaneously, both ‘status planning’ and ‘acquisition planning’ (Cooper 1989) of Mandarin Chinese were undertaken as the core policy for language education. In Taiwan, until very recently, Mandarin Chinese was termed ‘Guóyǔ 國語’, literally national language, even though this was never stated in the constitution. With Mandarin Chinese obtaining its status as a quasi-national language, the language education policy and planning privileged Mandarin Chinese to the point that the other local vernaculars became marginalised. For this period, Taiwan’s language education policy is divided into three sub-periods: (1) 1945–1970, (2) 1970–1987, (3) post-1987 (Chen 1997). The sub-period of 1945–1970 saw the language education policy focusing on de-Japanisation and consolidating Chinese-ness with the promotion of one common language, i.e. Mandarin Chinese. Extreme measures were taken to promote Mandarin Chinese including fines for those who did not speak Mandarin Chinese or dunce boards hanging around the necks of those who spoke local vernaculars in schools. Right at the start of this time period, the KMT government revised regulations for middle school education and accordingly made English a required subject. The teaching and learning of English have since been through different phases and have seen many changes. At the beginning, English was taught five hours per week throughout middle school. Later, when compulsory education was extended from primary schools to middle/ secondary schools in 1968, teaching hours for the subject of English were reduced to two to three hours in the first two years of middle school (Tsao 2000). The second sub-period between 1970 and 1987 marked a further enforcement of a language education policy which promoted Mandarin Chinese at the expense of other local vernaculars (Sandel 2003). It was characterised by regulations, rules and laws designed to implement the Mandarin Chinese-only policy. Mandarin Chinese was the sole medium of instruction in educational settings. A slogan best exemplifying the situation is “suppressing other dialects for Mandarin Chinese” (Guóyǔ dú zūn Yāyì fāngyán 國語獨尊, 壓抑方言) with the underlying message to consolidate the nation as a whole. Mandarin Chinese became the “killer language” (Fishman 1998: 26) and the language of hegemony (Billing 1995). English language education remained pretty much the same in terms of teaching hours, teaching materials and teaching methods. Based on unfinished research originally conducted jointly by researchers from the US and Taiwan, Tse (1987) reanalysed the raw data collected between 1970 and 1974. His findings indicated that inadequately trained English teachers with low in-service training availability, insufficient weekly English instruction focusing too much on grammar and translation, as well as exam-oriented reading and writing, characterised English language education of this period. Tse’s findings reflected the reality of English teaching at secondary level (Tsao 2000). However, the ‘winds of change’ had started to blow and Taiwan had to face the fierce tide of globalisation and the ever-significant role the English language was playing when the government began to realise globally competitive human resources must have foreign language skills and competence. The third sub-period began with a significant year, 1987, which saw the lifting of martial law that had been in place for over 38 years. Abandoning martial law ushered in an open-minded attitude towards diversity in language education policy. The post-1987 period also saw the shift of political power away from the KMT to the Democratic Progressive Party (henceforth the DPP) in 2000. This once again changed the language ecology of Taiwan as the DPP ruling class were chiefly the Holo whose native language was Mǐnnányǔ (閩南語). In fact, it is said that one of the reasons why the DPP won the 2000 presidential election was because of the Taiwanese language (Taiwan Hokkien) the DPP presidential candidate, Chen Shui Bian, used. Chen’s language usage enabled people to see the candidate as one of ‘us.’ What needs to be remembered is that before 2000 virtually all the Presidents of Taiwan were born and brought up in Mainland China except for Lee Teng-hui whose presidency lasted for 12 years from 1988 to 2000. It was 155

Li-ying Wu and Ken Lau

not until 2000 that Taiwan elected a President who was a native speaker of Taiwanese. It was timely considering that the majority of the Taiwanese are native speakers of Taiwanese. However, native speakers of Taiwanese may not be necessarily equivalent to actual language users of the language as quite a number of the Taiwanese claim to be native speakers of Taiwanese out of ethnic affiliation, rather than based on whether they can actually speak the language or not. Additionally, the post-1987 era witnessed Taiwan’s export-oriented economic policies contributing to the transformation of Taiwan’s economy to the extent that it became one of the ‘Four Asian Tigers’ of enormous economic power. Economic growth and prosperity influenced the language education policy as Taiwan opened its market to the international community. In so doing, a language education policy that favoured English took shape.

4  Review and critical discussion of current language education policy From the post-1987 period up to the present time, Taiwan’s language education policy can be viewed as swinging back and forth between the KMT ideologies and DPP ideologies depending on which party is in power. When the KMT became the ruling party, the language education policy favoured Chinese-ness through allocating more teaching hours to the subject of Mandarin Chinese and promulgating Chinese traditions and cultures among students. When the DPP gained political power, it reversed language education policy through reducing the teaching hours for Mandarin Chinese while increasing the teaching hours for vernaculars. “Taiwanisation” (Wu 2011) was achieved, not only by cutting down on the teaching hours for the ‘national language’ but also by imparting more knowledge of Taiwan’s history and geography so as to help build up awareness of Taiwanese-ness for which Taiwanese and other vernaculars play a crucial role. Subsequently, localisation, alternatively termed as indigenisation by Chen (2006), was promoted, generating so-called ‘folklore education’ (FE) (Xiāngtǔjiàoyù 鄉土教育) whose pivotal policy was the promotion of mother tongues spoken by the Taiwanese, including Taiwanese (considered as a variety of Hokkien), Hakka and other Austro-Polynesian languages. This ‘Local-Language-in-Education’ (LLE) policy was initially announced by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in 1993 and later implemented nationwide in primary education and lower secondary education in 1997 (Chen 2006). Accordingly, FE was formally included in primary and lower secondary education with FE lessons taught as part of the curriculum. For the first time, local Taiwanese cultures were taught in primary education. Students from the third grade to the sixth grade would take the subject ‘folklore teaching and learning activities’ (Xiāngtǔ jiàoxué huódòng 鄉土教學活動) in a weekly 40-minute class. The teaching of vernacular languages was included as a teaching activity in FE and students had to take respective vernacular languages depending on the background of their ethnicity. In other words, if students are of Amis background, then they need to take Amis language lessons. In 2001, the MOE enacted curriculum outlines for primary and junior high school education where language learning was divided into two parts: languages of the nation (Běnguóyǔyán 本國語言) and languages of foreign nations (Wàiguóyǔyán 外國語言). With respect to languages of the nation, a further division was made between the national language (Guóyǔwén 國語文), i.e. Mandarin Chinese, and local vernaculars (Běntǔyǔyán 本土語言) of which the MOE specified three major classifications of Min-Nan Yu (official term for its equivalent of Hokkien and Taiwanese), Hakka and Austro-Polynesian languages (MOE 2001). Local vernaculars thus became required subjects for primary school pupils and ethnicity determines which vernacular language to take. Each vernacular language is taught for one to two classes weekly. However, for junior high school students, the vernacular languages are elective courses. The significance of the MOE 2001 curriculum outlines lies in their promotion of the status of Taiwan’s mother tongues, whose value 156

Language education policy in Taiwan

has subsequently been enhanced and recognised. Taiwanese-ness as the backbone of Taiwanese identity is greatly reinforced through teaching local vernaculars. In other words, the MOE 2001 curriculum outlines ensured that mother tongues are not only crucial to people’s daily communication but also are representative of people’s cultural authenticity. In addition, globalisation further reshaped the language ecology of Taiwan. The exportoriented economy, starting from the 1960s and spanning across more than three decades into the 1990s, saw Taiwan’s society not only economically flourishing but also politically ever more democratic and pluralistic.Without globalisation, the current language education policies might not have taken their present course. In other words, globalisation has enabled Taiwan’s society to be connected to the international community. For communicating with the international community, foreign language education definitely has an increased role in the overall language education policy. The interplay of the economic and the political factors with globalisation has served as the determining, guiding force for Taiwan’s language education policy to gain further momentum. The outcome to embracing globalisation has resulted in a series of policies: (1) English language education being introduced as a compulsory subject in primary education in 2001; (2) an English language exit requirement for students to pass certain threshold scores for English proficiency before graduating from college/university; and (3) the promotion of English as an instructional medium for courses in higher education (Chen 2012, 2014). In the following section, we discuss the so-called ‘new’ language-in-education language policy (Chen 2006). The ‘new’ language-in-education language policy is the result of the “simultaneous promotion of indigenisation and internationalisation” as well as a response to “social change and national goals” (Chen 2006: 322). It comprises two parts: the Local-Language-in-Education (LEE) policy and the English Education (EE) policy. The LEE policy involved the “teaching of Taiwanese local languages, culture and history in primary school” (ibid: 323), which was considered a remarkable initiative to resist the Mandarin-only policy (Chen 2013) by language educators, teachers as well as law-makers. The EE policy is designed to enhance employability and international competitiveness on the part of the Taiwanese. But the learning of English has long been part of people’s daily life. Long before the EE policy was implemented in primary education requiring students to learn English as a subject, hundreds of thousands of school pupils had already had an early start with learning English in preschools, kindergartens and language cram schools. In other words, the implementation of the EE policy merely formalised what had already been happening since the 1970s. The EE policy in primary schools is characterised by (1) decentralisation; (2) speaking skills taking precedence over reading and writing skills; and (3) teaching materials, including textbooks being offered by private publishers or language institutions, contrary to a previous practice (Chen 2012). More important is that the MOE (2003) connected the goals of English curriculum with understanding local and foreign cultures, implying that intercultural competency would be acquired through foreign language education, in this case, English education. Subsequently, English has become the first and the most important foreign language and has been taught as a required subject from primary education throughout secondary education to the first year of higher education since 2001 (Lau and Lin 2017), with at least two hours of input every week. English, together with “Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese and other local language varieties” (Chen 2013: 159), formed the Language Arts curriculum. The increasing number of private English language institutions also indicates how English is viewed as a facilitating force to obtain better jobs and even social mobility. It is generally believed that English proficiency will assist college/university graduates in obtaining jobs with foreign trading companies. Moreover, people who can speak English well are typically looked upon as having a higher socio-economic status. English is not merely a subject in educational settings but also “a skill 157

Li-ying Wu and Ken Lau

for social and practical purposes” (Chen 2012: 195). The English language, generally speaking, is viewed favourably by the Taiwanese, perhaps because English was never a colonisers’ language. English, particularly American English, which is seen as an umbrella term for different varieties of English in Taiwan, has no connection to Taiwan’s history of frequent regime change. In other words, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese for some Taiwanese are regarded as more connected to the bitter history of colonisation than English. Moreover, Taiwan has been subject to American influence economically and politically since the KMT government came to Taiwan. Previously, it was even the dream of the majority Taiwanese to realise the so-called American dream by studying in and immigrating to America. Apart from this, it has been assumed that English as the global language can empower people and can provide them with more social mobility and opportunities to travel. Recent figures showed that more than 13 million visits to overseas countries were recorded in 2015 (MOTC 2015) implying that the Taiwanese are not confined to their local environment. The role of English as the most prestigious foreign language in Taiwan is unchallenged even though the official teaching hours of English throughout the educational system are fewer than the combined teaching hours given to both Mandarin Chinese and local vernaculars. English classes are also provided by the 18,956 private English language schools island wide (Commonwealth 2013). In contrast, the complex and entangled relations between Mandarin Chinese and local vernaculars may be the reason for their relatively weaker status in comparison with English. Despite the fact that fewer and fewer people refer to it as the national language, Mandarin Chinese is currently still the main medium of instruction (Lau & Lin 2017). As for the local vernaculars, Taiwanese, with the largest population of speakers, is viewed as a far more powerful language than Hakka and Austro-Polynesian languages. Taiwan's “complex and bitter historical past” (Tsao 2000: 61) has given the country a diverse ethnolinguistic landscape. Nonetheless, the Taiwanese today hold an open, positive attitude towards a multilingual and pluralistic society and this owes much to interaction with the international community and globalisation.

5  A prediction for the future with regard to the place, status and roles of the relevant languages This section presents the following predictions for Taiwan’s language education policy: (1) the political pendulum and its continued effect on language education policy; (2) the 12-year (K–12) compulsory education law to be implemented in 2018, with much debate and controversy on the content of teaching materials; and (3) the interaction between globalisation, regionalisation and localisation as it further shapes the language ecology of Taiwan.

5.1  Political pendulum effect The political pendulum swung back to the DPP on 16 January 2016 after being with the KMT for eight years. Giving the fact that the DPP has won the presidential election as well as gaining control of the law-making body of the Legislative Yuan (Lìfǎyuàn 立法院), there will no doubt be more politically related changes to language education policy. Further language education policy in favour of Taiwanisation is likely to re-occur, judging from the fact that when the DPP ruled Taiwan the first time from 2000 to 2008 they enacted many practices and regulations contrary to those of the previous KMT government, particularly with regard to Taiwanisation. Therefore, it is predicted that during the Presidential term of 2016 to 2019, similar practices would be enacted. 158

Language education policy in Taiwan

5.2  The 12-year compulsory education law to be implemented in 2018 Article 11 of the Basic Education Law (passed in 1999) states that “compulsory education may be lengthened depending on social developments” (MOE 2016). That is the rationale behind the extension of the length from nine-year compulsory education to 12-year compulsory education with six years of primary education, followed by three years of junior school education and three more years of senior high school education. The mapping of the curriculum across the 12-year compulsory education includes not only Mandarin Chinese (Guóyǔwén 國語文) but also local vernaculars, collectively termed as local languages (Běntǔyǔwén 本土語文), alongside so-called languages for new residents (Xīn zhùmín yǔwén 新住民語文). The inclusion of languages for the new residents, who are mostly Southeast Asians, reflects the latest demographic composition of Taiwan’s population with an increasing percentage of the Southeast Asians joining the ethnic pool. The general curriculum mapping is a difficult task, in particular for the history and languages subjects, as people have extremely diverse opinions over what to include and why. For example, should Japanese colonisation be treated as the colonisation or simply the administration of Taiwan? Should Mandarin Chinese be allocated specific teaching hours weekly if it is not a national/official language and simply is one of the vernaculars? It is definite that curriculum mapping will be a core issue in language education policy for years to come, as much curriculum mapping has to do with political ideologies. In fact, the MOE of the newly elected DPP government formed a committee to review the course content guidelines in June 2016.That the committee members include student representatives from secondary schools has ignited much debate and controversy. In addition, the move to 12-year compulsory education is unlikely to see the decline of English learning in formal educational settings, as English is still the most powerful global language. Indeed, English listening comprehension (ELC) is to be tested as a subject in the General Scholastic Ability Test for college/university entrance application. The implementation of ELC will definitely require K–12 students to devote more time and effort to ELC preparation, with the likely consequence that it will deepen the already M-shaped social structure (Ohmae 2006) of Taiwan. The M-shaped social structure refers to the gap between the middle and above social classes and the lower classes, both of which are represented by the two high points of the letter M. The students from one end of the M-shaped structure like those of the middle classes and above most likely would have their parents’ financial support with resources invested into English learning as is the case of enhancing ELC learning. In contrast, the students from the lower social classes would struggle to find similar support for ELC learning. As the gap between the two points deepens, the learning outcomes between the students from the two extreme ends of the M-shaped structure would show sharp contrasts. Accordingly, language education policy is likely to see fine-tuning in tandem with economic and political developments. Simultaneously, it is likely that more foreign languages will be offered as the society becomes more internationalised. Some senior high schools have already offered elective courses in foreign languages such as Japanese, Spanish and French.

5.3  Concurrent globalisation, regionalisation and localisation Fishman (1998) predicted the eventual decreasing power of English. His prediction does not seem to be realised in the foreseeable future. However, his idea of the concurrence of globalisation, regionalisation and localisation shaping the new global linguistic order can be applied to the future language landscape of Taiwan. The power of regionalisation in the context of Northeast Asia has arguably fallen mainly in the hands of China, fostered by its economic power 159

Li-ying Wu and Ken Lau

and ensuing political influence. Even though the language education policy of China does not apply to Taiwan, researchers have started to consider the impact of the rise of China and people’s intent to learn Mandarin Chinese ahead of English, as Mandarin Chinese has become a powerful regional language. The interplay of concurrent globalisation, regionalisation and localisation will further impact the language education policy of Taiwan in that globalisation will safeguard the status of English in Taiwan with Mandarin Chinese playing the role of a powerful regional language which the Taiwanese use as a native/first/second language. At the same time, localisation enables the Taiwanese to secure respective niches of the local vernaculars of Hokkien, Hakka and aboriginal languages. The consequence will be an ever-vibrant linguistic phenomenon that further determines the course of the language education policy.

6 Conclusion Taiwan’s language education policy in essence is complex due initially to its ‘bitter historical’ past and later to the contrasting ideologies associated with political parties. As presented above, from the earliest foreign regimes of the Dutch, the Spanish, the Qing rule, the half-century of Japanese colonisation, to the present regime, language education policies show the pendulum effect swinging back and forth depending on which political party is in power. As predicted above, English will be secure as the first and foremost powerful foreign language in Taiwan with Mandarin Chinese still playing the main medium of instruction in education. Moreover, with the government’s allocation of financial aid to the Hakka Affairs Council and the Council of Indigenous Peoples of the Central Cabinet, TV stations for vernacular languages have been set up and movements of learning vernacular languages are also gaining momentum. In conclusion, English has well secured its role and status in Taiwan as the number one foreign language with the current EE policy favouring it greatly. It is likely to face challenges from Mandarin Chinese which is already the native/first language of the majority of Taiwanese and the most powerful regional language on its way to becoming the next global language, as is shown by the case of more and more students in higher education taking Mandarin Chinese teaching-related courses. Nonetheless, globalisation and internationalisation have also generated opportunities for language education in other foreign languages such as Japanese and Korean. As a language of former colonisers, Japanese still attracts a lot of learners. Even though its extent of use is not as popular as that of English, Japanese takes a second place next to English in Taiwan in terms of the population of learners. As for Korean, the recent emergent power of Korean popular culture spreading to parts of Asia also motives and gives opportunities to Taiwanese to learn Korean. The newly elected DPP government has also emphasised its determination to an overall policy-turn to Southeast Asia, which has evoked enthusiasm in learning Southeast Asian languages. What are the future language education policies of Taiwan to be like? No matter what, it is to be ever more pluralistic, diverse and multilingual and dynamic.

References Billing, M. (1995). Banal nationalism. London: Sage. Blust, R. (1999). Subgrouping, circularity and extinction: some issues in Austronesian comparative linguistics. Selected Papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (pp. 31–94). Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica. Chen, A. (2013). An evaluation on primary English education in Taiwan: From the perspective of language policy. English Language Teaching, 6, 158–165. Chen, M. (1997). Retrospective and prospective to Taiwan’s language education policy. Kaohsiung: Fu-Wen publishing. (Original in Chinese).

160

Language education policy in Taiwan Chen, S. (2006). Simultaneous promotion of indigenization and internationalization: New language-ineducation policy in Taiwan. Language and Education, 20, 322–337. Chen, S., & Tsai,Y. (2012). A country in focus: Research on English teaching and learning: Taiwan (2004– 2009). Language Teaching, 45, 180–201. Chen, S. (2014). Taiwan’s English Education in the age of globalization: Policy, teaching and consequences. Educators and Professional Development, 31, 7–20. (Original in Chinese). Cooper, R. (1989). Language planning and social change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Council of Indigenous Peoples. (2015). About CIP, [Online]. Available: http:​//www​.apc.​gov.t​w/por​tal/i​ ndex.​html?​lang=​en_US​ [14 Nov 2016]. Dong, F. (1998). Correction of the name of ‘Taiwanese, [Online]. Available: http://www.dang.idv.tw/taiwan/ t24.htm [14 Nov 2016] (Original in Chinese). Dreyer, J. (2003). Taiwan’s evolving identity. Asia Program Special Report, 114, 4–10. Fishman, J. A. (1998). The new linguistic order. Foreign Policy, 113, 26–40. Gau, S., & Chiu, H. (2009). An analysis of curriculum-related policies in Dutch colonial Taiwan (1624– 1662). Bulletin of Educational Research, 55, 1–23. Huang, S. (1993). Language, identity, and ethnicity. Taipei: Crane Publishing. (Original in Chinese). Her, O. (2009). Language and group identity: On Taiwan mainlanders’ mother tongues and Taiwan Mandarin. Language and Linguistics, 10, 375–419. (Original in Chinese). Lau, K., & Lin, C. (2017). Internationalization of higher education and language policy:The case of a bilingual university in Taiwan. Higher Education, 74, 437–454. Makeham, J. (2005). Introduction. In J. Makeham & A. Hsiau (Ed.), Cultural, ethnic and political nationalism in contemporary Taiwan: Bentuhua (pp. 1–14). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. MOE. (2001). Temporary curriculum guideline for primary and middle school education, [Online]. Available: http:​ //stu​dy.na​er.ed​u.tw/​Uploa​dFile​Path/​disse​rtati​on/l0​18_05​_0332​.htm [14 Nov 2016]. MOE. (2003). The nine-year joint curricular plan language arts guidelines, [Online]. Available: http://teach.eje. edu.tw/9CC2/9cc_92.php [14 Nov 2016]. Ohmae, K. (2006). The impact of rising lower-middle class population in Japan. Tokyo: Kodan-sha Publishing Company. Sandel, T. (2003). Linguistic capital in Taiwan: The KMT's mandarin language policy and its perceived impact on language practices of bilingual mandarin and Tai-gi speakers. Language in Society, 32, 523–551. Scott, M., & Tiun H.-K. (2007). Mandarin – only to Mandarin-plus: Taiwan. Language Policy, 6, 53–72. Tourism Bureau, MOTC ROC. (2016). Visitors statistics by gender, [Online]. Available: http:​//adm​in.ta​ iwan.​net.t​w/sta​tisti​cs/ye​ar.as​px?no​=134 [14 Nov 2016]. Tsao, F. (2000).The language planning situation in Taiwan. In R. B. Baldauf & R. B. Kaplan (Eds.), Language planning in Nepal,Taiwan, and Sweden (pp. 60–106). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Tse, K. (1987). Language planning and English as a foreign language in middle school education in the Republic of China. Taipei: Crane Publishing. Wu, M. (2009). Language planning and policy in Taiwan: Past, present and future. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 24, 99–118. Wu, M. (2011). Language planning and policy in Taiwan: Past, present and future. Language Problems & Language Planning, 35, 15–34.

Further reading Chern, C. L. (2002). English language teaching in Taiwan today. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 22, 97–105. Price, G. (2014). English for all? Neoliberalism, globalization, and language policy in Taiwan. Language in Society, 43, 567–589. Su, Y. (2006). EFL teachers’ perceptions of English language policy at the elementary level in Taiwan. Educational Studies, 32, 265–283. Wei, J. (2006). Language choice and ideology in multicultural Taiwan. Language and Linguistics, 7, 87–107.

161

PART III

South-East Asia

12 LANGUAGE-IN-EDUCATION POLICY DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHILIPPINES Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos

1 Introduction The Philippine Islands are an archipelago composed of 7,107 islands, with a land area of 299,764 km2. It measures 1,850 km from Batanes, the most northerly point near southern Taiwan to northern Sabah, in the south.The Philippines is the world's 13th most populous country, with an estimated population of 100.1 million.The Philippines has a relatively young population.The median age is 23.4 years – and labour migration from the Philippines has constantly grown in the past 40 years and has more than doubled in the past ten years with 2012 believed to be the peak year surpassing the deployment figure of 1,850,463 in 2011 (International Organisation for Migration 2013: 3). The impact of the national demographic and, particularly, economic emigration on language planning and decision-making will be discussed further in this chapter.

2  Linguistic make-up of the country and history of languages currently spoken in the country Kaplan and Baldauf (1998: 356) describe the Philippines as “linguistically heterogeneous with no absolute majority of speakers of any given indigenous language.” Lewis et al. (2016) list 187 living languages in the Philippines while McFarland (1993) suggested that there are between 120–175 languages spoken, dependent on the method of classification and Dutcher (1982: 6) describes the linguistic situation as comprising “from 70–150 mutually unintelligible vernacular languages.” All indigenous Philippines languages belong to the Austronesian language family (Gonzalez 1998: 492; Lewis et al. 2016) which includes languages widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and beyond – as far as New Zealand and Easter Island (Voeglin & Voeglin 1977: 33–34). In describing Philippine languages, Laranas (2005: 4) notes “these languages are not dialects of the same language. Instead, they are languages in themselves, each being mutually unintelligible from each other.” However, over 70% of the population (PSA 2015) self-identify as being from one of the seven major ethnolinguistic communities.The Philippines is noted as being one of 44 nations where no single language group exceeds 50% of the population total (Robinson 1993: 63–65; Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 74). The national language of the Philippines is Filipino (NCCA 2015) and English has official status in the Philippines (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 300).

165

Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos

The role and status of Filipino is a contested issue in the Philippines and is explored further in this chapter. Multilingualism is an expectation and norm within the Philippines. To have more than one language in one’s linguistic repertoire is common and those languages are usually used in differing social or functional domains (Rappa & Wee 2006: 65). In the 1960 (Sibayan 1999e: 24) and 1980 censuses, Sibayan (1999d: 501) described the eight languages that were deemed to be significant regional languages and the minority language communities. However, the 2000 census lists only six major regional languages, in contrast to the eight listed by Sibayan (1999d: 501; 1999c: 25; Rappa & Wee 2006: 64). Sibayan (1999e) and data from the Philippines Statistics Authority (2015) reflect the rapid population growth in the Philippines over 40 years and changes in the self-declared mother tongues of the population. An example of language shift in the Philippines may be seen among elite Filipinos who, before and immediately after World War II, used Spanish as a major language of communication. However, the next generation has only a “passive competence” (Gonzalez 1998: 518) in Spanish, speaking English with superiors and peers. In this context, English has replaced Spanish as the language of the elite Filipino. Historical and social events impact the maintenance and transmission of languages and it is evident that the colonial history of the archipelago has influenced the present ethnolinguistic composition of the nation in the early 21st century.

3  Review and critical discussion of earlier language education policies The language policy of the Department of Education (1974, 1987) required the use of two languages of instruction: Filipino and English. Other languages were permitted only as “auxiliary” languages in the classroom, not in textbooks or in written form. The intent was to bring the country together under two languages and promote fluency in English and Filipino. However, this marginalised 70% of learners by conducting learning in languages that are spoken by only 30% of the population. Based on the recommendations of the Soriano Committee, the National Board on Education issued Resolution No. 73-2, s. 1973 and on June 19, 1974 (Sibayan 1978: 308) the official policy on bilingual education in the Philippines was instituted through Department of Education and Culture Order No. 25 titled “Implementing guidelines for the policy on bilingual education” (Sibayan 1978: 302; Espiritu 2002a; Gonzalez 2007: 368). The teaching methodology described in the 1974 language policy prescribes that the teacher use either Pilipino or English,1 depending on the subject. Subjects were divided into the English domain and the Pilipino domain (Gonzalez & Sibayan 1988: 1). English was defined as the language of instruction for the delivery of English Communication Arts, Mathematics, and Science. Pilipino was to be the medium of instruction for all other subjects in the curriculum.The intent was that the implementation of the Bilingual Education Policy should be a phased transition (1974–1978) to allow schools in non-Tagalog-speaking areas to prepare needed teaching materials and train teachers to teach in Pilipino.Tagalog-speaking areas were to adopt the new policy immediately. The full implementation of the policy in elementary and secondary schools was to be achieved in all areas by 1982. Essentially, this is the policy that has continued in Philippine schools into the 21st century (Gonzalez 1996: 210; 2007: 368; Young 2011). Vizconde (2006: 267) describes the 1974 policy as beginning a significant improvement in language teaching. Teachers no longer were so reliant on structured drills and memorisation that were features of the English-only policy, but were increasingly aware of methodologies that were consistent with second language acquisition approaches. The Bilingual Education Policy was subsequently revised in 1987 by DECS Order No. 52s (DECS 1987a; DECS 1987b). In this revised policy, the regional languages were 166

The Philippines

elevated to the role of “auxiliary languages.” The purpose of the policy (Gonzalez & Sibayan 1988: 1) was that the Philippines should become a bilingual nation with a population competent in both English and Filipino. This is seen as a more realistic interpretation of the earlier practice (Gonzalez 1998: 508), not dependent on the availability of materials in the local vernacular languages, but leaving the use of the local language to the discretion of the individual school teacher and giving freedom to school administrators and teachers to choose and develop their own curriculum to suit local conditions and needs. Gonzalez described it as (1998: 508): a recognition and legitimation of the on-going practice of using different media of instruction in class including the use of the home language for explaining content taught in Filipino and in English. Language policy as it relates to education cannot be examined in isolation from the community and the broader social, economic, and political contexts that impact provision (Rassool & Edwards 2010: 280). With more than 180 minority language communities (Lewis et al. 2016), the Philippines has a rich and diverse linguistic and cultural heritage. However, these communities face challenges of marginalised identity on a national level, particularly in terms of appropriate education and development opportunities. Many Philippine languages and cultural practices are lost because of the increasing power of the national language, Filipino, and the role of English as an official language. As these languages become more widely used, the identities of non-dominant language communities are undermined. This can result in social and economic inequalities, giving those who do not learn Filipino fewer opportunities to participate in public life, access higher education, influence political decisions, and embrace economic opportunities. Many social, political, and economic challenges can be linked to the root cause of an exclusionary language and education policy. Philippine culture, patterns of language use, and language attitudes have been significantly affected by history. Language policy and planning in the Philippines is constrained by the impact of the colonial history of the nation. The colonialisation of the Philippines by Spain and the influence of the Catholic Church resulted in a cultural shift among the lowland population from which the non-dominant language communities were detached (Brown 1988: 57). The colonialisation of the Philippines by the US (1898–1946) set the foundations for independence and established a systematic national education system based on the American model. However, it is evident that there is a tension in transition and change involved in policy development through the 20th and into the 21st century. Rappa and Wee (2006: 2) describe it as the quest to “find a judicious balance between the desire to maintain a sense of tradition or authenticity and the need to accommodate the products of rational activity.” Language policy and planning and nationalism – the desire to establish a clear national identity – intersect here. Language planning for education in this environment involves mediating multiple voices from different sectors of society and identifying ways in which these voices influence one another. Sibayan posed three questions regarding the challenges of language policy and planning in the Philippines and the implications for education and literacy. He asks (1999e: 1), •• •• ••

how shall we learn English so that we may partake of the world’s knowledge that is made available in it? how shall we learn Tagalog (Pilipino) so that we as a people will speak with one language and identify ourselves with it? how shall we preserve the languages of our ancestors in the regions where we come from so that our children will understand the treasures they contain? 167

Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos

These statements were echoed more than 25 years later by the Philippine Presidential Commission on Educational Reform (PCER) (2000: 61): In a country divided by geography of more than seven thousand islands and more than 171 languages, there is clearly a need for a national language that would foster national consciousness, facilitate communications across language boundaries and thus foster understanding, a sense of national community and identity. Thus, the government’s choices to encourage or forbid the use of languages in certain contexts, including education, affects the relative status and, ultimately, vitality of both dominant and minority languages. Sibayan notes (1999a: 243): Of all the language planning decisions ever made in the Philippines, the use of English in the controlling domains of language has had the most profound and far-reaching effect on Philippine life and thought. However, the status and use of English has been enmeshed with multiple attempts to establish the use of a Philippine language as a legitimate national language. An understanding of the role and status of national and international languages in the Philippines is critical to an understanding of the development of language-in-education policy and planning. Until the constitution of 1987, there had been no clear constitutional indication of the status of a national language in the Republic (Espiritu 2002b). Rappa and Wee (2006: 67) state that the 1899 constitution did not contain any legislative section on national or official languages other than the judicial use of Spanish. All comments on language status planning in the constitutions of 1899, 1935, and 1973 were tenuous as to which language would be defined as the national language. The current language provision which is the legal basis for language policies being implemented in the Philippines is found in the 1987 Constitution established after the peaceful February 1986 civilian-military uprising which removed former President Ferdinand Marcos and installed Corazon Aquino as President of the Philippines. The provision on language in this document leads to an affirmation of one language, Filipino, as the national language. The 1935 Constitution stated that Tagalog would be the basis of the national language with, in the 1986 Constitution, the mandate that Filipino would be “enriched” based on other languages of the country. On August 25, 1988, as President, Corazon Aquino signed Executive Order No. 335 which encouraged all government agencies to use the Filipino language in all communications. It appears that ambiguity continues to exist on the role of Filipino in national life and in governance, despite the Presidential Executive Order. It is clear in Section 7, Article XIV of the 1987 Constitution that there is differentiation between national and official languages of the nation. Although Filipino is named as the national language, the inclusion of English as an official language seems to imply that there is a role for English as a dominant language within the nation, a role that Filipino may not be able to fulfil. Tollefson (1991: 142) and Rappa and Wee (2006: 72) discuss the complementary roles of Filipino and English – English as an instrumental language of modernity, supporting economic progress and Filipino as a means of reinforcing the ideological status of the Philippines as an independent nation-state and facilitating inter-group communication in the Philippines while preserving aspects of the national identity. However, questions exist on the definition and existence of Filipino as a language of the Philippines. There are several positions on Filipino as a language from social, legal, and political perspectives, however, it is “a matter of controversy” (Gonzalez & Villacorta 2001: 12) and this 168

The Philippines

continued ambiguity impacts the role of Filipino in educational planning. Gonzalez (1998: 487) describes both the legal status and practical structure of Filipino: The national language of the Philippines is Filipino, a language in the process of modernisation; it is based on the Manila lingua franca which is fast spreading across the Philippines and is used in urban centres in the country. De jure, it is named in the l987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines as a language that will be enriched with elements (largely vocabulary) from the other Philippine languages and non-local languages used in the Philippines. De facto, the structural base of Filipino is Tagalog, a language spoken in Manila and in the provinces of Rizal, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Quezon, Camarines Norte to the south of Manila and Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, and part of Tarlac to the north of Manila. It is clear in Section VI of the 1987 Constitution that there is a stated commitment to the development and sustainability of Filipino as the national language and one of the two official languages of the country. Rappa and Wee (2006: 74) note that Section VI limits the possibility of other languages, for example, Cebuano, being allocated proportionally more resources than Filipino and thus the status of the language impacts potential resources for corpus development. In addition, Filipino, based on an existing indigenous language, Tagalog, is given the potential of evolving into a different language than that existing in 1987 through its enrichment “on the basis of Philippine and other languages.” It seems that the development envisaged would not just be lexical but also structural, naturally incorporating components from different languages (Gonzalez & Villacorta 2001: 13). However, legislation did not and does not promote change or establish identification with a national language. More than ten years after the 1987 Constitution, Gonzalez and Villacorta wrote (2001: 45): one hopes that in the future, there will be an identification of Filipino with patriotism and competence in it with nationalism. The realisation of this desideratum is a task for language planners in the area of status planning. One of the solutions to this challenge described by Fishman was the establishment of a language agency (Sibayan 1999c: 281), initially known as the Institute of National Language, created on November 13, 1936 (Sibayan 1999e: 3). The original role of the members of the Institute was to make recommendations on the language to be used as the basis of the national language and to produce a grammar and dictionary of that language in order that its teaching could begin in schools. However, investment in the corpus of materials in Filipino and other languages has been uneven since the establishment of the Institute – now known as Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino. This has depended on political leadership in the country. Rappa and Wee (2006: 74–75) describe core steps of change in approaches to language planning – with the development of Filipino seen as a “linguistic idea” but national economic and social ambition continued to emphasise English as a dominant global language. They note (2006: 74): the current official languages in the Philippines exist on a legally uneven basis – an indicator that such uneven amounts of political power will rise and fall, and wax and wane with the political fortunes of their linguistic patrons. Tollefson (1991: 142) and Rappa and Wee (2006: 72) discuss the complementary roles of Filipino and English. English is viewed as an instrumental language of modernity, supporting economic 169

Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos

progress. Filipino is viewed as a means of reinforcing the ideological status of the Philippines as an independent nation-state, facilitating inter-group communication within the country while preserving aspects of national identity. Decisions about language use can reveal the individual’s sense of cultural, social, national, and ethnic identity. The debate on educational and national language use in the Philippines incorporates each of these perspectives. Language use and language attitudes are coloured through experience in a nation that has experienced repeated colonialisation that has obliged the population to use the languages of the colonisers – initially, Spanish and latterly, English. The goals of the 1987 Bilingual Education policy incorporate an explicit desire to develop the Filipino language as a linguistic symbol of national unity and identity (DECS 1987a; Gonzalez & Sibayan 1988b: 143). However, it seems that the agenda of the American colonial government in the early years of the 20th century still pervaded even 50 years after Independence. Informally, however, it seems (Gonzalez & Sibayan et al. 1988: 26) that the average Filipino feels that nationalism is independent of the prescribed language of education. In 1985–1986, an evaluation by the Linguistic Society of the Philippines of the implementation and impact of the Bilingual Education Policy of 1974 indicated that many teachers (78.9%) agreed that (Gonzalez & Villacorta 2001: 51) “it is possible to be a genuine Filipino regardless of the medium of instruction used for one’s education.” Thus, the use of Filipino was not necessarily seen as a measure of national loyalty (Gonzalez & Villacorta 2001: 15): By an overwhelming majority, parents, teachers, students refuse to identify nationalism and patriotism on the one hand with preference for the use of Filipino in schools or even the knowledge of and mastery of Filipino. Until the mastery of Filipino becomes “more necessary for livelihood rather than symbolic purposes” (Gonzalez 1998: 515) the importance given to the use of Filipino in the classroom will be limited outside areas in which it is the majority language or, at least, a lingua franca. Brigham and Castillo (1999: 6) also feel that many desire to be able to speak and write English well because it is the language of power and upward social and economic mobility. It is deemed to be of economic significance and yet it is not a language used in the day-today lives of most families in the Philippines other than the elite, and specifically those in the urban areas. Language attitudes contribute significantly to the rationale for effective and sustainable educational policies and practices. The use of English, a result, primarily, of the American colonial legacy, has had a considerable impact, particularly in the education system, with some (Tiu 2005: 8) believing that it has damaged the self-esteem of ethnolinguistic communities and the internal unity of these communities: American colonial education has tranquilised our minds. Until now, it has continued to divide our communities, our intellectuals and academics disdaining to talk in their own languages – in the languages of their peasants and workers.When are we going to return to our own people and restore the oneness of our communities? There has continued to be strong support for the use of English in education and in society for instrumental purposes. House Bill 4701 on "Strengthening and enhancing the use of English as the medium of instruction in Philippine schools" was passed in the House of Representatives in 2006 (Licuanan 2007). President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo certified the House Bill as urgent and 170

The Philippines

it received strong support from the business community who saw the use of English in school as a component towards increasing the global economic competitiveness of the Philippines. Between 1995 and 2009, there were numerous attempts at policy legislation to strengthen and make English as the medium of instruction at all levels. In the 13th Congress, the House of Representatives passed on third reading the English Only Bill (HB 1339) by Cebuano congressman Eduardo Gullas Jr. However, the Senate failed to act on the Bill, which was intended to supersede the bilingual education policy in place since 1974. In the 15th Congress, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo filed a thoroughly English Only bill mandating the use of the language from Grade 1 through college. However, Acuña & Miranda (1994: 7) state that there is “hardly any clamour” for English to be the national language. The most powerful lobby for continued emphasis on English comes from the private business sector, the media, political circles, and some educators (Licuanan 2007). This lobby argues that the use of English is related to the Philippines’ global competitiveness and the country’s comparative advantages in its large English-speaking work force, particularly the potential of the Philippines retaining its large Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) workforce. Both Filipino educators and the Filipino public realise that English is now a major world language and competence in English gives access to global opportunities.

3.1 Filipino Emphasising the need for a common national language, the author of the 1936 National Language law, Romualdez, noted (Laranas 2005: 11): The idea of studying the languages of the Philippine Archipelago is very plausible; but the present aspiration of those who are interested in these languages is to unite them or reduce them into a single language which, based on the principal dialects of the islands might constitute the means of intercommunication of ideas in the entire archipelago and which might obviate the absolute need now felt of using a common foreign tongue as a means of transmission of ideas, sentiments and aspirations of the inhabitants of the Philippines. Almost 30 years later, similar ideas are echoed in Acuña and Miranda’s background paper for a Congressional Oversight Committee on Education (1994: 9): We need to unite as a people. Communication is the key to unity of purpose.To move together as a people we need a common tongue. Since the majority cannot understand English, we need to develop one of our languages for this purpose. However, Tiu (2005: 6) continued to see Filipino as a divisive tool: Instead of unifying us, Pilipino has only worsened our division because everybody knows that it is Tagalog masquerading itself as Pilipino. Even if it has now a new label of Filipino, and has borrowed extensively from other languages, it remains essentially Tagalog. The Bisdak2 will simply not allow Bisaya to be replaced by another tongue. It appears that, although Filipino has both an instrumental and ideological role in society, there is ambivalence regarding the impact language has on identity as a Filipino or identification with the Philippines as home nation. 171

Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos

3.2  Attitudes towards non-dominant languages There is comparatively little written about the contribution of the many vernacular languages of the Philippines to education and development. This may itself be indicative of the value assigned to the languages of the provinces and the cultural minorities by language policy developers. During the early part of the 20th century, a push for English in education led to “Speak English Only” campaigns flourishing. Brigham and Castillo (1999: 48) note that this led to: a feeling of insecurity/inferiority for those, largely the uneducated, who continued to speak their native languages. English was the language of the educated (the elite) and so the language came to represent a dividing line between the elite and the masses. In 1994, Espiritu surveyed teachers’ attitudes to the use of vernacular languages in the classroom as recommended in the 1991 Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM). She discovered that teachers were not in favour of a recommendation concerning the use of the vernacular in the three early grades as it would promote regionalisation (Brigham & Castillo 1999: 25) and hinder the development and growth of Filipino. The cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of the Philippines, mixed with economic inequity, leads to a complex situation, particularly when viewed in relation to issues of nationalism/ nationhood and socioeconomic development (Sibayan 1999f: 527). Threatened with the loss of his ancestral land … to “unscrupulous lowlanders” or to the government or to multinational corporations … unable to get a school education or to receive news in his own language through radio or newspapers and magazines and deprived of the privileges that the majority enjoy, the member of the linguistic minority, wherever he may be in the Philippines, lives a life that should be entitled to all the possible help and understanding from non-governmental and governmental organisations and individuals. Sibayan (1999g: 291) also suggests a socio-political argument against literacy in the vernacular: In a democracy, all citizens should have an equal opportunity to rise and the present language for attaining the ‘better life’, because the language for a good education and a good job, is English. The poor should have access to the language that provides for these opportunities. The Philippines Education for All report (World Education Forum 2000a, 2000b) states that, although the Philippines has had few problems or deficiencies with respect to access and participation in the primary education level, Education authorities say that the relatively small proportion that was not in school was composed in the main of children who resided in hard-to-reach localities or in areas where there were no schools. Such places usually covered indigenous and tribal communities and other ethnic minorities. Thus, approaches that intentionally and effectively incorporate the non-dominant languages of the Philippines need to be examined and implemented. 172

The Philippines

4  Initiatives on uses of non-dominant languages in Philippines education (1940–2009) Numerous attempts have been made to include non-dominant languages in education in the Philippines. As early as the 1930s, it was recognised that an English only policy was not necessarily the most effective for all learners. Bernardo (2004: 18) notes that there were criticisms of the policy and that, in 1931, during the American period, Butte, the Vice-Governor of the Philippines, announced that all instruction should be delivered in one of the “nine native languages” as appropriate to the locality as soon as teachers were appropriately trained and teaching/learning materials were available. However, there was no supporting policy for implementing materials production or teacher training and Butte’s directive was not fulfilled. Post-independence, in the 1940s and 1950s, experiments were undertaken involving the use of local languages as the medium of instruction, the most famous being the Aguilar Study that took place in Iloilo, in the Central Visayas, from 1948 to 1954. Because of discoveries made through the Iloilo programmes and the Aguilar study, by 1957 twenty school divisions were using local languages in the curriculum. Thus, based on this evidence of effectiveness, the recommendations of the Board of National Education included direction on a new language policy and was adopted in Philippine schools in 1957 (Vizconde 2006: 266). •• ••

The use of the vernacular should be adopted in the elementary level as the exclusive use of English in the elementary level was determined to have contributed to the deficiencies of elementary education. English will continue as a language subject and as a medium of instruction for all subjects in all years in high school except social studies.

From July 1957 (Sibayan 1999h: 88; Gonzalez 1996: 210) the medium of instruction in the first two grades of elementary school was to be the appropriate local vernacular and at the same time, the national language should be taught informally beginning in Grade 1 and then as a subject in higher grades. English was to be taught as a subject in Grades 1 and 2 and then used as a medium of instruction beginning in Grade 3. The intent of this was to provide a foundation or base for transition to Tagalog – soon to be renamed Pilipino – and English.This change in policy was based on recommendations from Prator (Gonzalez 1996: 210) in the publication, “Language teaching in the Philippines” which was published in 1950 and was strongly influenced by the UNESCO recommendations on mother tongue-based education (UNESCO 1953). However, owing to logistical concerns and the demands for the provision of teaching materials, it was soon realised that it would be impossible to even consider the use of all local languages as media of instruction so the major languages – those with more than one million speakers – were those that were used initially (Gonzalez 1996: 210). The mid-1960s began a period that Sibayan calls “the word-war” (1999h: 89, 91; Gonzalez 1998: 488). Gonzalez and Villacorta (2001: 24) also describe the “divisiveness” of this period where the work of the Institute of National Language (INL) was dismissed as ineffective, and Congressman Agbayani (Sibayan 1999h:91) accused the INL, from the floor of the House of Representatives, as having failed in their efforts to develop a national language, despite having been in existence for more than 30 years. The origins of the bilingual education policy in the Philippines can be seen in a strong nationalistic movement, particularly the period of intense student nationalism prior to the declaration of Martial Law in 1972 (Gonzalez 1998: 506; Bernardo 2004: 20; Gonzalez 2007: 368). 173

Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos

The Presidential Commission to Survey Philippine Education, created in December 1969 (Sibayan 1999i: 117) identified a mismatch in educational and national goals and recommended greater priority for education in national planning (Vizconde 2006: 270) and a greater integration of educational policy in the national country strategy. Nationalists proposed to the INL that Pilipino become the medium of instruction in basic education and English be abandoned for educational purposes (Gonzalez 1998: 506): “a clamour to decolonise the system by changing the medium of instruction totally to Filipino.” Bernardo (2004: 20) described the advocates of a Pilipino-only curriculum as believing that, “promotion of Pilipino as the language that would liberate the Filipino mind from its colonial past and neo-colonial present.” During this period, the use of Pilipino also spread in the universities, particularly the University of the Philippines, although there was only a mandate for use of Pilipino as a subject for one year in tertiary education. Based on the recommendations of the Soriano Committee, the National Board on Education issued Resolution No. 73-2, s. 1973 and on June 19, 1974 (Sibayan 1978: 308), the official policy on bilingual education in the Philippines was instituted through Department of Education and Culture Order No. 25 titled “Implementing guidelines for the policy on bilingual education” (Sibayan 1978: 302; Espiritu 2002b; Gonzalez 2007: 368). The teaching methodology described in the 1974 language policy prescribes that the teacher use either Pilipino or English, depending on the subject. Subjects were divided into the English domain and the Pilipino domain (Gonzalez & Sibayan 1988: 1). English was defined as the language of instruction for the delivery of English Communication Arts, Mathematics, and Science. Pilipino was to be the medium of instruction for all other subjects in the curriculum. The intent was that the implementation of the Bilingual Education Policy should be a phased transition (1974–1978) to allow schools in non-Tagalog areas to prepare needed teaching materials and train teachers to teach in Pilipino. Tagalog speaking areas were to adopt the new policy immediately. The full implementation of the policy in elementary and secondary schools was to be achieved in all areas by 1982. Although no changes in the national constitution were made in relation to roles of language in society after the change of government in 1986 (Gonzalez & Villacorta 2001: 25), the relative roles of English and Filipino were assessed in the light of the Gonzalez and Sibayan summative evaluation of the bilingual education programme (Gonzalez & Sibayan 1988). The roles of the two languages were redefined (Bernardo 2004: 20): Filipino was mandated as the language of literacy and the language of scholarly discourse, while English was described as the international language and the non-exclusive language of science and technology. Thus, the role of Filipino as the language of learning and intellectual discourse was emphasised, whereas the role of English was now more narrowly defined. Language-in-education initiatives from non-government organisations include a pilot project on transitional, multilingual education conducted over six years in the province of Ifugao in the northern Philippines (Hohulin 1995: 1; Nolasco 2008: 7). The programme was initiated in 1985 by the then Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports (MECS) Supervisor of Hungduan District, Dr. Jeronimo Codamon, in cooperation with SIL Philippines (Hohulin 1995: 1; Sibayan 1999g: 290; Baguingan 2000a: 97; Bautista 2000: 208). It was designed to improve the test scores of elementary grade pupils. Few children in the area came to school with any knowledge of Filipino or English. The language of the home and community is Ifugao, in one of its variants, Ifugao: Tuwali a minority language spoken, in 1995, by around 25,500 people. The aim was to 174

The Philippines

begin in the local language and transition learners into the official languages of education – Filipino and English – using the vernacular to facilitate effective learning (Sibayan 1999g: 290). The transition – or bridging – was approached in several different ways. Using instructional materials prepared for use in the First Language Component-Bridging Programme, both implicit and explicit bridging was practised. Implicit bridging occurred when the teacher used trilingual lessons that have been prepared in the vernacular, Filipino and English (Hohulin 1995: 6; Dekker P. G. 1999: 100; Baguingan 2000a: 98), accomplished by first using the mother tongue to teach the lesson then repeating the entire lesson in the prescribed language for the subject. The teacher attempts explicit bridging when she points out the differences in the three languages – differences in their concepts, vocabularies, and grammar structures building metalinguistic awareness in the learners of the similarities and differences in the languages of education. Experimental evidence in the Tuwali programme showed that significant improvement in reading scores was achieved by students following this approach when compared to those in control schools (Baguingan 2000a: 98). A mother tongue-based multilingual education programme was implemented in the Lubuagan area of Kalinga province (Dekker P.G. 1999: 101; Baguingan 2000a: 100, 2000b: 1; Young 2002: 229; Dekker & Dumatog 2003: 1; Dekker & Young 2005: 188) which was described by Nolasco (2008: 8) as “the most compelling L1-based educational program so far.” The Lubuagan mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) programme published the first set of comparative results in 2001, following the end-of-year school tests. The test results indicated that children in the MTB-MLE classes performed consistently better than children in the control groups (Dekker & Dumatog 2003: 6). The impact of test results on community acceptance of the MTB-MLE programme is considerable (Dekker 2003: 147): Parents expected that less time spent in English would result in lower English scores. When this began to be disproved, attitudes began changing. Parents in one barrio where there is no FLC class have requested FLC for their children.They are asking for more teachers to be trained in the FLC approach. The researchers emphasise the preliminary nature of their findings (Walter & Dekker 2008: 2) and that it is important to consider outcomes of education over a longer period, hence the importance of a longitudinal study of impact (Walter & Dekker 2008: 3). The emerging body of evidence on the longitudinal impact of first language education suggests that the benefits are cumulative over time so that later measures are more telling than early measures. … in this as in most first language educational experiments, the early results are more sensitive to local variation such as teacher and school effects, significant differences in the ability and backgrounds of children and uneven application of the respective models (both control and experimental). These results have influenced opinion leaders and policy makers in the Philippines as they have considered revision of language policy for basic education and were influential in providing an evidential base for an alternative response to House Bill 5619, “An act to strengthen and enhance the use of English as the medium of instruction in Philippine schools,” initially filed by Representative Gullas from Cebu and supported by more than 200 other legislators (Llanto 2009; Nolasco 2008: 1; Walter & Dekker 2008: 1). The initial results of the Lubuagan Kalinga longitudinal study are referenced in Section Three of the Department of Education 175

Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos

Order No. 74 s. 2009 entitled “Institutionalising mother tongue-based multilingual education” which was issued in July 2009.

5  Review and critical discussion of current language education policies In July 2009, overt steps were taken by the Department of Education in the Philippines to implement a structured approach to mother tongue-based multilingual education for learners in formal education. The Philippines issued Department of Education Order No. 74 s. 2009 (Department of Education 2009), institutionalising MTB-MLE in all public and private schools from pre-school to high school prescribing the use of mother tongue as the language of learning and instruction.The Department Order clearly states the rationale for MTB-MLE and instructed regional and division offices to begin the implementation processes including advocacy, capacity building, and materials development.The enclosures of the order proposed potential progression plans for language use in the curriculum and gave guidance on actions that need to be taken, including the need for potential adaptation of the model described in the Department Order in the light of process and outcome evaluation. Subsequently, President Aquino, in his education manifesto (Aquino 2010), prior to the Philippine Presidential election of April 2010, explicitly affirmed his support of mother tongue-based multilingual education for learners, describing the role of mother tongue-based education in setting a foundation for learning English, expressing a desire that the Philippines should be trilingual as a country – learning English well for connection “to the World”, learning Filipino well for connection to the nation, and encouraging Filipinos to “retain your dialect and connect to your heritage.” Thus, in 2011, a mother tongue-based multilingual education pilot project was begun in 921 schools in 17 regions using 12 official mother tongues. A basic orthography for each of these twelve mother tongues were developed in partnership with the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino and 136 Department of Education personnel were trained to cascade training to 2,312 pioneer Grade 1 teachers. An essential aspect of the implementation of mother tongue-based multilingual education included the production and contextualisation of Teacher’s Guides, Learner’s Materials, and reading materials in the languages identified for implementation. In 2013, the Philippines education system, through Republic Act 10533 and associated implementing rules and regulations, mandating a 13-year, K–12 education system, specified (Section 10.2.f) that the curriculum for basic education in the Philippines: … shall adhere to the principles and framework of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) which starts from where the learners are and from what they already know proceeding from the known to the unknown; instructional materials and capable teachers to implement the MTB-MLE curriculum shall be available. For this purpose, MTB-MLE refers to formal or non-formal education in which the learner’s mother tongue and additional languages are used in the classroom; Continuing (Section 10.4), the guidelines describe the allocation of languages: For Kindergarten and the first three years of elementary education, instruction, teaching materials, and assessment shall be in the regional or native language of the learners. The DepEd shall formulate a mother language transition program from the mother/ first language to the subsequent languages of the curriculum that is appropriate to the language capacity and needs of learners from Grade 4 to Grade 6. Filipino and English shall be gradually introduced as languages of instruction until such time when these two (2) languages can become the primary languages of instruction at the secondary level. 176

The Philippines

The approach to mother tongue-based multilingual education described in the Republic Act reflects best practice in programme implementation and is aligned with theoretical positions on programme design and development posited by educators (Baker 2006; Dutcher 2004; Cummins 2000). Pragmatically, the Department of Education has decided that an incremental approach to supporting minority ethnolinguistic communities in the provision of mother tongue-based multilingual education has the potential of allowing systematic curriculum and materials development and equipping of teachers and educational administrators.Thus, currently, 19 languages (Abueg 2015) are included in those being supported through the Department of Education central office, although other ethnolinguistic communities are developing materials and implementing multilingual approaches at regional and division levels.

Issues in policy and programme administration The passage of Republic Act No. 10533 was hailed as landmark legislation for the sheer magnitude and impact it bore on the Philippine education system, restructuring language education to account for national ethnolinguistic diversity, and giving attention to effective practices in language education. However, the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) issued following the promulgation of the law contain contravening provisions to the Republic Act largely as a by-product of a complex policy design process, the access to which is restricted to a very limited group of bureaucrats, shielding it from public scrutiny (Howlett 2014), thereby lacking transparency. In the bicameral committee, the body tasked to harmonise both the Senate and House versions of the Bill, last-minute changes were introduced, resulting in the discrepancy between what the proponents had initially agreed beforehand and the version that the President signed into law, prompting Nolasco (Philippine Daily Inquirer 2013) to call the RA 10533 a “castrated policy” after salient provisions of the law were reduced from imperatives into mere options. Academics, college staff, and teachers noted discrepancies between RA 10533 and the enrolled bill, confusing rather than clarifying the otherwise clear provisions therein and further diluting them. The distortion in the IRR not only betrays the spirit and intention of the law; it is viewed as accommodation to (Philippine Daily Inquirer 2015): •• ••

lobbies that advance the cause of English and Filipino learning only, which is bilingual education, and nationalist democratic forces that continue to advocate a monolithic national language policy using Filipino.

5.1  Local ownership Mother tongue-based multilingual education is premised on diversity and multiculturalism defined by specific contexts such that no school community system is the same as the other; that languages and cultures are uniquely distinct from one another. Therefore, the framework that undergirds sustainable policy administration should be location-specific and culture-sensitive, as outlined in Sections 4 and 5 (c), (d), (f), and (h) of RA 10533, a recognition that the only way to effect good governance in education is by decentralisation. The only way for DepEd to effectively deliver on its mandate is by devolving not just functions but authority for decision making and financial resources to fulfil such mandates. The rationale of the Local Government Code of 1991 is also decentralisation where key powers and functions concentrated in the central government are devolved in recognition that those on the frontlines know better the realities on the ground. 177

Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos

However, contrary to the provision in Section 5 of RA 10533, which mandates that the development and approval of learning materials are devolved to the regions, the current practice requires that locally developed materials carry the imprimatur of the Department of Education Central Office, which defers to the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino on matters involving language and orthography. This deference to national bodies – unwarranted because the expertise, ownership, and usage of the language whose orthography is being developed rightfully belong to the language community in a region – renders the devolution provisions optional rather than imperative. The devolution as envisioned in Section 5 is in cognizance to the fact that neither the Department of Education Central Office nor the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino as a national body has the resources required to undertake the complex tasks, functions, and responsibilities demanded in the said provision, i.e. an army of curriculum, materials, and orthography developers in the different languages, at their disposal. These demands alone provide the argument for devolution. When a government devolves functions, it also transfers authority for decision-making, finance, and management to local government units or sub-national units of central agencies vested with proportional power and corporate status. In devolved systems, agencies with devolved powers have clear boundaries over which they exercise authority and within which they perform functions (Gregersen et al. 2004).

5.2  Operational issues Lack of materials and funding inaccessibility persist because logistical issues relative to the shift in the policy have not been fully anticipated, leaving gaps in the inventory of K–12-compliant materials. The transition also ushers in new policies and systems, one of which is the Learning Resource Materials Development System (LRMDS) which makes learning ‘paperless.’ Yet this paperless system makes access difficult especially in areas where internet service is poor or nonexistent. Funding, on the other hand, is available although its access is made difficult because of the stringent Commission on Audit system of the Philippines. Thus, school administrators are challenged in supporting policy-related activities to avoid added accountability and responsibility as fund utilisation comes with a lot of paperwork. Pertinent sections in RA 10533 and related departmental issuances provide the latitude for wider participation by the different stakeholder groups for a synergistic and programmatic policy administration. However, there is much to be desired in terms of clarity of the roles of each agency, organisation, or institution involved, directly or indirectly. The logic here is that collaborative arrangements are to be set in an unambiguous language to avoid interference in processes and procedures and overlapping powers and functions. While there are numerous stakeholders and partners ready to collaborate, a clear system that harmonises the otherwise disjointed initiatives should be set up as in a consortium (Harris 1981), where strengths of each stakeholder are identified so each is assigned a role or function that best utilises them. This is to minimise, if not totally stamp out, redundancies which impact resources. As the awareness raising and mobilisation to support mother tongue-based multilingual education was gaining momentum, so was the policy’s opponents’ resolve to defeat it.The advocates were essentially fighting on three fronts: •• ••

against proposals to reintroduce the failed bilingual education policy that largely ignored research evidence (Bautista, Bernardo, Ocampo 2009), and was concerned only in developing fluency in English and Filipino; with proponents of the pro-English lobby which had strong influence on policymaking. To illustrate this point, former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in the House of 178

The Philippines

••

Representatives, filed in the 15th Congress an English-only bill, mandating the use of English from Grade 1 through college after a previous attempt in the 13th Congress via HB 1339 filed by Rep. Gullas did not prosper; with proponents of a Filipino-only language policy advanced by ultranationalist artists, writers, and academics who prefer a monolithic centralist language education planning.

While the language policy is in full force, there is a continuing effort to discredit it and for the government to eventually scrap the policy. Relative to this development, in late 2014, a case was filed at the Supreme Court by a group of Left-leaning professors, lawmakers, and student leaders to stop the Commission on Higher Education from implementing CMO No. 20 s. 2013 that offloads Filipino and Panitikan (Literature) courses from college to the basic education curriculum as part of the K–12 programme. The Supreme Court has since issued a Temporary Restraining Order on April 22, 2015 (Philippines Daily Inquirer 2015).

6  A prediction for the future with regards the place, status, and roles of the relevant languages There are at least four indicators from which place, status, and roles of relevant languages in the Philippines can be predicted, and these lie, broadly, in: •• •• •• ••

the ability to respond to issues and gaps in the policy implementation; the structural and institutional arrangements that underpin implementation; the pragmatic accommodation to market demands of trade and globalisation; and the ability to protect and expand the policy gains for more inclusivity.

Gaps identified in policy implementation as described above may remain largely unattended, owing in part to inherent bureaucratic constraints and the lack of resources to address them. These issues are broadly divided in two levels – of policy and operationalisation. On the policy side, the Department of Education, as the chief implementing agency, is vested with powers to issue clarificatory departmental orders to arrest confusion that stems from contravening provisions in the law and its implementing rules and regulations. However, operationally, the Department of Education has the authority to implement the policy in the broadest sense and scope possible.Yet Congress must deliver its part by deleting or amending contravening provisions in the policy for sustainable, long term implementation. The issues are multifaceted and demand that DepEd and the key policy stakeholders reassess their strengths, resources, and capacities to effectively address them. The synergistic, participatory policy administration demands that the roles and accountabilities of each stakeholder are clear enough to manage overlaps and redundancies which, when left unaddressed, contribute to leakage in resources. Research evidence suggests that while there exists connections between Department of Education and the key stakeholders – among them higher education institutions and teacher education institutions, national government agencies such as the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, local and international non-governmental organisations, private and business sector, local and international donor organisations, media, local government units, civil society and people’s organisations, and parents – their specific roles and functions vis-à-vis education goals and objectives are not clarified. Thus, the scope for collaboration is nebulous and lacks interagency accountability. Multi-layered internal administrative processes and procedures from the central office down to the school in the community and its unnecessary deference to a national body complicate 179

Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos

devolution of action related to local implementation of mother tongue-based multilingual education. An example of this is the challenge in the development, standardisation, and approval of orthographies for languages that have no or an incomplete writing system.

7 Conclusion Greater decentralisation as embodied in a real and functioning federal system and as pursued by the current administration should provide the impetus for a sustainable and inclusive language and education policy. The latest East Asia and Pacific Economic Update of the World Bank issued in October 2016 demonstrated that the Philippine economy was the strongest performer in the region, thanks in large part to the services and industry sectors which served as the main drivers of growth for the last few years. However, on the language education front, the figures forebode a difficult challenge. For certain, the growth in the Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) sector – including call centres – which in 2016 was estimated at US$24 billion, placing it next to Overseas Foreign Worker (OFW) remittances at US$26.6 billion according to figures released by ING Bank Manila, provides the compelling argument to take another look at the country’s current language policy. The sustained growth of the BPO industry, about 90% of transactions of which are conducted in English, is what motivates policymakers to seriously reconsider English to be the primary medium of instruction in schools. And with estimated revenue of US$51 billion from OFW remittance and the BPO sector for 2016, recasting the language policy is the most expedient way to go. In fact, several bills were filed to pass a strong pro-English policy in Congress, including House Bill 311, which, while it did not muster legislative strength in the 15th Congress, seeks to make English the MOI from Grade 4 to the secondary level, leaving a smaller window for mother tongue-based education from Kindergarten to Grade 3.This attempt was made in the face of Republic Act No. 10533, which underpins the mother tongue-based education policy and which provides for a transition programme from Grades 4 to 6. Statistics from the Department of Labour and the IBPAP, the Philippine BPO industry association, state there are now one million Filipinos working in the sector. Since implementation beginning in 2011, the language policy has produced encouraging results especially in areas where diverse cultures converge and collide over competing narratives. In communities in the Southern Philippine island of Mindanao, mother tongue-based education is slowly being embraced by parents and children themselves as this serves as a feeder to promoting a culture of peace and tolerance in the region that has seen violence and neglect for decades. Recent research evidence (Arzadon et al.: 18–64) suggests improving school attendance and class participation among learners. More importantly, children in conflict areas now become more appreciative rather than suspicious and dismissive of their ethnic and linguistic differences. As both learners and teachers become more engaged, traces of intra- and intercultural interest is noted, with a few teachers in one school, for example, going the extra mile by learning two more local languages to relate to the students and parents better (Igcalinos 2016: 32). These are rather small yet meaningful and promising gains that warrant support from all sectors and a critical monitoring and documentation of these emerging practices vis-à-vis sound principles and policies will further strengthen the policy. In the midterm, however, it is largely status quo, in that no major shift in both public interest and regard of the policy is expected given the constraints, difficulties, and unresolved issues in its operationalisation. There is no foreseeable addition to the 19 languages granted official MOI status in the mid to long term.The Department of Education is effectively in an extended transition. For their part, the Philippine media will continue to be an English–Filipino enterprise with tokens for multilingualism in their regional news programming. Their top-rating 180

The Philippines

and primetime shows, however, remain in Tagalog or Filipino. This prevalence adds up to the insurmountable task of reversing public perception about the policy. For the long term, there are prospects that policy advocates can work on in partnership with government and international organisations to review and strengthen language education policy to respond to the multifaceted needs of a multilingual nation. It could only be under this system that the place, status, and roles of languages are accorded their rightful places – more than identity markers, the languages are an indispensable resource for sustainable development.

Notes 1 The 1973 Constitution designated English and Pilipino as official languages. Pilipino was based on Tagalog, a language of a specific ethnolinguistic community, based in Luzon.The Constitution provided for the development and formal adoption of common national language, to be called Filipino, to replace Pilipino, giving space to non-Tagalogs to participate in the development of the national language. 2 Bisdak is a colloquial term for Bisayang dako meaning “redblooded Bisayan”.

References Acuña, J. E., & Miranda, B.T. (1994). A closer look at the language controversy. In Congressional Oversight Committee on Education (Ed.), The language issue in education (pp. 1–17). Quezon City, Manila: COCED, Congress of the Republic of the Philippines. Alatis, J. E. (Ed.) (1978). International dimensions of bilingual education. In Georgetown University round table on languages and linguistics (pp. 302–379). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Aquino, B. S. (2010). Policy note: 10 ways to fix Philippine basic education. Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 2010. Arzadon, M., Calinawagan, E., & Datar, F. (2015). Examining the implementation synergy of mother tongue-based multilingual education in schools and the broader community in view of RA 10533. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies. Baguingan, G. (2000a). Grassroots legitimacy: The first language component bridging programme pilot project of Region 02 and CAR. Philippine Journal of Linguistics, 31(2), 93–105. Baguingan, G. (2000b). Reading and the child: The indigenous peoples – Lubuagan, Kalinga, Cordillera Autonomous Region. Unpublished report. Baker, C. (2006). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (4th ed.). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Bautista, M. C., Bernardo, A. B., & Ocampo, D. (2009). When reforms don't transform: Reflections on institutional reforms in the Department of Education. Quezon City: Human Development Network. Retrieved December 21, 2016 from http:​//pag​es.up​d.edu​.ph/s​ociol​ogy/p​ublic​ation​s/whe​n-ref​orms-​don%E​ 2%80%​99t-t​ransf​orm-r​eflec​tions​-inst​ituti​onal-​refor​ms-de​partm​ent. Bautista, M. L. S. (2000). Bridging research and practice in literacy work among minority language groups in the Philippines. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, 30(1), 203–217. Bautista, M. L. S., & Tan, G. O. (Eds.) (1999). The Filipino bilingual: A multi-disciplinary perspective (Festschrift in Honor of Emy M. Pascasio). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Bernardo, A. (2004). McKinley's questionable bequest: Over 100 years of English in Philippine education. World Englishes, 23(1), 17–31. Brigham, S., & Castillo, E. S. (1999). Philippines education for the 21st century: The 1998 Philippines education sector study. Technical Background Paper 6. Manila: Asian Development Bank. Brown, D. (1988). Peripheral communities to ethnic nations: Separatism in Southeast Asia. Pacific Affairs, 61(1), 51–77. Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power, and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Dekker, D. E. (2003). A case study of the First Language Component Bridging Program in rural Philippines. Philippine Journal of Linguistics, 34(1), 143–149. Dekker, D. E., & Dumatog, R. (2003). First language education in Lubuagan, Kalinga, Northern Philippines. Paper presented at the First International Conference on Language Development, Language Revitalisation and Multilingual Education in Minority Communities in Asia, Bangkok, Thailand. November 6–8, 2003.

181

Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos Dekker, D. E., & Young, C. (2005). Bridging the gap: The development of appropriate educational strategies for minority language communities in the Philippines. Current Issues in Language Planning, 6(2), 182–199. Dekker, P. G. (1999). First language component literacy: A bridge over troubled waters. In M. L. S. Bautista & G. O. Tan (Eds.), The Filipino bilingual: A multi-disciplinary perspective (Festschrift in Honor of Emy M. Pascasio) (pp. 94–102). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Department of Education, Culture and Sports, Philippines. (1987a). Order 54 s. 1987. The 1987 policy on bilingual education. Manila: DECS Department of Education, Culture and Sports, Philippines. (1987b). Order 54 s. 1987. Implementing guidelines for the 1987 policy on bilingual education. Manila: DECS. Department of Education, Philippines. (2009). Order No. 74 s. 2009. Institutionalising mother tonguebased multilingual education (MLE). Manila: DepEd. Dutcher, N. (1982). The use of first and second language in primary education: Selected case studies. World Bank Staff Working Paper 504. Washington, DC: World Bank. Dutcher, N. (2004). Expanding educational opportunity in linguistically diverse societies (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Centre for Applied Linguistics. Espiritu, C. (2002a). Filipino language in the curriculum. Retrieved December 21, 2016 from http:​//ncc​ a.gov​.ph/s​ubcom​missi​ons/s​ubcom​missi​on-on​-cult​ural-​disse​minat​ionsc​d/lan​guage​-and-​trans​latio​n/fil​ ipino​-lang​uage-​in-th​e-cur​r icul​um/ Espiritu, C. (2002b). Language policies in the Philippines. Retrieved December 21, 2016 from http:​//ncc​ a.gov​.ph/s​ubcom​missi​ons/s​ubcom​missi​on-on​-cult​ural-​disse​minat​ionsc​d/lan​guage​-and-​trans​latio​n/lan​ guage​-poli​cies-​in-th​e-phi​lippi​nes/ Gonzalez, A., & Sibayan, B. P. (Eds.) (1988). Evaluating bilingual education in the Philippines (1974–1985). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Gonzalez, A., & Sibayan. B. P. (1988). Policy implications and recommendations. In A. Gonzalez & B. P. Sibayan (Eds.), Evaluating bilingual education in the Philippines (1974–1985) (pp. 143–148). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Gonzalez, A. B. (1996). Using two/three languages in Philippine classrooms: Implications for policies, strategies and practices. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 17(2–4), 210–219. Gonzalez, A. B. (1998). The language planning situation in the Philippines. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 19(5–6), 487–525. Gonzalez, A. B., & Villacorta, W.V. (2001). The language provision of the 1987 constitution of the Republic of the Philippines. LSP Monograph 41. Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Gonzalez, A. B. (2007). The Philippines. In A. Simpson (Ed.), Language and national identity in Asia (pp. 360–373). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gregersen, H., Contreras-Hermosilla, A., White, A., & Phillips, L. (2004). Forest governance in federal systems: An overview of experiences and lessons and implications for decentralization: Work in progress. CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia Harris, P. R. (1981). The seven uses of synergy. Journal of Business Strategy, 2(2), 59–66. Hohulin, E. L. (1995). The first language component: A bridging educational program. Notes on Literacy, 21(1), 1–21. Igcalinos, A. (2016). Synergies in Philippine language-in-education policy in RA 10533: The case of MTBMLE implementation in Tacurong Pilot Elementary School. Unpublished research paper. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. B. (1998). Introduction. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 19(5), 355–357. Laranas, V. C. (2005). Filipino and the regional languages. Paper presented at Seminar-Workshop on Proactive Responses to Language Issues in Education and Development in the Philippines, Cebu City, Philippines. October 27–28, 2005. Lewis, M. P., Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (Eds.) (2016). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (19th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com. Licuanan, P. B. (2007). Language and learning. Paper delivered during the CEO forum on English, Philippine Business for Education, Asian Institute of Management. January 24, 2007. Llanto, J. F. (2009). Language experts, educators nix house bill for all-English teaching. ABS-CBN news online. January 16, 2009. Retrieved March 4, 2011 from http:​//www​.abs-​cbnne​ws.co​m/nat​ion/0​1/15/​ 09/la​nguag​e-exp​erts-​educa​tors-​nix-h​ouse-​bill-​all-e​nglis​h-tea​ching​. McFarland, C. D. (1993). Subgrouping of Philippine languages. In Philippine encyclopedia of the social sciences Vol. 2 (pp. 358–367). Manila: Philippine Social Science Council.

182

The Philippines Nolasco, R. M. (2008). The prospects of multilingual education and literacy in the Philippines. Paper presented at the 2nd International Conference on Language Development, Language Revitalisation and Multilingual Education, Bangkok, Thailand. July 1–3, 2008. Philippine Daily Inquirer. (2013). Castrated MTB-MLE. Retrieved December 21, 2016 from http:​//opi​ nion.​inqui​rer.n​et/61​025/c​astra​ted-m​tb-ml​e. Philippine Daily Inquirer. (2015). Multi-sectoral group bares discrepancies in K to 12 law. Retrieved December 21, 2016 from http:​//new​sinfo​.inqu​irer.​net/6​94452​/mult​i-sec​toral​-grou​p-bar​es-di​screp​ ancie​s-in-​k-to-​12-la​w#ixz​z4TTb​m2eEI​. Philippine Presidential Commission on Educational Reform (PCER). (2000). Philippine agenda for educational reform:The PCER report 2000. Manila: Department of Education, Culture and Sports. Philippines, Republic of, House of Representatives. (2013). 16th Congress. House Bill No. 1339. An act to strengthen and enhance the use of English as the medium of instruction in Philippine schools. Introduced by the Hon. A. Gullas. Philippines Statistics Authority. (2010). The age and sex structure of the Philippine population. Retrieved December 21, 2016 from http:​//psa​.gov.​ph/co​ntent​/age-​and-s​ex-st​ructu​re-ph​ilipp​ine-p​opula​tion-​ facts​-2010​-cens​us. Philippine Statistics Authority. (2015). 2015  Philippines statistical yearbook. Manila, Philippines: Philippine Statistics Authority. Rappa, A. L., & Wee, L. (2006). Language policy and modernity in Southeast Asia: Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. New York: Springer. Rassool, N., & Edwards,V. (2010). Multilingualism in African schools: Constraints and possibilities. Language and Education, 24(4), 277–281. Robinson, C. (1993).Where minorities are in the majority: Language dynamics amidst high linguistic diversity. In K. de Bot (Ed.), Case Studies in Minority Languages. AILA Review, 10, 52–70. Sibayan, B. P. (1978). Bilingual education in the Philippines: Strategy and structure. In J. E. Alatis (Ed.), International dimensions of bilingual education. Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1978 (pp. 302–379). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Sibayan, B. P. (1999a). Insights from language planning based on the Philippine experience [First published in 1991]. In B. P. Sibayan (Ed.), The intellectualisation of Filipino and other sociolinguistic and education essays (pp. 241–261). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Sibayan, B. P. (1999b). The intellectualisation of Filipino and other sociolinguistic and education essays. Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. The volume was published in 1999, however, papers included in the volume date from the early 1970s until mid-1990s. Sibayan, B. P. (1999c). Language planning and the development of Pilipino [First published in 1977]. In B. P. Sibayan (Ed.), The intellectualisation of Filipino and other sociolinguistic and education essays (pp. 279–283). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Sibayan, B. P. (1999d). Philippine national cultural communities [First published in 1986]. In B. P. Sibayan (Ed.), The intellectualisation of Filipino and other sociolinguistic and education essays (pp. 501–517). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Sibayan, B. P. (1999e). Language policy, language engineering, literacy in the Philippines [First published in 1974]. In B. P. Sibayan (Ed.), The intellectualisation of Filipino and other sociolinguistic and education essays (pp. 1–36). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Sibayan, B. P. (1999f). Linguistic minorities and bilingual communities in the Philippines [First published in 1985]. In B. P. Sibayan (Ed.), The intellectualisation of Filipino and other sociolinguistic and education essays (pp. 519–538). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Sibayan, B. P. (1999g). Literacy redefined: Literacy in what? Literacy for what? [First published in 1997]. In B. P. Sibayan (Ed.), The intellectualisation of Filipino and other sociolinguistic and education essays (pp. 285–294). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Sibayan, B. P. (1999h). Language planning processes and language policy survey [First published in 1971]. In B. P. Sibayan (Ed.), The intellectualisation of Filipino and other sociolinguistic and education essays (pp. 87–101). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Sibayan, B. P. (1999i). Survey of language use and attitudes towards language in the Philippines [First published in 1975]. In B. P. Sibayan (Ed.), The intellectualisation of Filipino and other sociolinguistic and education essays (pp. 103–134). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines. Skutnabb-Kangas,T. (2000). Linguistic genocide in education – or worldwide diversity and human rights? Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

183

Catherine Young and Tony Igcalinos Tiu, M. D. (2005). Language and education: Colonial legacy and the national imperative. Paper presented at the Seminar-Workshop on Proactive Responses to Language Issues in Education and Development in the Philippines, Kalayaan College, University of the Philippines, Cebu City. October 27–28, 2005. Tollefson, J. W. (1991). Planning language, planning inequality: Language policy in the community. London; New York: Longman. UNDP. (2015). Human development report 2015:Work for human development. Retrieved December 21, 2016 from http:​//hdr​.undp​.org/​en/co​untri​es/pr​ofile​s/PHL​). UNESCO. (1953). The use of the vernacular languages in education. Paris: UNESCO. Vizconde, C. (2006). English language instruction in the Philippine basic education program. Regional Language Centre Journal, 37(2), 260–273. Voeglin, C. F., & Voeglin, M. (1977). Classification and index of the world's languages. New York: Elsevier. Walter, S., & Dekker, D. E. (2008). The Lubuagan mother tongue education experiment (FLC): A report of comparative results. Unpublished manuscript. Retrieved March 4, 2011 from http:​//www​.sil.​org/a​sia/ p​hilip​pines​/lit/​2008-​02-27​_Repo​rt_to​_Cong​ress-​Lubua​gan_F​LC_Pa​per.p​df. World Bank. (2016). Reducing vulnerabilities. East Asia and Pacific Economic Update (October), World Bank, Washington, DC. World Education Forum. (2000a). The Dakar framework for action: Meeting our collective commitments. Paris: UNESCO. World Education Forum. (2000b). The EFA 2000 assessment: Country reports. Philippines. Paris: UNESCO. Retrieved December 21, 2016 from http:​//une​sdoc.​unesc​o.org​/imag​es/00​12/00​1200/​12005​8e.pd​f. Young, C. (2002). First language first: Literacy education for the future in a multilingual Philippine society. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 5(4), 221–232. Young, C. (2011). Enablers and constraints of an effective and sustainable mother tongue-based multilingual education policy in the Philippines. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales.

Further reading Burton, L. A. (2013). Mother tongue-based multilingual education in the Philippines: Studying a top-down policy from the bottom up. Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, http:// hdl.handle.net/11299/152603. Johnston, E. W. et al. (2010). Managing the inclusion process in collaborative governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21, 699–721. Metila, R., Pradilla, L., & Williams, A. (2016). The challenge of implementing mother tongue education in linguistically diverse contexts: The case of the Philippines. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher. doi: 10.1007/s40299-016-0310-5. Margerum, R. D. (2002). Collaborative planning. Building consensus and building a distinct model for practice. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 21, 237–253. Tupas, R., & Pefianco Martin, I. (2017). Bilingual and mother tongue-based multilingual education in the Philippines. In O. García, A. Lin & S. May (Eds.), Bilingual and multilingual education. Encyclopedia of language and education (3rd ed.). Springer, Cham. https​://do​i.org​/10.1​007/9​78-3-​319-0​2258-​1_18.

184

13 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN VIETNAM Xuan Nhat Chi Mai Nguyen and Van Huy Nguyen

1  The linguistic landscape of Vietnam Vietnam is a multi-ethnic country and a multilingual society, with 54 different ethnic groups who speak more than 100 different languages (Ethnologue: Languages of the world 2015). Among them, ethnic Viet (or Kinh) constitute 85.8% of the population, or nearly 73.6 million people, while the 53 other ethnic minority groups represent 14.2%, or nearly 11 million people (General Statistics Office of Vietnam 2009). Some of the largest minority groups have a population of 1–1.5 million people, including the Tày, Thái, Mường, Khmer, and H’mong. Relatively smaller groups are the Nùng, Hoa, and Dao, with between 700,000–900,000 people. The rest display considerably smaller numbers, with some as few as around 300 people, such as the Brâu and Ơđu. The majority of the dominant Kinh reside in inland deltas and coastal areas and speak Vietnamese. Ethnic minorities, in contrast, mostly live in mountainous or highland areas and speak a variety of languages. Among them, 47 are categorised as ‘vigorous’ (used sustainably for face-to-face communication by all generations), including Brao, Caolan, Coong, etc.; 15 are ‘developing’ (used vigorously with some literature formed but not yet widespread), such as Khmer, Lao, Banar, Bru, Hmong Daw; 32 are ‘threatened’ (used widely by all generations but losing their users), including Cham,Tay, Chinese (as later generations of ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam tend to speak Vietnamese as their first language), among others; five are ‘shifting’ (used among child-bearing generations but not transmitting to their children); and five are ‘dying’, including Arem, Gelao Green/Red/White, and Tay Boi. Despite this linguistic diversity, the Vietnamese language has no rival and is the dominant and most widely spoken language in modern Vietnam. This may be because it is the language of the majority Kinh people who are ethnically homogenous and have significant political and economic influence over the country (Imai, Gaiha, & Kang 2011; L. H. Phan, Vu, & Bao 2014). Other explanations for the current strength of Vietnamese, according to M. H. Le and O’Harrow (2007), are (i) the resistance of Vietnamese people to a reliance on colonial languages such as Chinese or French in earlier historical periods, and (ii) the successful embedding of the language in all formal domains of contemporary life, such as education, technology, and law. Ethnic minority languages, though acknowledged, play a much less important role. They are mainly spoken within confined ethnic minority communities. Some of the characteristics of these

185

Xuan Nhat Chi Mai Nguyen and Van Huy Nguyen

languages that have rendered teaching and learning them difficult are the non-proportionate numbers of speakers among different languages and the lack of written scripts for several languages (T. G. Nguyen 2006). In terms of foreign languages, due to the increasing involvement of Vietnam in regional and international economic and sociocultural activities, English has today become the most popular foreign language in Vietnam. Other languages are learnt and used to a lesser extent. Apart from many long-established European languages such as French, Russian, German, and Spanish, Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are also receiving growing interest.

2  Early language education policies 2.1  Language education policy in the early history For a long time in its early history, Vietnam was seen as having no language of its own (Do 1996). The history of constant conflicts with colonial powers deprived the country of the right condition for its national language to emerge and develop (Do 1996: 31). With almost one millennium under Chinese domination from 179 B.C. to 938 A.D., Chinese language and its ideographic writing system was adopted as the official language of the country (Pham 1994). Nevertheless, the Vietnamese people were able to devise their own written form for their language using Chinese characters and called it chữ Nôm, which means the language of the South [of China], implying Vietnam (K. Phan 1932). Although chữ Nôm was based on Chinese characters to represent Vietnamese, it was not intelligible to the Chinese. Thus, it was considered as an instance of the people’s resistance to the hegemony of Chinese language to protect its indigenous culture from Chinese influence (Lo Bianco 1994: 112). However, with the growing influence from European priests and from the French in the late 19th century, chữ Nôm as well as the Chinese characters were finally abolished and replaced by Quốc ngữ (literally means national language), a Roman alphabetic writing system with diacritic markers to mark tones and pronunciation. It was invented by European missionaries led by Alexandre d’Rhodes, and is still in use today to represent the modern Vietnamese language.

2.2  Language education policy during French colonisation Beginning as early as 1858, French soldiers advanced into Vietnam and one hundred years later,Vietnam remained under the rule of the French colonialists. The French colonialists made French the official language in Vietnam, the medium of instruction at all school levels (Lo Bianco 1994).They also promoted Quốc ngữ as the official written form of Vietnamese, and used Quốc ngữ to get rid of the Chinese legacy and to facilitate access to French language (Do 2006; Lam 2011). Nevertheless, the main aim of the language education policy in this period was to train the native Vietnamese to work for the French colonial government and to transmit French values into the Vietnamese society. School curricula designed and set up by French administrators were “not focused on learning about France, but on learning Vietnamese history, geography, and society from a French perspective” (Sullivan, 1996: 54). Therefore, compared to French, Quốc ngữ had secondary status. It was only taught at school, ironically, as “a foreign language” (Lo Bianco 1994: 113) because it was not used for official documents or classroom instruction. Any attempt to emphasise the teaching of Quốc ngữ in place of French, like in the case of Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc (Tonkin Free School), an institution established by Vietnamese intellectuals that emphasised Quốc ngữ and represented Vietnamese resistance to French rule, was considered as an act of rebellion (Buttinger 1969). As remarked by Lo Bianco (1994: 113), this colonial 186

Language education policy in Vietnam

language education policy resulted in a social division between those who spoke French at the top echelon of the society and the laypersons who spoke Vietnamese. Ethnic minority languages underwent a similar kind of policy during this period.The French were reported to have created Latinised scripts to facilitate the teaching of some minority languages in the Central Highlands of Vietnam such as Ê-đê, Ba Na, and Jarai, while depriving ethnic minority people of the right to learn Vietnamese (T. G. Nguyen 2006). Their aim was to expand French influence and impede inter-ethnic solidarity by limiting communication between the different ethnic groups in the country.

2.3  Language education policy during a divided Vietnam Although it has been the most commonly spoken language in Vietnam for centuries,Vietnamese did not become the medium of instruction until after 1945, when Vietnam claimed independence from the French (Denham 1992; Do 2006; Wright 2002). The first President of an independent Vietnam at that time – Ho Chi Minh – sought to fight illiteracy by investing in education. It was at this point that Vietnamese, represented by the Romanised Quốc ngữ, officially became the national language for Vietnam and the medium of instruction at all school levels (Ministry of Education 1990), in lieu of French. However, French was still taught as an additional language by Vietnamese teachers, using French texts (Lo Bianco 1994). In fact, during the fight with the French colonialists from 1945 to 1954, French was still used officially in French-controlled urban areas whereas Vietnamese was promoted in Vietnam-led rural regions (Do 2006). After the Geneva Accords in 1954, the French war ended.Vietnam was divided into the Communist North and the Nationalist South, making the landscape of language education policy more complex. As a result of aid and influence from communist countries in the North, Russian and Chinese became popular foreign languages. The first foreign language school in Vietnam was established in 1958 to teach these languages (Tran 2008 cited in Lam 2011: 43). The North government also issued Order 43 TTg in 1968 to stipulate that either Russian or Chinese was to be learnt intensively at university level. Meanwhile in the South, with the involvement of American troops after the French were defeated in the battle of Dien Bien Phu (which began in the middle of March and ended in May, 1954), English was required to be taught as an obligatory foreign language at school and university levels (T. L. Nguyen 2006). As early as 1955, many US advisers were sent to the South to train soldiers as part of US involvement in southern Vietnam during the war. From 1957, English education started to develop as continuous assistance was supplied to South Vietnam through one of the earliest government-supported agencies in Vietnam, the USAID (Wright 2002). The presence of American specialists, soldiers, business people, missionaries, and the free supply of textbooks and teaching materials helped to bring about the mushrooming of English language schools in the South. One noticeable feature of language education policy during this time is the contrasting nature of teaching and learning foreign language in a divided Vietnam. In the South, English was taught as a living language with a high integration of the cultural and political aspects of the language. A bilingual use of both English and Vietnamese was mandatory for all government documents in the South during this period. However, in the North, foreign languages were mainly taught for instrumental purposes and with a limited scope. The most widely taught foreign language, Russian, was mostly taught as a school subject, whereas Quốc Ngữ, or Vietnamese, was strongly upheld to strengthen national independence and identity (L. H. Phan et al. 2014). Regarding language education for ethnic minorities, from the first years of gaining independence, the Communist North government had astutely attached importance to promoting 187

Xuan Nhat Chi Mai Nguyen and Van Huy Nguyen

equal language rights among all ethnic groups, considering this a crucial principle for establishing national unification and prosperity. The 1946 Constitution stated that ethnic minority people had the right to study in their native languages. In contrast, the Southern government continued to employ colonial policies towards ethnic minority languages. They either forced ethnic minorities to learn Vietnamese only, as in the case of the Ngo Dinh Diem’s administration (1955–1963), or allowed education in ethnic minority languages, as documented during Nguyen Van Thieu’s presidency (1965–1975), but mainly to disseminate Catholic doctrines and propagandise against the Communist government (T. G. Nguyen 2006). In summary, this period of time witnesses a major shift in the country’s language education as Vietnamese became the national language and French was side-lined after Vietnam claimed its independence. In 1954, the French colonialists were defeated and then French was reduced to minimal presence, especially in the North. However, in South Vietnam, although English quickly gained its popularity, French remained an influential language. The reason was that French political and economic aid to the South still continued and many French-educated people held important government positions (Do 2006). In addition, the sharp difference in language education policy in Vietnam during this time reflects political division and hostility within a divided Vietnam, making the country an interesting instance of “language learning as a barometer of ideological identification” (Wright 2012: 115). It also reflects the global chasm in educational, cultural activities, and communicative need between the Soviet Union-led communist bloc and the US-led capitalist bloc. Language education policy was thus governed by political worldviews and the relationship between the country and its allies.

2.4  Language education policy after reunification and Đổi Mới In 1975, the two opposing parts of Vietnam were reunified as the South Vietnamese administration was overthrown by North Vietnamese forces. The unified central government of Vietnam aimed to renovate the country’s economy by implementing the open-door market-oriented policy in 1986 (known as Đổi Mới). At the same time, an emphasis was placed on strengthening national sovereignty and solidarity. One of the measures for this was to promote Vietnamese and its written form Quốc ngữ as an indispensable means of communication among different ethnic groups across the country (Socialist Republic of Vietnam 1980 cited in T. G. Nguyen 2006a). Vietnamese continued to be used as the medium of instruction starting from primary education. Moreover, to ensure ethnic equality rights, language education policy in this period stressed the importance of educating ethnic minority people, especially in their native languages. In 1980, seven ethnic minority languages were selected to be taught in general education nationwide, based on the availability of a written script and teacher and textbook resources (Truong 2011). Ethnic minority language education, however, experienced a downturn in the following ten or 15 years due to insufficient resources (ibid.: 7). The shifting political landscape also brought about changes in foreign language education policy. The thrill of victory over the American imperialists was reflected in the extreme policy of burning and binning English and French textbooks and other related materials in an effort to get rid of colonialist and imperialist legacies in the early 1980s (Long & Kendall 1981). As a result, both of these languages were removed from the curriculum, and “those who learnt them clandestinely could be punished and were immediately suspected of preparing to leave the country” (Wright 2002: 115). After that, “as part of political and educational alliances with the Soviet Union, Russian was required to be the main foreign language” (Do 2006: 5). According to Denham (1992), the targets set for foreign language education at high school at that time 188

Language education policy in Vietnam

were: 60% studying Russian, 25% studying English, and 15% studying French. It was also noted that Chinese almost disappeared from the language education landscape during this time, after Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia and a border clash between Vietnam and China in 1979 (Wright 2002). Russian became the most widely taught foreign language in the country. Many teachers and students were annually sent to the former Soviet Union to study Russian, both at undergraduate and graduate level. A New York journalist, Seth Mydans, reported in 1995 that “more than 100,000 Vietnamese workers and 3,000 students were in the Soviet Union at any one time.” After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Vietnam turned outward and Russian quickly became a ‘dead language’ for most Vietnamese. The replacement of Russian by English was triggered by a substantial withdrawal of Soviet support and greater public interest in English as a result of accumulating foreign investments (Do 2006). A generation of Russian teachers were suddenly left with hardly any students to teach. Many of them were retrained to teach English. In the meantime, English worked its way to fill in the gap left by Russian. It was true that after the country unification, along with the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, English gave way to Russian. But soon afterwards, following Đổi Mới, English re-emerged as the most widely used language, even though Russian was still strongly promoted by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) (Do 2006: 7). English was said to be “triumphantly reincarnated” (T. N. T. Bui & T. M. H. Nguyen 2015: 364) from the language of enmity (i.e. spoken by the Americans during Vietnam War) into the language of amity, hope, and aspiration for the vast majority of Vietnamese people. In the early 1990s, the government was believed to adopt the policy to have no policy on foreign language learning, leaving space for market driving force and learners’ right to choose the language(s) they wanted to study. And English became the top choice. This resulted in the ascendancy of English learning movement in nation-wide level and the government’s official acknowledgement of English.

3  Language education policies in the 21st century Language education policies in contemporary Vietnam reflect the current status of the languages spoken in the country. They can be categorised according to three main areas: (i) policies for Vietnamese – the national language, (ii) rules and regulations regarding language education for ethnic minority people, and (iii) policies pertaining to the teaching and learning of foreign languages, among which English takes a primary position.

3.1  Language education policies for Vietnamese As the de facto national language and the language of the majority Kinh, Vietnamese assumes utmost importance in the country’s education. According to the Vietnam Education Law, “Vietnamese is the official medium of instruction in the public school system and other educational organisations in the country” (Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2005). At school level, Vietnamese is used to teach all science and social science courses. Vietnamese Studies subjects are also core components of the national curriculum, some examples of which include Vietnamese,Vietnamese literature, and Vietnamese composition. In these courses, students learn about the phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary of Vietnamese; they also work with well-written Vietnamese poetry and prose, as well as learn to write fluently in the language. In recent years, the status of the Vietnamese language has, however, been challenged due to the increasing prevalence and expanding influence of foreign languages. A rising number of privately and foreign owned educational organisations are currently in operation in Vietnam, 189

Xuan Nhat Chi Mai Nguyen and Van Huy Nguyen

most of whom have chosen English as a medium of instruction (EMI) over Vietnamese (D. M. Le 2012; Vu & Burns 2014). While this helps to improve students’ English competence and enhance their competitiveness in the global job market, it threatens the role of the Vietnamese language. The reason is a number of EMI students have been reported to identify less with their native language and culture due to the lack of contact with Vietnamese in their learning environment (D. M. Le 2012).To tackle this, the Vietnamese government rules, in an administrative document on international cooperation in education, that Vietnamese students attending international schools at all levels must take Vietnamese and Vietnamese Studies as part of their compulsory subjects (Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) 2012). The weekly amount of time dedicated to these subjects varies between 70 minutes to 140 minutes depending on the level of schooling. The goals are to establish and develop students’Vietnamese language skills, as well as nurture their understanding and love for the language and culture of their motherland. While the prioritisation of Vietnamese comes as given to a majority of the country’s population who belong to the dominant ethnic group, this is not the case for ethnic minority people whose native language is not Vietnamese. Along with preserving their right to conduct education in their native languages (Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2013), the government strongly encourages ethnic minorities to learn Vietnamese from primary education. Such practice is instrumental in facilitating communication between different ethnic groups, thus strengthening the linguistic and cultural connection and bridging the long-held economic gap between minority people and the majority Kinh (B. C. Tran 2014; World Bank 2009). Nevertheless, the centralised implementation of this policy, in which most minority learners are taught in Vietnamese from Grade 1 of primary school, and learn their mother tongue only as a supplementary subject, has to a great extent overshadowed non-dominant minority languages. Consequently, some ethnic minority children in Vietnam might be found to be more literate in Vietnamese than in their mother tongues, as in the case of the ethnic Hoa, Muong, and Tay (Kosonen 2009). Also, the early enforcement of Vietnamese as the medium of instruction appears to disadvantage minority students as they have to acquire scientific knowledge in a language they are not yet proficient in. This has been reported to cause high dropout and failure rates among ethnic minority school-goers (Kosonen 2006; World Bank 2009). Clearly, the language education policy of Vietnam places pronounced emphasis on the role of Vietnamese in both public and private educational sectors nationwide, even to the extent that it has threatened the status of minority languages. This could be attributed to the developmental history of the Vietnamese language, as delineated in earlier sections of the chapter. Despite occupying a lower status than Chinese and French during colonial times, Vietnamese was still considered to have developed and flourished as “the vehicle of local culture” (Goh & B. Nguyen 2004: 344). This identity-building characteristic played a crucial role in sustaining the country through foreign invasion and maintaining its sovereignty (L. H. Phan et al. 2014). Continuing reinforcement of Vietnamese as a medium of instruction therefore reflects the government’s vision regarding the power of the Vietnamese language in maintaining and strengthening the country’s national identity and security.

3.2  Language education policies for ethnic minority languages As a continuation of ethnic minority language policy in the period after Đổi Mới, in the current era ethnic minority people in Vietnam are also given the choice to undergo formal education in their native languages. The aims are to “preserve and enhance cultural identity, and assist ethnic minority students in better acquiring scientific knowledge” (Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2005). These policies are judicious and appropriate as they are in line with current radical 190

Language education policy in Vietnam

principles of language instruction, which embrace linguistic diversity and support the legitimacy of mother tongue-based education (Heugh & Skutnabb-Kangas 2011; Kirkpatrick 2012; Panda & Mohanty 2015). Also, in the context of Vietnam, they serve to encourage the preservation and development of less dominant languages, thus securing the country’s linguistic and cultural diversity and enhancing the socioeconomic status of ethnic minority Vietnamese. Nevertheless, at the level of implementation, government policies on ethnic minority language education are liable to criticism. The few studies and reports on this topic (see Kosonen 2009, 2013; T. D. Tran 2002) have noted that although support for minority languages is evident in policy documents, it fails to be fully implemented in practice. Specifically, N.Y. Nguyen (1993) points out that “the Party and the state policies mostly remained in the form of ideologies or principles, and lacked detailed action plans that work specifically for each area and ethnicity” (p. 30). This lack of adequate and practical plans is further intensified given that ethnic minority Vietnamese tend to live in mixed communities where different native languages are spoken, making it difficult to select one minority language as the medium of education (Kosonen 2005;V. K. Nguyen 2009). Additionally, some minority languages do not have their own scripts, and thus cannot be taught formally. All of this has led to the disappearance of mother tongue education in some provinces such as Nghe An, Son La, and Tuyen Quang, where the minority languages of the Thai, Nung, and Tay people used to be taught (T. D. Tran 2002). In provinces where minority language education has taken place, the three models that have been implemented include (i) simultaneous introduction of Vietnamese and ethnic minority languages as media of instruction; (ii) Vietnamese as the core language of instruction, ethnic minorities languages as supplementary; and (iii) ethnic minority languages as core, and Vietnamese introduced from Grade 3 (T. N. D. Bui & V. T. Bui 2009). Critically speaking, the first two models have not been effective in enhancing the language proficiency of minority students (see Kosonen 2004), as in these models they have to either struggle to operate with two languages at the same time (model one), or lack exposure and practice with their mother tongues (model two). A recent pilot programme conducted by MOET in collaboration with UNICEF in the three provinces of Lao Cai, Gia Lai, and Tra Vinh, which describes itself as following a mother tongue-based bilingual education (model three), was more progressive in that minority languages are the medium of instruction at preschool, Grade 1, and Grade 2 levels. From Grades 3 to 5, Vietnamese is introduced and becomes the language of instruction alongside the mother tongues. The goal is that after completing Grade 5, students will obtain basic reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills in both languages and overcome the language barrier. This is what Skutnabb-Kangas (2009: 4) terms an “early-exit transitional program.” Following this model, students’ initial learning results in the period from 2008 to 2010 were considerably positive. Particularly, 89% of students reached or exceeded the benchmark grade for Vietnamese proficiency, and 85% reached that for their mother tongues, which are Mong, Jarai, and Khmer (MOET & UNICEF 2010). MOET therefore has planned to modify and expand this model to other ethnic minority communities. However, experience from other multilingual contexts suggests that in due course these early-exit transitional programmes might not be the most beneficial for minority children. Research conducted in India, Nepal, and the US has shown that participants of these programmes were rarely able to achieve native-like proficiency in the dominant language, nor have an adequate command of their native language (see Collier & Thomas 2002; Ajit K. Mohanty 2008; A. K. Mohanty 2009). Skutnabb-Kangas (2009) therefore advocates that minority children be educated in their mother tongues for at least the first six to eight years of schooling, as this will result in better general study achievements and long-term commitment to learning. This argument will be revisited in the conclusion of this chapter. 191

Xuan Nhat Chi Mai Nguyen and Van Huy Nguyen

3.3  Foreign language education polices in Vietnam Vietnam currently maintains diplomatic relationships with more than 180 countries in the world (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2015), and has established economic partnerships with over 220 foreign markets. The Education Law clearly specifies, “compulsory foreign languages included in the national curriculum are those commonly used in international transactions” (Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2005). This policy demonstrates proper awareness of the close-knit connection between language learning demands and national economic and social development. Since 1994, English, French, Russian, and Chinese have been considered by the government as the four main foreign languages to be taught at primary and secondary levels (H. Bui 2005). The following section provides a brief overview of the education policies for these languages. English is promoted as the most important foreign language across all levels of Vietnamese education. A recently launched national project entitled “Teaching and learning foreign languages in the public education system from 2008 to 2020” (henceforth Project 2020) specifies that “English is the foreign language to be taught and learnt in public educational organisations, among others” (Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2008). English is a mandatory subject across the Vietnamese public school system from Grades 6 to 12 of secondary education. At primary level, since 1996 it has been introduced as a subject from Grade 3 in many provinces, and is expected to become compulsory for all third-graders nationwide in the near future (T. N. T. Bui & T. M. H. Nguyen 2015). At tertiary level, English can be learnt as a major or a subject (see Hoang 2010). English major students can study for a bachelor, master, or doctoral degree in English linguistics or English teaching. As a subject, English is learnt by non-English major students for a few hours weekly, accounting for 10% to 12% of their total credit hours. This broadening adoption of English contributes to increasing public awareness of the importance of English competence in the current globalised era, as well as improving the quality of English teaching and learning in Vietnam. Nonetheless, it entails issues concerning the inadequacy of policy implementation, such as the lack of learning facilities and materials, shortage of qualified teachers, out-dated methods of assessments, or improper implementation of EMI. Detailed discussion of these key issues concerning English education policy in Vietnam will be provided in subsequent sections of this chapter. French is the second most widely taught foreign language in Vietnam, starting from primary school level. This results from the country’s historical and cultural involvement with France, and its membership in the International Organisation of La Francophonie (IOF) since 1970. The language has an estimated number of learners totalling 120,000 (Embassy of France in Hanoi 2009), among which around 52,000 study French as their first foreign language, 45,000 as their second foreign language (together with English), nearly 15,000 use French as a medium of instruction in science and technology courses, while the remaining 1,600 are estimated to specialise in French (lớp chuyên Pháp). Although much more modest in terms of popularity in comparison with English learning, French is expected to receive continuous support from education policy makers and will continue to be taught in the formal school system of Vietnam in the near future. The current and future status of Russian, in contrast, is less secure. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian has gradually been replaced by English in public education. As of 2015, only one secondary school and 11 high schools nationwide offer Russian as a subject; seven foreign language colleges and universities have Russian as a major, and 22 offer Russian as a foreign language (compared to 93 in previous years) (Branch of Pushkin State Russian Language Institute 2015). A recent national conference on “Innovating the teaching and learning of Russian at educational and training organisations in Vietnam”, held as part of Project 192

Language education policy in Vietnam

2020, has pointed out several drawbacks of Russian teaching in Vietnam in the last 20 years, such as limited contact hours, out-dated learning materials, and the lack of well-qualified teachers. Suggestions have also been made regarding innovations, including reintroducing Russian from secondary school level, redesigning textbooks, or increasing the number of Russian language teachers.These initial measures reflect the government’s desire to re-establish the role of Russian in the landscape of foreign language education in Vietnam.The aim is to keep pace with increasingly stronger economic cooperation between the nation and Russian-speaking countries in recent years. Finally, Chinese receives major policy attention mainly because of the closeness between the Vietnamese and Chinese languages and cultures, as well as strengthening economic, cultural, and educational relations with China. Many tertiary institutions specialising in foreign language education in Vietnam have Chinese language and cultural studies as a major. However, at lower levels, the teaching of Chinese has only been delivered in a limited number of schools, mostly in major cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and suffers largely from the lack of a systematically designed syllabus (Ho Chi Minh City University of Education 2015). Under the enactment of Project 2020, MOET proposed a national Chinese curriculum for secondary and high school students (MOET 2013b); nevertheless, to date the programme has not yet been implemented. Most recently, Chinese and Russian have been proposed to become one of the compulsory foreign languages for school students as part of Project 2020 (MOET 2016). A relatively similar case applies to Japanese and Korean, two other Asian languages that have recently appealed to Vietnamese learners.They have only been sporadically taught in the publicschool system (MOET 2013a). Also, the teaching and learning of other foreign languages such as Arabic, German, Italian, Spanish, or Thai are rare and generally limited to university level, due to a lower learner demand for them. In summary, state policies on foreign language education in Vietnam foreground the primary status of English and demonstrate the government’s determination in encouraging their citizens to learn and speak an additional foreign language to meet the communicative demands of a highly integrated global economy. This signifies a sensible approach toward reinforcing multilingualism and strengthening the competitiveness of Vietnamese people in the global job market in terms of language competence, and resisting an over-reliance on English (H. Bui 2005; V. K. Nguyen 2009).

4  Current issues with English education policy in Vietnam As previously stated, in Vietnamese education English is currently taught as a subject at school level; it is also increasingly used as a medium of instruction at privately owned international schools and in selected study programmes at a number of public universities. For both of these functions, the adoption of English is guided by corresponding government policies. This discussion focuses on current English education policy in Vietnam under the enactment of the National Foreign Language Project and identifies major emerging issues with regard to primary English education, teacher qualifications, assessment practices, and the implementation of English as a medium of instruction. Project 2020, which was derived from rising societal and governmental concerns about the low English proficiency level of Vietnamese learners (see T. N. Nguyen 2011; Nunan 2003), is to renovate the teaching and learning of foreign languages within the national education system. With an estimated total cost of approximately US$500 million, the ultimate goal of the project is to impact human resource development and professional skills through an emphasis on foreign language proficiency so that by the year 2020 most Vietnamese youth who graduate 193

Xuan Nhat Chi Mai Nguyen and Van Huy Nguyen

from vocational schools, colleges, and universities gain the capacity to use a foreign language independently, to be more confident in communication, further their chance to study and work in an integrated and multicultural environment with a variety of languages, serving the cause of industrialisation and modernisation for the country (Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2008). Specifically, the project aims to implement a ten-year education programme in which students begin learning foreign languages, particularly English, from Grade 3 of primary school. This started as a pilot programme in academic year 2010–2011 for 20% of third-graders nationwide, and targets toward reaching 100% in 2018–2019. Foreign languages are also expected to be included in all vocational and university curricula by the end of 2020. To realise these objectives, stronger state investments in the teaching and learning of English are underway. Teachers and students have been equipped with better facilities for learning English; new textbook series that cater better to students’ learning needs are being developed; individualised frameworks of competency have been devised to better reflect the teaching and learning abilities of Vietnamese teachers and learners of English; and English teachers have been given more opportunities to take part in language proficiency enhancement and professional development activities (see Dudzik & T. N. Q. Nguyen 2015; Mai 2014; MOET 2014). Given its long-term vision and initial achievements, the project is unequivocally a timely major reform effort by the government to improve its citizens’ foreign language competence. Its enactment has also prompted English teachers and learners and Vietnamese people in general to face and seek solutions to several long-standing problems related to English language teaching in the country. The project’s execution, however, reveals several limitations. Empirical studies on English education in Vietnam in the duration of Project 2020 have unveiled several policy-related issues, firstly with primary English teaching. Specifically, the switch to the early teaching of English has found the education system unprepared. Many primary English teachers were not trained to teach English to young learners.Thus, they were observed to use teaching methods that were adult-oriented, predominantly form-focused, and heavily reliant on choral drilling and repetition techniques (see Mai 2014; T. M. H. Nguyen 2001a). This was because most teacher colleges in Vietnam had previously focused exclusively on training English teachers for adolescent and adult levels, as there was no demand for primary English then. The same situation applies for primary English materials. While the early introduction of English receives strong support from teachers, students, and their parents (T. M. H. Nguyen 2011a), a lack of proper and systematic preparation of resources appears to impact negatively on policy outcomes. Particularly, locally designed textbooks do not improve much over time in terms of teaching approach, and lack attractiveness. Commercial materials designed for international audience such as Let’s go, a textbook published by Oxford University Press, is still a preferred choice in many schools (see T. M. H. Nguyen 2011). These problems arguably derive from the gap between a policy shift and resources available to accommodate this shift, reflecting a well-known circumstance in language planning, that “the education sector is often underresourced for the tasks it fulfils” (Kaplan & Baldauf 2009: 609). Another important policy issue is the “massive retraining” of English teachers to enhance their proficiency levels. In an English proficiency test delivered by MOET to English teachers in 30 provinces in Vietnam in 2011, 97% of high school English teachers and 93% of those teaching English at secondary and primary level failed to achieve the desired proficiency benchmarks set by MOET, based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (Dudzik & T. N. Q. Nguyen 2015).The CEFR is a six-level framework commonly used to describe achievements of foreign language learners across Europe, and has recently been adopted to assess the English abilities ofVietnamese teachers and learners of English.Accordingly,Vietnamese high school English teachers are required to be at the C1 level (‘effective operational proficiency or 194

Language education policy in Vietnam

advanced’), and secondary and primary teachers at B2 (‘vantage or upper-intermediate’). Due to their low initial test results, since 2012 English teachers at school levels across the country have been required to take English language enhancement courses provided by MOET. Five universities are assigned as flagship regional language centres to take charge of teacher ‘re-education’ (Dudzik & T. N. Q. Nguyen 2015; V. C. Le 2015). After these intensive short courses, which normally last from four to six weeks, teachers are expected to pass CEFR-based tests corresponding to the levels required of them. The government’s decision to invest in enhancing the language competence of English teachers is a judicious step toward improving the quality of its English education in general. Nonetheless, both teachers under training and educational observers have been reported to express apprehension toward the CEFR-based levels prescribed for English teachers, claiming that these benchmarks are likely beyond teachers’ ability, especially for those in rural areas (V. C. Le 2015;V. C. Le & Do 2012). Additionally, a number of teachers have stated that the language enhancement courses they took were mostly geared toward getting them to pass CEFR tests, rather than providing what they needed for their job (e.g. improving pronunciation in the case of primary teachers) (see Mai 2014). There is thus little guarantee that teachers’ language proficiency will significantly improve after the retraining programmes, even when they have passed the tests to reach required competency levels. Evaluation policy in English education in Vietnam also deserves discussion. English is a compulsory subject in the national examination for high school graduation, which gives it high priority in comparison with other subjects in the curriculum. However, many English tests, from classroom level to national English proficiency standardised ones, have excessively focused on gauging students’ competence on grammar, vocabulary, and mastery of reading and writing skills, leaving out assessment of important communicative skills such as listening and speaking. H. P. Tran (2014) studied the validity of the Vietnam national university entrance examination English test (UEE), and found that, while the test was reliable, the lack of items measuring productive skills has led to negative washback. Particularly, many teachers and learners at secondary and upper-secondary levels decided to skip the practice of listening and speaking skills even though they were part of the curriculum, as these skills would not be tested. Such test design complies with the under-resourced condition of Vietnam, where there are often insufficient human resources and facilities to administer large-scale language tests. However, this is no excuse for not aiming toward more comprehensive tests that better reflect the current communicative approach toward teaching and learning English, especially those used at national level such as the UEE and the high school graduation test. Such a shift in assessment practice will have a positive influence on the teaching and learning of English in the school system (T. M. H. Nguyen 2011; H. P. Tran 2014). Regarding the use of English as a medium of instruction (EMI), the government has granted permission for the operation of several EMI schools and institutions. It is also part of Project 2020 that English will be used for teaching Mathematics at high school level in well-resourced areas. EMI will also be implemented in teaching final year students at some national and regional universities. This endorsement of EMI could be considered forward-looking. It contributes to improving the status of English, meeting the demand for an international education ofVietnamese students, as well as creating more opportunities for cooperation between Vietnamese institutions and other universities in the region and the world (H. T. Nguyen, Walkinshaw, & Pham 2017). However, it further demonstrates the inadequacy and unpreparedness of the Vietnamese education system. D. M. Le (2012),Vu and Burns (2014), and Nguyen et al. (2017) pointed out several difficulties faced by EMI lecturers and students in higher education in Vietnam. The first one is teachers’ insufficient language ability to teach content subjects in English as well as students’ low 195

Xuan Nhat Chi Mai Nguyen and Van Huy Nguyen

English proficiency, which diminishes the effectiveness of English instruction. Second, differences between the Asian-oriented learning styles and the Western-based curricula used in EMI programmes make it challenging for Vietnamese students to make the best use of teaching and learning.Third, the high tuition fees for EMI programmes inadvertently create a socioeconomic gap between EMI students and those enrolled in traditional programmes. Finally, at the cultural level is the threat to national identity; students who have more contact with English than Vietnamese in their academic environment are likely to gradually identify less with the culture of their motherland. At school level, despite not yet having been executed, the plan to teach Mathematics in English likely faces similar challenges regarding teachers’ and learners’ language proficiency and availability of teaching resources. The case of Malaysia, who switched to using English to teach science subjects from primary level in 2002, and reversed back to Bahasa Malaysia in 2009 (see Gill 2004, 2012), can be a good reference for Vietnam. The Malaysian government’s decision to switch back to the local language was based on empirical research that revealed discouraging study results of students learning science subjects in English, especially those from rural areas. Language policy in Malaysia is largely dictated by political interests of the ruling party (Gill 2012), which might not be entirely the case for Vietnam. Nonetheless, careful study of EMI implementation in a developing country that shares some commonalities in educational conditions such as Malaysia will be helpful in providing useful insights into the feasibility of EMI implementation at school level in Vietnam. It is apparent that current English language education planning in Vietnam reflects a topdown approach toward language-in-education policy. Reform policies at macro level have not been translated well to practice at institutional and classroom levels (H. T. Nguyen et al. 2017). These centralised policies, which fail to take into consideration feedback from the community, such as teachers, students, parents, or administrators (T. M. H. Nguyen 2011), have resulted in mismatches between decisions made by policy-makers and what teachers and students actually need for improved teaching and learning performance. There is also the issue of resources, whereby policy goals are hard to reach within the intended time frame (by 2020) due to inadequate evaluation of the country’s physical and human resources.

5  Possible development and implications Given the predominant emphasis on promoting Vietnamese as a medium of instruction and a subject in the public education system, it is highly likely that, in the future, the Vietnamese language will continue to be the country’s major language of instruction and communication. The main concern, however, is that the weight attached to the importance of Vietnamese in education policy might negatively affect the status of minority languages, as discussed previously in the chapter. More balanced language-in-education policies are thus needed so that Vietnamese will not thrive at the expense of less dominant languages. In the context of Vietnam, better language education for ethnic minority Vietnamese can be achieved if the government takes a more active role in individualising plans for promoting mother tonguebased education for minority children, taking into account geographical and cultural differences across ethnic groups. Among the key strategies are increasing the number of properly trained teachers who are fluent in both Vietnamese and a minority language, and developing sufficient materials for teaching school subjects in the students’ mother tongues, at least until the final year of primary education (Grade 5). This should be implemented in accordance with careful considerations of the linguistic characteristics and local use of different minority languages (V. K. Nguyen 2009). 196

Language education policy in Vietnam

With regard to foreign language education, English will likely continue to maintain its role as the key foreign language to be taught and learnt nationwide. Support for the early introduction of English from primary level is expected to increase, due to evidence of previous generations of learners failing to obtain an adequate level of English proficiency.This calls for the need to thoroughly revise the English curriculum, especially the primary English textbook series, in order to better accommodate the learning needs of a more demanding student population. To meet the rising demand for quality English teaching, teacher education programmes aimed toward training primary English teachers should be established in departments of English of state universities and colleges. Also, as the national foreign language project progresses to the later stages of its enactment, it is hoped that constructive criticisms from the public and educational researchers will be adequately considered, so that proper adjustments can be made. Moreover, it is crucial that continuous attention be paid toward enhancing the quality of English education, even after the lifespan of Project 2020. Alongside English, demands for other foreign languages, especially Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are projected to rise, owing to increasingly stronger economic relations between these countries and Vietnam. The demand for French and Russian might remain stable, as these languages have long played an important part in the language education of Vietnam. In particular, the number of Russian learners might increase as a result of the government’s effort of re-establishing its importance in the public-school system. For all these languages, a larger amount of effort and more consistent, detailed plans are continually needed to enhance access to the teaching and learning of a wide range of foreign languages in the public education system apart from English, focusing centrally on areas of curriculum development, textbook design, and teacher training.

References Branch of Pushkin State Russian Language Institute. (2015). National conference on innovating Russian language education in Vietnamese schools and institutions. Retrieved from http:​//pus​kinhn​.edu.​vn/ch​i-tie​ t/103​4/hoi​-thao​-quoc​-gia-​doi-m​oi-da​y-va-​hoc-t​ieng-​nga-t​rong-​cac-c​o-so-​gd-dt​-tai-​viet-​nam.h​mtl. Bui, H. (2005). Cơ cấu ngoại ngữ trong nền giáo dục Việt Nam [The structure of foreign languages in Vietnamese education]. European Studies Review, 4(64), 79–83. Bui,T. N. D., & Bui,V.T. (2009). Language-in-education policies in Vietnam. In M. Redmond (Ed.), Mother tongue as bridge language of instruction: Policies and experiences in South East Asia (pp. 109–119). Thailand: SEAMEO Secretariat. Bui,T. N.T., & Nguyen,T. M. H. (2015). Standardizing English for educational and socio-economic betterment – A critical analysis of English language policy reforms in Vietnam. In R. Kirkpatrick (Ed.), English language education policy in Asia (pp. 363–388). Cham: Springer. Buttinger, J. (1969). Vietnam: a political history. London: Deutsch. Collier, V. P., & Thomas, W. P. (2002). Reforming education policies for English learners means better schools for all. The State Education Standard, 3(1), 30–36. Denham, P. A. (1992). English in Vietnam. World Englishes, 11(1), 61–69. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.1992. tb00047.x Do, H. T. (1996). Foreign language education policy in Vietnam:The reemergence of English and its impact on higher education. (Dissertation/Thesis), ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. Do, H. T. (2006). The role of English in Vietnam’s foreign language policy: A brief history. Paper presented at the 19th Annual English Australia Education Conference. Dudzik, D., & Nguyen, T. N. Q. (2015).Vietnam: Building English competency in preparation for ASEAN 2015. In R. Stroupe & K. Kimura (Eds.), ASEAN Integration and the Role of English Language Teaching (pp. 41–71). Phnuompenh: Language Education in Asia. Embassy of France in Hanoi. (2009). Teaching French in Vietnam. Retrieved from http:​//www​.amba​franc​ e-vn.​org/G​iang-​day-t​ieng-​Phap-​tai-V​iet-N​am

197

Xuan Nhat Chi Mai Nguyen and Van Huy Nguyen Ethnologue: Languages of the world. (2015). Vietnam. Retrieved from http://www.ethnologue.com/ country/VN General Statistics Office of Vietnam. (2009). The 2009 Vietnam population and housing census: Official report. Retrieved from Hanoi, Vietnam: http:​//www​.gso.​gov.v​n/Mod​ules/​Doc_D​ownlo​ad.as​px?Do​cID=1​ 1474.​ Gill, S. K. (2004). Language policy and planning in higher education in Malaysia: A nation in linguistic transition. In C.Van Leeuwen & R.Wilkinson (Eds.), Multilingual approaches in university education: Challenges and practices (Vol. 11, pp. 109–125). Maastrich: Universiteit Maastricht Press. Gill, S. K. (2012). The complexities of re-reversal of language-in-education policy in Malaysia. In A. Kirkpatrick & R. Sussex (Eds.), English as an international language in Asia: Implications for language education (pp. 45–62). Dordrecht, NY: Springer. Goh, E., & Nguyen, B. (2004). Vietnam. In H. W. Kam & R. Y. L. Wong (Eds.), Language policies and language education – the impact in East Asian countries in the next decade (pp. 342–353). Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International. Heugh, K., & Skutnabb-Kangas,T. (2011). “Peripheries” take centre stage: Reinterpreted multilingual education works. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas & K. Heugh (Eds.), Multilingual education and sustainable diversity work: From periphery to center (pp. 263–283). New York: Routledge. Ho Chi Minh City University of Education. (2015). Conference on evaluating and suggesting solutions for innovating Chinese language education at educational and training organisations in Vietnam. Retrieved from http:​//www​.hcmu​p.edu​.vn/i​ndex.​php?o​ption​=com_​conte​nt&view=article&id=20150&lang=v i&site=0 Imai, K. S., Gaiha, R., & Kang,W. (2011).Vulnerability and poverty dynamics in Vietnam. Applied Economics, 43(25), 3603–3618. doi:10.1080/00036841003670754 Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. B. (2005). Language-in-education policy and planning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 609–622). New York: Routledge. Kirkpatrick, A. (2012). English in ASEAN: Implications for regional multilingualism. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(4), 331–344. Kosonen, K. (2004). Language in education policy and practice in Vietnam. Commissioned study. Hanoi: UNICEF. Kosonen, K. (2005). Education in local languages: Policy and practice in South-East Asia. In First Language First: Community-based Literacy Programmes for Minority Language Context in Asia (pp. 96–134). Bangkok: UNESCO. http://www2.unescobkk.org/elib/publications/first_language/first_language.pdf. Kosonen, K. (2006). Multigrade teaching among ethnic minority children: The language issue. In L. Conish (Ed.), Reaching EFA through multi-grade teaching: Issues, contexts and practices (pp. 239–258).Armidale, NSW Australia: Kardoorair Press. Kosonen, K. (2009). Language-in-education policies in Southeast Asia: An overview. In M. Redmond (Ed.), Mother tongue as bridge language of instruction: Policies and experiences in South East Asia (pp. 22–43). Thailand: SEAMEO Secretariat. Kosonen, K. (2013).The use of non-dominant languages in education in Cambodia,Thailand and Vietnam. In C. Benson & K. Kosonen (Eds.), Language issues in comparative education (pp. 39–58). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Lam, T. L. (2011). The impact of Vietnam’s globalization on national education policies and teacher training programs for teachers of English as an international language: A case study of the University of Pedagogy in Ho Chi Minh City. (Doctor of Education), Alliant International University, San Diego. Le, D. M. (2012). English as a medium of instruction in Asian universities: The case of Vietnam. Language Education in Asia, 3(2), 263–267. Le, M.-H., & O’Harrow, S. (2007). Vietnam. In A. Simpson (Ed.), Language and national identity in Asia (pp. 415–441). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Le,V. C. (2015). English language education innovation for the Vietnamese secondary school: The Project 2020. In B. Spolsky & S. Kiwan (Eds.), Secondary school English education in Asia: From policy to practice (pp. 182–200). Florence: Taylor and Francis. Le,V. C., & Do, T. M. C. (2012). Teacher preparation for primary school English education. In B. Spolsky & Y.-i. Moon (Eds.), Primary school English language education in Asia (pp. 106–128). New York: Routledge. Lo Bianco, J. (1994). Issues and aspects of Vietnam’s language policy: Some reflections after a brief visit. In X. T. Nguyen (Ed.), Vietnamese studies in a multicultural world (pp. 110–119). Melbourne: Vietnamese Language & Culture Publications. Long, N., & Kendall, H. H. (1981). After Saigon fell: Daily life under the Vietnamese Communists (Vol. 4.). Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California.

198

Language education policy in Vietnam Mai, N. K. (2014). Towards a holistic approach to developing the language proficiency of Vietnamese primary teachers of English. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 11(2), 341–357. Ministry of Education. (1990). 45  years of educational development in Vietnam. Hanoi: Education Publishing House. Ministry of Education and Training (MOET). (2012). Hướng dẫn thi hành một số điều của Nghị định số 73/2012/NĐ-CP ngày 26 tháng 9 năm 2012 của Chính phủ quy định về hợp tác, đầu tư của nước ngoài trong lĩnh vực giáo dục [Guide on the implementation of some articles of Decree No. 73/2012 /ND-CP, dated September 26, 2012 on international cooperation and investment in the education sector]. Retrieved from http://www.moet.gov.vn/?page=6.10&view=432 Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (2015). Chủ tịch nước Trương Tấn Sang hội kiến Tổng Thư ký LHQ Ban Ki-moon [President Truong Tan Sang met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon]. Retrieved from http:​//www​.mofa​hcm.g​ov.vn​/mofa​/nr04​08071​04143​/nr04​08071​05001​/ns15​09250​85353​ MOET. (2013a). Announcement No.501/TT-BGDĐT: Japanese language education at educational and training organisations in Vietnam Retrieved from http:​//dea​n2020​.edu.​vn/vi​/laws​/deta​il/Th​ong-b​ ao-so​-501-​TT-BG​DDT-n​gay-1​8-4-2​013-2​6/ MOET. (2013b). Chinese curriculum for secondary and high school levels. Retrieved from http:​//dea​ n2020​.edu.​vn/up​loads​/news​/2013​_09/c​huong​-trin​h-ngo​ai-ng​u-2-c​ap-th​cs-va​-thpt​-mon-​tieng​-trun​ g-quo​c-sau​-tham​-dinh​.pdf MOET. (2014). Decree No.426/BGDĐT-ĐANN: Guide on implementing the National Foreign Language Project in 2014. Retrieved from http:​//dea​n2020​.edu.​vn/vi​/laws​/deta​il/Hu​ong-d​an-tr​ien-k​hai-n​ hiem-​vu-na​m-201​4-CV-​so-42​6-BGD​DT-DA​NN-17​/ MOET, & UNICEF. (2010). Nghiên cứu thực hành giáo dục song ngữ trên cơ sở tiếng mẹ đẻ: Tạo cơ hội học tập cho trẻ em dân tộc thiểu số [Researching the implementation of mother-based bilingual education: Creating educational opportunities for ethnic minority children]. Retrieved from Hanoi: http:​//www​.unic​ef.or​g/vie​ tnam/​vi/re​sourc​es_14​154.h​tm Mohanty, A. K. (2008). Multilingual education in India. In J. Cummins & N. Hornberger (Eds.), Bilingual education. Encyclopeadia of language and education (Vol. 5, pp. 165–174). New York: Springer. Mohanty, A. K. (2009). Multilingual education – A bridge too far? In O. García, A. K. Mohanty, M. Panda, R. Phillipson & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.), Multilingual education for social justice: Globalising the local (pp. 5–17). New Delhi: Orient Blackswan. Nguyen, H. T., Walkinshaw, I., & Pham, H. H. (2017). EMI programs in a Vietnamese university: Language, pedagogy and policy issues In B. Fenton-Smith, P. Humphreys & I. Walkinshaw (Eds.), English-medium instruction in higher education in Asia Pacific: From policy to pedagogy (pp. 37–52). New York: Springer. Nguyen, N. Y. (1993). Những vấn đề chính sách ngôn ngữ ở Việt Nam [Issues in language education policy in Vietnam]. Hanoi: Social Science Publisher. Nguyen, T. G. (2006). Chính sách ngôn ngữ Việt Nam qua các thời kì lịch sử [Language education policy in Vietnam through different historical periods]. Retrieved from http://ngonngu.net/index. php?m=print&p=172 Nguyen, T. L. (2006). Giáo dục ở Nam Việt Nam từ xưa đến hết đệ nhất cộng hòa [Education in South Vietnam from ancient time to the end of the First Republic]. Retrieved from http://www.namkyluctinh.com/ntliem/ntliem-giaoducmiennam%5B2%5D.pdf Nguyen, T. M. H. (2011). Primary English language education policy in Vietnam: Insights from implementation. Current Issues in Language Planning, 12(2), 225–249. doi:10.1080/14664208.2011.597048 Nguyen,T. N. (2011). West wind blows:Voices of Vietnamese teachers and students of English – A case study of Nha Trang University. (Dissertation/Thesis), ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. Nguyen,V. K. (2009). Giáo dục ngôn ngữ ở Việt Nam trong bối cảnh toàn cầu hoá [Language education in Vietnam in the globalised era]. Ngôn ngữ và Đời sống [Language and Life], 6(164), 1–7. Nunan, D. (2003). The impact of global language on educational policies and practices in Asia-Pacific region. TESOL Quarterly, 37(4), 589–613. Panda, M., & Mohanty, A. K. (2015). Multilingual education in South Asia: The burden of the double divide. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun & O. García (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (Vol. 1) (pp. 542–553). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Pham, M. H. (1994). Education in Vietnam: Situations, issues, and policies. Hanoi:Vietnam: Ministry of Education and Training. Phan, K. (1932). Tên gió bốn hướng [The name of wind from four directions]. Retrieved from http:​//lai​ nguye​nan.f​ree.f​r/pk1​932/T​enGio​.html​

199

Xuan Nhat Chi Mai Nguyen and Van Huy Nguyen Phan, L. H., Vu, H. H., & Bao, D. (2014). Language policies in modern-day Vietnam: Changes, challenges, and complexities. In P. G. Sercombe & T. R. F. Tupas (Eds.), Language, education and nation-building: Assimilation and shift in Southeast Asia (pp. 232–244). Houndmills, Baskingstoke, Hampshire: New York. Skutnabb-Kangas,T. (2009). The stakes: Linguistic diversity, linguistic human rights and mother tongue based multilingual education. Paper presented at the Bamako International Forum on Multilingualism, Bamako, Mali. Socialist Republic of Vietnam. (2005). Education Law. Retrieved from http:​//www​.moj.​gov.v​n/vbp​q/lis​ ts/vn​%20bn​%20ph​p%20l​ut/vi​ew:de​tail.​aspx?​itemi​d=181​48 Socialist Republic of Vietnam. (2008). Teaching and learning languages in the national educational system, period 2001–2020. Retrieved from http:​//thu​vienp​haplu​at.vn​/arch​ive/Q​uyet-​dinh/​1400-​QD-TT​g-vb8​ 3815t​17.as​px. Socialist Republic of Vietnam. (2013). Hiến pháp năm 2013 [The Constitution of Socialist Republic of Vietnam, amended in 2013]. Retrieved from http:​//www​.chin​hphu.​vn/po​rtal/​page/​porta​l/chi​nhphu​ /Nuoc​CHXHC​NViet​Nam/T​hongT​inTon​gHop/​hienp​hapna​m2013​ Sullivan, P. N. (1996). English language teaching in Vietnam: An appropriation of communicative methodologies. (9723206 Ph.D.), University of California, Berkeley, United States, California. Retrieved from http:​ //sea​rch.p​roque​st.co​m/doc​view/​30424​6228?​accou​ntid=​14723​ ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text database. Tran, B. C. (2014). An exploratory study of attitudes toward bilingual education of in Gia Lai province of Vietnam. (Doctor of Philosophy), University of Canterbury. Retrieved from http:​//ir.​cante​rbury​.ac.n​z/bit​strea​ m/han​dle/1​0092/​9708/​Thesi​s_ful​ltext​.pdf?​seque​nce=1​ Tran, H. P. (2014). Validating a National University Entrance Examination English test: A case from Vietnam. (Doctor of Philosophy), The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Retrieved from http:​//hdl​.hand​le.ne​t/113​43/42​260/b​itstr​eam/h​andle​/1134​3/422​60/Ph​uong%​20Tra​ n%27s​%20th​esis.​pdf?s​equen​ce=1 Tran,T. D. (2002). Thực trạng giáo dục ngôn ngữ ở vùng dân tộc miển núi ba tỉnh phía Bắc Việt Nam: Những kiến nghị và giải pháp [Current status of ethnic minority language education in three mountainous provinces in Northern Vietnam: Suggestions and solutions]. Hanoi: Hanoi National University. Retrieved from http://repository.vnu.edu.vn/handle/VNU_123/19611 Truong, H. C. (2011). Eliminating inter-ethnic inequalities? Assessing impacts of education policies on ethnic minority children in Vietnam. Oxford: Young Lives. Retrieved from https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/ uuid:155ecf7d-da6f-4b50-b1d9-9dfb94c3b227/download_file?file_format=pdf&safe_filename=Yo ung%2BLives%2BWorking%2BPaper%2B69&type_of_work=Working+paper Vu, T. T. N., & Burns, A. (2014). English as a medium of instruction: Challenges for Vietnamese tertiary lecturers. The Journal of Asia TEFL, 11(3), 1–31. World Bank. (2009). Country social analysis: Ethnicity and development in Vietnam. Washington, DC: Office of the Publisher, World Bank. Retrieved from http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/ en/495271468321531033/Main-report Wright, S. (2002). Language education and foreign relations in Vietnam. In J. Tollefson (Ed.), Language policies in education: Critical issues (pp. 225–244). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Further reading Bui, T. N. T., & Nguyen, T. M. H. (2015). Standardizing English for educational and socio-economic betterment – A critical analysis of English language policy reforms in Vietnam. In R. Kirkpatrick (Ed.), English language education policy in Asia (pp. 363–388). Cham: Springer. (This book chapter provides an up-to-date, comprehensive, and critical assessment of current English education policies in Vietnam.) Do, H. T. (1996). Foreign language education policy in Vietnam:The reemergence of English and its impact on higher education. (Dissertation/Thesis). ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. (This thesis is one of the first studies on language education policy in Vietnam by a Vietnamese scholar after the collapse of the USSR with a systematic review of Vietnam’s language education policy-making.) Kosonen, K. (2013).The use of non-dominant languages in education in Cambodia,Thailand and Vietnam. In C. Benson & K. Kosonen (Eds.), Language issues in comparative education (pp. 39–58). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. (Kosonen’s work critically discusses challenges related to minority language education policy in Southeast Asian nations, with Vietnam being one of the cases in point.) Lo Bianco, J. (1994). Issues and aspects of Vietnam’s language policy: Some reflections after a brief visit. In X. T. Nguyen (Ed.), Vietnamese studies in a multicultural world (pp. 110–119). Melbourne:Vietnamese

200

Language education policy in Vietnam Language & Culture Publications. (This book chapter offers some preliminary but meaningful observations on the early landscape of language education policy and its related problems in Vietnam.) Phan, L. H., Vu, H. H., & Bao, D. (2014). Language policies in modern-day Vietnam: Changes, challenges, and complexities. In P. G. Sercombe & T. R. F. Tupas (Eds.), Language, education and nation-building: Assimilation and shift in Southeast Asia (pp. 232–244). Houndmills, Baskingstoke, Hampshire: New York. (This chapter is a useful overview of past and current language policies in Vietnam.)

201

14 LAO LANGUAGE POLICY Cliff Meyers

1 Background Laos, with its rugged geography and poor infrastructure has maintained a diverse number of ethnic groups representing four distinct Language Families: Austro-Asiatic; Hmong-Mien; Sino Tibetan; and Tai-Kadai. The ethnic groups associated with these Language Families arrived in Laos at different periods of history, with earlier arrivals represented by the Austro-Asiatic language groups who are now divided between the Khmu language speakers further north and smaller splinter ethnic groups in southern Lao. While the Lao-Tai were not the first to inhabit Laos, they have been the most dominant group culturally and economically since the 13th century. The more recent arrivals in Lao, the Sino-Tibetan and Hmong-Mien language groups, are also the least populous, tending to inhabit the highland areas and remote mountain tops (Simons & Fennig, 2017, p. 10; Grant, 1999; Stuart-Fox, 2008). The government of Laos, since colonial times, has consistently categorised Laos as having three main ethnic groupings: Lao Lum, Lao Soung and Lao Theung.These groupings have been determined by a combination of geographic location, linguistic classifications, socio-cultural practices and political expedience. These traditional three categorisations were applied under the Socialist government as a means of targeting social development initiatives and ensuring relevance to the specific contexts of different ethnic populations (Evans, 1999, pp. 24–25;Winzeler, 2011, p. 260). The 2005 Lao National Assembly publication “49 ethnic groups of Lao PDR” officially listed 49 ethnic groups – broken down into four Language Families: Lao-Tai; Mon-Khmer; Chine-Tibet; and Hmong-Iu Mien (see Table 14.1). The 2005 publication also provided a further breakdown of these 49 groups into distinct groups/sub-groups, which it identified for 22 of the 49 ethnic groups listed. In total, the government recognises an additional 95 sub-groups. This brings the total number of different ethnic groups and sub-groups recognised by the Lao government to 144. The 2015 Census reported on 49 ethnic group populations and as a result of the classifications, the ‘Lao ethnic group’ is the clear majority group representing 53% of the population (Lao Census, 2015). The Table 14.2 summarises the size of the nine most populous groups according to the 2015 Census. The remaining 40 groups make up just 11.6% of the population (Government of Laos, 2015, p. 37). 202

Lao language policy  Table 14.1 Lao Language Families and ethnic groups Language Family

Number of ethnic groups

Number of distinct sub-groups

Total number of ethnic groups and sub-groups

Lao-Tai Mon-Khmer Chine-Tibet Hmong-Iu Mien Total

8 32 7 2 49

12 48 30 5 95

20 80 37 7 144

Table 14.2 Ethnic groups as percentage of total population Ethnic group

Population

Percentage of population

Lao Khmou Hmong Phouthay Tai Makong Katang Lue Akha Others (40 ethnic groups)

3,427,665 708,412 595,028 218,108 201,576 163,285 144,255 126,229 112,979 749,153

53.2 11.0 9.2 3.4 3.1 2.5 2.2 2.0 1.8 11.6

Consensus on the true roots of the Lao written script amongst scholars and historians remains elusive. Many historians believe that the Lao alphabet was adapted from the early Khmer script, which was derived from Mon scripts developed in south eastern Myanmar. The Khmer script from Angkor influenced many of the early scripts practiced in Kingdoms along the Mekong in the 13th and 14th centuries (Djité, 2011; Enfield, 1999). Other historians point to the Pali and Sanskrit influence over scripts in the region, especially in neighbouring Thailand, where monastic use of these scripts greatly influenced the roots of writing (Winzeler, 2011; Stuart-Fox, 2009). It is generally agreed, however, that the Lao script came into wider use under the Lan Xang dynasty in the 14th century. The orthography adopted by the Royal Court was referred to as Tua Wiang. A second script, referred to as Tua Tham, was used as the temple script in the monasteries of Laos and north-eastern Thailand and was taught to young men entering the monastery as part of their coming of age. A third script, referred to as Tua Khom, was also used for religious texts but was based more on Khmer orthography and had much more limited influence over time. At the Royal Court, records were maintained, agreements made and correspondence undertaken using the Tua Wiang script (also known as Tai Noi), which evolved over time to become more divergent from Thua Tam (Djité, 2011, p. 33).

2  Historical perspectives (1300–1890) Before reviewing language policies historically, a discussion on what we mean by language policy is important. Lo Bianco (Lo Bianco & Aliani, 2013) refers to a three-dimensional understanding 203

Cliff Meyers

of language policy which includes Text, Discourse and Practice. ‘Text’ refers to the actual policy documents which explicitly state positions on language use – such as Constitutions, National Plans and Strategic documents. Certainly, there were no explicit policy documents for the vast majority of Lao’s history dating back to the 11th century – and it is only with colonialism that ‘Text’ or official policy documents with direct reference to language appear. ‘Discourse’ refers to the interpretation of policy – for example how policy is viewed by those officials responsible for their implementation and for designing guidelines and directives. This paper makes limited use of Discourse through interviews on the reasons for policy shifts and through literature review which provides insights into discourse amongst academics. ‘Practice’ refers to what actually happens. This type of policy is what informs our views of policies of centuries past – through the interpretation of court records, literary documents and temple manuscripts – and in contemporary time through observation and research (Lo Bianco & Aliani, 2013; Cincotta-Segi, 2011, p. 3). During the second half of the 17th century, King Narai the Great of Siam commissioned Pra Horathibodi to write a book for the study of the Thai language – entitled “Chindamani”. This was done partially to counter balance the French cultural influence in Siam. The Chinadamani provided basic study of Thai grammar, prosody, versification and forms and phrases for official correspondence. Extensive passages made use of Pali- and Sanskrit-based terms and vocabulary – including scriptures and dhamma teachings (Office of Prime Minister, 2010). The Chindamani became the primary text for learning and using Thai in the Kingdom of Siam (outside of monasteries), and across South East Asia for the next 200 years In the mid-19th century, and after a series of battles, King Chulalongkorn of Siam annexed the Kingdom of Luang Prabang (part of current day Laos), placing his Generals within the court of King Onkham for nearly 35 years. While the Kingdom of Siam had annexed lands from the west, the French were expanding their sphere of influence from the east. This struggle between French and Thai colonial interests had a direct influence on how history was told and how linguistic studies were carried out. For Siam, it was strategic to highlight the commonalities between Lao and Thai and to stress Pali- and Sanskrit-based elements of written language. For the French, academic emphasis was placed on highlighting the unique and distinct nature of Lao language, history and culture (Evans, 1999; Ivarsson, 1999).

3  French colonisation and Royalist governments (1893–1975) By the mid-19th century, France had taken colonial control over modern day Cambodia and Vietnam and, in the 1880s, moved to expand its sphere of influence to Laos. After engaging in military skirmishes and diplomatic force with the Kingdom of Siam, the Geneva Treaty was signed in 1893, allowing France to govern Laos on the eastern side of the Mekong River. France established a protectorate system which covered modern day Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos – divided into five unique regions of administration. The rationale for France’s colonisation was three-fold: (i) mission scientifique for geographic and natural exploration; (ii) mission civilisatrice for spreading French language and culture; and (iii) mise en valeur for raising revenue for colonial administration (Noonan, 2014, p. 155; Khampao, 1996.) Table 14.3 provides a chronological summary of the key events covered by this section of this paper. In 1930, the French established the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh and soon after, the Chantabouly Buddhist Institute in Laos – dedicated to language, religious and cultural studies. In 1935, Mr. Sila Viravong (Maha Sila) first published his four volume Lao Grammar through the Buddhist Institute. In his Lao Grammar, Maha Sila basically translated the Chindamani into 204

Lao language policy  Table 14.3 Chronological summary of key events Year

Key events and dates

1893 1922

Laos becomes a Protectorate of France France open the first government ‘primary school’ in Vientiane – using only French language and standard French curriculum/textbooks First Lao Grammar developed by Maha Sila Revised Lao Grammar published – using more simplified orthography Royal Decree establishing Comité Littéraire and instructing Lao writing to follow spoken Lao Laos gains independence from France First Lao National Education Policy – primary schools in either Lao or French. Secondary schools only in French Fa Ngum Secondary Schools – first secondary schools using Lao language textbooks Lao Grammar – published by Phoummy Vongvachit Establishment of the Royal Lao Academy, Dissolution of the Commite Littéraire Lao Grammar by Pierre Nginn published by Royal Lao Academy. National Legislation and Legal Codes translated into Lao from French Victory of Pathet Lao – establishment of Socialist government Closure of Royal Lao Academy, the USAID office and Ngam Fa schools

1935 1938 1949 1953 1962 1965 1967 1970 1972 1974 1975

Lao – creating Lao orthography capable of transcribing the Pali- and Sanskrit-based terms into a unique Lao alphabet. Maha Sila was influenced by his desire to ensure Lao people could read Buddhist scripture. His grammar was challenged by French administrators living in Laos who argued that such a script and grammar were out of touch with the language spoken by the common people and were impractical for daily use or political administration. In 1938, a Commission was established by the French government to review Maha Sila’s grammar, which came out in favour of a more simplified version of orthography. Maha Sila revised the Lao Grammar accordingly (Djité, 2011, p. 33). Unfortunately for Lao people, such endeavours did not translate into education for their children. It was not until 1922 that France officially established the first school in Laos (‘Pavée School’) with the explicit purpose of training civil servants. The language of instruction was French and the curriculum an exact replica of the one in France. Meanwhile, monastic schools at temples continued to use a variant of the Thu Tham script to teach boys and young men to read scriptures (Enfield, 1999; Khampao, 1996, p.39). By 1944, the three secondary schools operating in the country (in Vientiane, Pakse and Luang Prabang with a total of 67 students) continued to use French language and curriculum. Records show that only one-third of students were actually Lao, with the majority being children of Vietnamese civil servants working for the French in Laos. By 1946, the total number of secondary students had increased to 194 (Khampao, 1996, pp. 49, 59). After the war, in 1947, the French established Laos as a ‘constitutional monarchy’ within the French Union. Along with this new status came the establishment of the ‘Comité Littéraire’, which brought together Lao and French historians and academics for studies and research on Laos. In 1949, to quell the discordant views between those advocating for Sila’s grammar and orthography and those in favour of a more simplified version based on spoken Lao, the King published his Royal Ordinance No. 10 – stating that words should be spelled according to the way they sound. The King instructed the Comité Littéraire that the “Orthography of Lao Words, and words borrowed into Lao … follows pronunciation used in Lao” (Enfield, 1999, p. 268). The interpretation 205

Cliff Meyers

of this decree was extremely politicised in the decades to follow with the Sanga Buddhist clergy concerned that Pali spellings brought to Laos as part of dhamma teaching and scripture were preserved while the socialist intelligentsia sought a written Lao that was more accessible to the masses. France granted Laos autonomy within the French Union in 1949. Recognition as a nation was accorded by the UK and US to Laos in 1950 and full independence from France was ceded in 1953 (Stuart-Fox, 2008). The Royal Lao government introduced compulsory and free three years of primary education in 1951, which could be provided in either Lao or French depending on availability of local resources. The complete primary cycle was six years and years four– six continued to use only the French national curriculum and textbooks. By 1954, there were 679 primary schools in the country, and all upper primary and secondary education classes continued to be offered only in French. Only six of the 12 provinces in Laos had secondary schools up to Grade 10 (colleges) and only one school in Vientiane offered education up to Grade 13 (lycée). All official legal statutes, reports, policy directives and regulations were published in the French language while official documents of the royal court were prepared in Lao (Noonan, 2014, p. 159; Kampao, 1996). The Education Decree of 1962, written in French by the adviser Mr. Jacques Bousquet, was a significant national education policy document.The 1962 Decree was the first Education Policy document that stipulated Lao as the national language while at the same time promoting ethnic languages as the medium for basic education (Enfield, 1999).The following Articles of the 1962 Education Decree directly relate to language policy. Article 3.  “Education is at the service of the whole Lao community … Wherever possible, ethnic minorities will receive their first instruction in their own language parallel to the national language.” Article 20. “Teaching of a foreign language is mandatory in all classes of the second elementary cycle.” Article 35.  “An entrance exam is required for admission to secondary school.” Article 36.  “Failure in the French language part of the examination will not constitute failure in the entrance examination… Students who lack sufficient competence in French will be sent to preparatory classes for intensive and practical training in French.” (Noonan, 2012, p. 4–6) In terms of actual classroom practice, the Lao national curriculum required the study of the French language in all primary grades for 7.5 hours per week – while Lao language as a subject was taught for just four hours. Math, social studies and other core subjects could be taught using either French or Lao depending on available resources. Passages of the Decree which highlighted new found rights for ethnic minorities (such as Article 3) were part of a strategy to strengthen support for the Royalist government amongst ethnic minorities in the face of increased ethnic armed resistance across the country (Khampao, 1996, p. 58). The US government continued to expand its support to education in Laos from the mid1950s – providing development funding through USAID. USAID promoted greater use of Lao language – or ‘Laoisation’ of documents and social services across government. The USAIDfunded ‘Fa Ngum High Schools’ project introduced the first complete curriculum and textbooks for secondary schools using Lao language in 1965. A total of five Fa Ngum High Schools were completed and fully functioning before the programme was terminated after the change in government in 1975 (Noonan, 2014, p. 164). In 1972, the Asia Foundation with USAID support translated the National Legal Codes and Regulations from French into Lao language for the first time (Chamberlain, 2017). 206

Lao language policy 

The Comité Littéraire was replaced by the Royal Lao Academy in February 1970 which also promoted expanded use of Lao language. In 1972, the Academy published a revised Lao Grammar by Pierre Ngin, which built on Sila’s transcription of the Chindamani while reducing the amount of Indic-based orthography and vocabulary. Nginn’s work was considered more progressive than Maha Sila’s by introducing more Lao-based vocabulary and limiting Pali and Sanskrit terminology to essential elements. After the socialist revolution the Ngum High Schools and the Royal Lao Academy were closed in 1975 while the Lao Grammar as prepared by Nginn was also abandoned (Stuart-Fox, 2008). Throughout the years of conflict with the Royal Lao government, the various iterations of the socialist mass organisation continued to emphasise the importance of education for the development of the people. Schools were providing three years of primary education in Lao language in the ‘liberated zones’ (under Pathet Lao control since the mid-1950s) and the curriculum became more formalised during the late 1960s. Textbooks for Grades 1–3 were developed in Lao language by the Pathet Lao Education Ministry while textbooks for Grades 4 and above were directly translated into Lao from Vietnamese (Noonan, 2014). Since the late 1950s, all official written communication in the Liberated Zones of the Pathet Lao used a revised Lao alphabet and simplified terminology and vocabulary. The simplified orthography and vocabulary were used by the Pathet Lao in all official communication and publications – including in primary textbooks, in Manifestos, in literature and in propaganda. These changes were then incorporated into a new Lao version of the Chindamani written by Phoummi Vongvachit and published in Samneua in 1967 and called the ‘Lao Grammar’ (Enfield, 1999). The Pathet Lao also introduced textbooks using Hmong and Khmu languages in 1967, although students were required to learn Lao language before starting their studies in Hmong. These ‘translations’ were not linguistically sound but more impressionistic in their transcription of vocabulary into these two languages (Chamberlain, 2017). Regarding the promotion of sign language, there is no record of there being any consideration of this in Laos during this period.

4  Early Socialist policies 1975–2009 The Lao Grammar by Phoummi Vongvachit, published in 1967 from the Liberated Zone, followed socialist and nationalist principles when revising the Lao version of the Chindamani as originally developed by Maha Sila. In the introduction to the Lao Grammar, Vongvachit states that his principles of his Grammar “reflect the style and honour … and demonstrate the cultural independence of the nation … The leading idea … was for the Grammar of Lao to belong to the nation, and to the people, and for it to be progressive, modern and scientific … Every Principle and every term … is intended to be simple, so that the general population, of high and low education, may easily understand” (Enfield, 1999, p. 270). The main changes introduced to Lao language in Vongvachit’s Lao Grammar are in terms of simplified spelling and terminology. Like the Chindamani, the Lao Grammar does not provide an overall morphosyntactic explanation of the language. However, Vongvachit’s Lao Grammar is unique in that it is designed on the socialist principles of equality of all people (including uneducated poor and non-Lao speaking ethnic groups) and provides a simple and easily pronounceable system for writing Lao free of Pali- and Sanskrit-based orthography. As Enfield states, “Two crucial principles guided the reforms – firstly to preserve the language as uniquely Lao and free of unwelcome foreign (especially Thai) influence, and second to secure the greatest access to literacy for the population as a whole, not just the well-educated and/or privileged” (Enfield, 1999, p. 270). Another deep-seated principle within the new Socialist government 207

Cliff Meyers

which supported the simplified Grammar was that of ‘inter-ethnic equality’. Simplifying the Lao alphabet and creating a one-to-one correspondence between letters/tone markers and the spoken phonemes made it far easier for non-Lao speaking ethnic groups to master the Lao alphabet and acquire Lao literacy (Enfield, 1999). One of the most prominent changes introduced by Vongvachit was the decision to abolish the letter ‘R’. This was a sound not pronounced in standard, spoken Lao in the 1960s – but was introduced through Indic loan-words imported for religious and official purposes and for transcribing French words into Lao. As there was no question that the ‘R’ sound was not present phonologically in common spoken Lao, it was very logical to abolish this letter in the national script when adhering to the principles of making literacy more accessible to the masses by simplifying orthography and vocabulary in the process of fulfilling the King’s Royal Ordinance from 1949. Vongvachit’s grammar ensured greater differences between Thai and Lao languages. Other consistent and principled changes introduced in the Lao Grammar were to revise terminology which was considered to reify social classes and elitism. Traditional terms that denoted inferiority in social class, used in the presence of social ‘superiors’, were also abolished. Even common expressions found in conversation which undermined social equality (i.e. doj) – a ‘subservient’ term for yes and agreement – was considered to place the speaker in an inferior social position and its use was therefore restricted. Other changes came in the form of extensive vocabulary simplification. For example – the former term for mathematics was ‘kaanitsaat’ from the Sanskrit term for ‘computation’ and used Indic-based orthography. In the new Lao Grammar, this term was revised to become ‘leek’ – a very common term in spoken Lao which translates into English as ‘number.’ Terminology used in reference to education and health, for official correspondence and for other social functions that previously used Sanskrit- or Pali-based orthography was considered overly complicated and simplified in Vongvachit’s ‘Lao Grammar’ (Enfield, 199, p. 275). The Lao Grammar served as the source material for practical language policy and its vocabulary lists and forms of correspondence and address become the ‘Text’ and the basis of national language policies and school curriculum (Khampao, 1996, p. 72). Policies regarding foreign language were established as ‘Text’ (in Lo Bianco’s terminology) through the National Curriculum. In 1976, the first National Curriculum produced under the new government did not include the teaching of foreign languages in primary school. In secondary schools, however, French and English remained as subjects, with French being recognised as the first foreign language (MoE, 1976; Lo Bianco & Aliani, 2013). In 1994, the new National Curriculum was published with the same policy approach of no foreign language instruction in primary and with various foreign languages (i.e. French, Russian, Vietnamese) as subjects at the secondary level, depending on availability of resources. However, the 1994 Secondary Curriculum did not include English as a subject. Neither the 1976 nor the 1994 primary, lower secondary, or upper secondary curriculum makes any mention of using ethnic languages for educational purposes (MoE, 1976; MoE, 1994a). In addition to making practical language policies as found in the National Curriculum, the new Lao government set out language policy directions in its Party Resolutions and early National Development Plans. The Resolution of the Political Bureau Concerning the Affairs of Various Minorities, Especially the Hmong Minority, published by the Central Party Organization 1981, called for bilingual education for the two largest non-Lao ethnic groups: the Khmu and the Hmong (Kosonen, 2005). While some mother tongue-based education programmes had been undertaken for the Hmong and Khmu in Liberated Zones before the socialist victory in 1975, the Party indicated greater interest in systematically supporting interethnic equality through greater use of ethnic languages in schools (A.R. Cincotta-Segi, 2011, p. 5; c.f. Political Bureau of the Central Party Organization, 1981). 208

Lao language policy 

The first Five-Year Socio-Economic Development Plan came into effect in January 1981, with the strategies revised and endorsed at the Second Congress of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party in April 1982. This Five-year Plan recognised the multi-ethnic nature of Laos and the equality of all ethnic groups, while making use of three ethnic categories introduced earlier by the French: Lao Lum, Lao Theung and Lao Sung. By classifying all ethnic groups in Laos into three main categories, the government felt better placed to plan development programmes targeted to the context of each unique group while stressing the Lao-ness of all ethnic groups nationally. However, nowhere in the Five-Year Plan was there any mention of using ethnic languages for education (A.R. Cincotta-Segi, 2011, p. 6; Stuart-Fox, 2008). This dichotomy – between those Party ideologues, planners and technocrats who sought greater ethnic equality through greater ethnic language rights and those who sought greater national unity and development through greater use of Lao language – continued on for the next 25 years, when the primacy of Lao language as a key unifying element in national development became the clear policy directive. Under a drafting and review process that began in 1984, the Constitution of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic was officially adopted by the Supreme People’s Assembly in April 1991. The opening sentence of the Preamble states: “The multi-ethnic Lao people have existed and developed on this beloved land for thousands of years.” Article 8 of the Constitution continues along these lines, stating: “The state pursues the policy of promoting unity and equality among all ethnic groups. All ethnic groups have the right to protect, preserve and promote their fine customs and culture as well as those of the nation.” However, no mention is made throughout the 1991 Constitution on the language rights of ethnic minorities. In fact, Article 75 of the Constitution states that: “The Lao language and Lao script are the language and script officially used.” No other mention is made of language throughout the 1991 Constitution and no provision is made for preserving the culture of ethnic groups through language promotion (Lao Constitution, 1991). This position was reinforced by the 1992 “Resolution of the Party Central Organization Concerning Ethnic Minority Affairs in the New Era.” Issued by the Party Central Committee, the ‘Minorities Act’ identifies three essential tasks to support ethnic minorities: (i) strengthening political foundations of ethnic groups; (ii) increased production and channels of distribution towards market-based economics; and (iii) a focus on the expansion of education, health and other social benefits. However, issues related to language policy and language preservation are not mentioned (Cincotta-Segi, 2011, p. 6). Lao National Radio, which emerged from Pathet Lao Radio, expanded the socialist messages in spoken Lao across the country – strengthening the notion of the nation-state. National Radio included programmes in the larger ethnic languages (Khmu, Hmong) and allows Provincial Radio and, more recently, community radio, to broadcast in more localised ethnic languages. As Traynor points out – national radio fully supported the nationalistic language policies of the state, “Kaysone Phomivane, the first Prime Minister of the Lao PDR, identified linguistic unity as one of the four determinants of nationhood. He acknowledged that this would present a barrier for ethnic minorities, but argued that national unity would be enhanced by improving language skills” (Traynor, 2012, p. 83). In 1994, the Culture Institute, which supported various scientific studies and reviews related to ethnic cultures and languages, published the Khmu-Lao Dictionary. The MoIC only printed 500 copies of the Dictionary – which had over 6,000 vocabulary items spelt in both Lao and Roman script with translation in French and English. The rationale for its publication was to expand scientific understanding of major ethnic languages in the country (MoIC, 1994). The dictionary was reprinted for the first time in 2018. 209

Cliff Meyers

In 2003, the Amendment to the Constitution did not change the opening sentences of the Preamble regarding the multi-ethnic nature of Laos. Article 75 was also unchanged and maintained Lao as the official national language. However, two new Articles – Article 22 on Education and Article 23 on Preservation of National Culture – make no reference to ethnic language preservation or use. Article 22 on Education refers to education “building good citizens with revolutionary competence, knowledge and abilities” while Article 23 on Culture is provided in its entirety below. Article 23 – The State promotes preservation of the national culture which is representative of the fine tradition of the country and its ethnic people while accepting selected progressive cultures from around the world.The State promotes cultural activities, fine arts and invention, manages and protects the cultural, historical and natural heritage and maintains antiques and historical places. The State attends to improving and expanding mass media activities for the purpose of national protection and development. All cultural and mass media activities which are detrimental to national interests or the fine traditional culture and dignity of Lao people are prohibited. Other National Strategies and Plans continued to highlight the need for ethnic education especially in the early grades. The National Growth and Poverty Eradication Strategy (Government of Laos 2006) called for ‘bilingual education’ for ethnic minority students without offering any definition of this term. Similarly, the Education For All – National Plan of Action (2005) also stressed the importance of mother tongue-based education programmes to ensure education for all – especially for children living in remote ethnic areas (Cincotto-Segi, 2011, p.5; Ministry of Education, 2005). The sixth National Socio-Economic Development Plan 2006–2010 continued to reflect the divergent views on the role of language policy in promoting inter-ethnic equality and presented contradictions in the same document. In the Section on Poverty Reduction in the Cross Cutting Issues Chapter, the sixth NSEDP reinforces the importance of policies to promote the use of ethnic languages. The Targets here include the following: “Increase people’s awareness on preservation and promotion of cultural values and traditions of all ethnic groups. Sustain and develop spoken languages and written characters/alphabets. Teach ethnic dialects in schools where ethnic characters/alphabets already exist” (Government of Lao, 2006, p. 101). In the Health section of the Sectoral and Regional Development Chapter, we find targets that include “Information, Education and Communication (IEC) including the … preparation of campaigns and the translation and dissemination of information about hygiene and proper lifestyles … in ethnic languages” (Government of Laos, 2006, p. 163). However, in the sixth NESDP chapter on Sectoral and Regional Development of, the Education Section proposes special support to ethnic children in the form of additional workbooks and readers in Lao language to help them acquire Lao language more easily. No mention is made of using ethnic languages or mother tongue-based education as a bridge to learning Lao. Instead, the Education Targets of the sixth NSEDP state: “Develop teaching/learning aids for Lao language teaching to ethnic minority children and distribute Lao language teacher guides” (Government of Laos, 2006, p. 149). The sixth NSEDP (2006–2010) was the last major national planning and policy document which made reference to targets and strategies for teaching ethnic languages. From 2010, the clear and consistent policy is to ensure ethnic minorities are given the special support required to acquire Lao fluency and literacy as early as possible. In 2008, the Primary Curriculum was revised with some significant language policy changes, including the reintroduction of the letter ‘R’ – which had been removed from the Lao alphabet 210

Lao language policy 

by Phoummy Vongvachit in 1968. The rationale for reintroducing the “R” was the need for this letter when transcribing foreign terms and technical vocabulary – and that “R” was in common usage as spoken Lao across the country. In 1999, the Research Institute for Education Science had led a team from the National University and the Linguistics Institute had carried out research on the current usage of spoken Lao language.The findings of this research, published in 2000, found that “R” was now used in spoken Lao across the country and became the basis for reintroducing the “R” in the 2008 National Primary Curriculum. Another key policy change in the 2008 National Primary Curriculum is in relation to foreign languages. English was introduced in Grade 3 of primary as a Subject (MoE, 2008). The 2010 National Lower Secondary Curriculum continued this trend with English included as the mandatory “first foreign language” while French was included as an optional “second foreign language” (MoE, 2010). This reflected the priority placed on English as a foreign language in the Amended Education Law of 2003. At the level of post-secondary and higher education, development has been much slower. After the War, the government focused its efforts on basic education and it was not until much later that the limited financial and technical resources available were allocated to post-secondary. Higher Education was limited to Teacher Training and Health Colleges, which were gradually upgraded into the National University in 1996 with eight faculties. The language of instruction – and of the entry examinations – was initially Lao. However, due to limited reading materials or academic research being available in Lao language, French and English were also used. The Education Faculty was required to teach foreign languages related to universities in other socialist countries with scholarships throughout the 1990s – which required skills in Russian, Czech, Hungarian, German and other languages of socialist governments (UNESCO, 2008; Ogawa, 2012). The situation of Sign Language from the period of 1975 through 2009 did see significant progress. The Thai Sign system – based upon the American Sign Language (ASL) – had been introduced to Laos during this period. However, it had not been adapted to Lao – it was simply introduced as Thai Sign with a few new expressions and vocabulary items/signs to reflect Lao style. The Deaf-Mute Unit of The Lao Disabled People’s Association was established in 2003 and by 2009 there were two specialised Deaf Schools in Laos, one in Vientiane, the capital, and another in Savannakhet province. While the Government of Laos supported the curriculum for teaching and provided teachers who were nurses from the Ministry of Health, these Deaf Schools continued to use Thai sign language (with a few unique Lao-signs). There had been limited research on Lao sign language and limited funding available to establish a coherent national Lao Sign system. By 2009, the national government had yet to formally recognise the Lao National Sign System (World Federation of the Deaf, 2008).

5  Language policies 2009–present In 2009, the first Education Sector Development Framework (2009–2015) was prepared to guide coordinated and holistic education sector investment by the Government of Laos and its development partners. Throughout the ESDF, clear recognition is given to the challenges facing ethnic minorities in terms of enrolment and relevance of education. For ethnic minorities, the key strategy identified was to prepare materials and train teachers to support ethnic group children to learn Lao more quickly and easily. In addition, a clear policy was developed to prioritise the recruitment and training of ethnic group teachers (MoES, 2009). This recruitment of ethnic teachers, in line with a loosening of regulations that previously discouraged ethnic languages from being spoken in school, reflects an openness to use spoken ethnic languages to help students understand the meaning of Lao words in the early grades. 211

Cliff Meyers

The seventh National Socio-Economic Development Plan 2010–2015 reflected this approach – highlighting the importance of using spoken ethnic languages for development efforts. In reviewing success from the previous Five-Year Plan, the seventh NSEDP states, “In some provinces, laws also were disseminated in ethnic languages such as Mong and Kamu in order to increase awareness of the law among ethnic groups” (Government of Laos, 2011, p. 57). Similarly, “Producing radio programmes in certain ethnic languages so that the minorities acknowledge and appreciate the Party and government’s policy on conservation and reconstruction of the nation” (Government of Laos, 2011, p 123). Throughout the seventh NSEDP, no mention is made of the use of written ethnic languages. In 2010, the Lao government approved the National Inclusive Education Policy and in 2011, the National Inclusive Education (IE) Strategy and Action Plan. This Policy and Action Plan directly shaped government engagement with the education of ethnic minorities and children with disabilities, including the deaf. In Priority Area of Action 23, the IE Strategy proposes to “Improve strategies and approaches for effective Lao language teaching to, and learning by, ethnic students, such as an intensive course in Lao prior to entry to primary school as part of a school readiness program, the use of ethnic languages and cultures to help explain the lessons and improve learning, the development of Lao–ethnic phrase books and other teaching-learning materials for ethnic students Grades 1–3, the provision of intensive basic training in relevant ethnic languages to teachers assigned to teach in ethnic communities where needed” (MoES, 2011, p 13). The IE Strategy and Plan of Action refers to a national policy on sign language for the first time. In Priority Area of Action 33, it states “develop sign language and textbooks in Braille to cover the key contents of various subjects of all levels and fields of education” (MoES, 2011, p. 16). In 2016, the Lao Disabled People Association (LPDA) and the Inclusive Education Center was finally able to get official approval and recognition of Lao Sign Language by the Ministry of Education and Sports. With support from the French government and assistance from the Cambodia, the ‘Pasa Mue Lao’ or Lao Sign Language with 2,500 vocabulary items was officially recognised as the national sign system (interview with LPDA Director, 2017). The Ministry of Health continues its leadership within government on disabilities – including coordination and technical leadership – and provides Sign teachers from amongst MoH staff to support the MoES in providing classes on Sign.

6  Predictions for the future – place, status and roles of relevant languages There are no changes expected in policies to allow the use of ethnic languages in schools. Lao will remain the only written language used in classrooms besides foreign languages. Emphasis will remain on teaching ethnic groups to learn Lao language and literacy quickly, rather than to support their literacy in their mother tongue before transferring these skills to Lao. There is potential for more private publications in ethnic languages, including children’s books, dictionaries and oral histories being published through the private sector, but policies prohibiting the use of written ethnic languages in schools will not change. In 2018/2019, a new primary curriculum will be introduced with new Grade 1 textbooks and teacher resource materials being rolled out, followed by Grade 2 in 2019/2020. The new curriculum has purposefully structured the introduction of the Lao alphabet to introduce letters that are most common across ethnic languages in the country. Teacher resource materials, such as children’s books and learning games, are also being introduced with an eye to ensuring ethnic minority students are provided with opportunities to acquire Lao quickly and efficiently. Efforts to accommodate the learning needs of non-Lao speakers will continue to be supported without introducing any bilingual or mother tongue-based approaches. The new curriculum will 212

Lao language policy 

continue to introduce English as a first foreign language in Grade 3, with French as an optional second language in lower secondary. At the operational level within the Ministry of Education and Sports and the Cultural Institute under the Prime Minister’s Office, the future may bring greater openness to research and pilot projects in the use of ethnic languages in the early grades. Such pilots would be supported by development partners, and would aim to provide policy makers with evidence on how bilingual and mother tongue-based education can impact learning. Such research pilots have been carried out in Vietnam and Cambodia and have been referred to the Education Sector Development Plan 2016–2020 (MoES, 2015; Kosonen, 2005). Based on evidence from pilot projects, MoES may consider ‘remedial’ efforts for ethnic students who do not speak Lao at home – using mother tongue-based approaches in the early grades to teach math, social studies and basic literacy, while Lao is taught as a subject. But such efforts will take time to be introduced and no sudden changes should be expected Policies on the use of Hmong and Khmu languages (and Chinese) in national television and radio programmes will continue, with dedicated units staffed for this in the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism (MoICT). Use of additional ethnic languages will be limited to Provincial Radio programming. The MoICT may also begin to take measures for the preservation of Lao language, which is under increasing competition from Thai language through television and radio programming, newspapers/magazines and social media. Currently, movie theatres in Laos show foreign films dubbed only into Thai, and popular television soap operas from Korea and Japan are dubbed into Thai – not into Lao. Efforts to expand Lao language use by translating foreign language media into Lao would need to be complemented by greater translation of textbooks and resource materials into Lao. Currently, many university students are required to buy course books in Thai language as technical materials in Lao are not available.

7 Conclusion Laos provides an excellent example of how colonial competition for Laos shaped language policies. The Kingdom of Siam emphasised the historical, cultural and linguistic links between Laos and Siam while French colonial power supported research to prove the opposite. The Socialist government in 1975 revised Lao Grammar and orthography to highlight the uniqueness of Lao in relation to Thai, to strengthen nationalist aspects of language usage and to ensure socialist principles that written language would be accessible to all people, to rich and poor, and to all ethnic groups. The principles of inter-ethnic equality through greater Lao fluency for all are cited when justifying the emphasis on teaching only Lao to ethnic children in the early grades. With increased globalisation, Lao language policy has continued to adapt, reintroducing orthography previously banned in order to allow for the spelling of foreign and technical terms and to reflect changes in how Lao language is spoken in society. The similarities between spoken and written Lao and Thai present new challenges as television, social media and magazines from Thailand continue to dominate Lao. Preservation of the Lao language for future generations is likely to become a greater priority to national leaders than the preservation of ethnic languages – but this must remain a topic for future studies.

References Cincotta-Segi, A. (2011). ‘The big ones swallow the small ones’. Or do they? Language-in-education policy and ethnic minority education in the Lao PDR. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 32(1), 1–15.

213

Cliff Meyers Djité, P. (2011). The language difference: Language and development in the Greater Mekong sub-region. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Enfield, N. (1999). Lao as a national language. In G. Evans (Ed.), Laos culture and society (pp. 258–290). Chiang Mai: Silkworm Press. Evans, G. (Ed.) (1999). Laos culture and society. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Government of Lao PDR. (1991). Constitution of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic of Lao. Adopted by the 6th Session of the People’s Supreme Assembly.Vientiane. Government of Lao PDR. (2003). Constitution of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.Vientiane. Government of Lao PDR. (2006). 6th 5-year national socio-economic development plan 2006–10. Vientiane: Committee for Planning and Investment.. Government of Lao PDR. (2011). 7th 5-year national socio-economic development plan 2011–2015.Vientiane: Ministry of Planning and Investment. Government of Lao PDR. (2015a). Results of population and housing census.Vientiane. Government of Lao PDR. (2015b). 8th 5-year national socio-economic development plan (2016–2020).Vientiane: Ministry of Planning and Investment. Ivarsson, S. (1999). Towards a new Laos: Lao Nhay and the campaign for national “reawakening” in Laos 1941–45. In G. Evans (Ed.), Laos culture and society (pp. 61–78). Chiang Mai: Silkworm Press. Khampao, P. (1996). Education during 1893–1975. In B. Somlit, P. Khampao, C. Oudom & B. Khamy (Ed.), History of Lao education (pp. 20–89).Vientiane: Toyota Foundation. Kosonen, K. (2005). Vernaculars in literacy and basic education in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. Current Issues in Language Planning, 6(2), 122–142. doi:10.1080/14664200508668277. Lao National Front for Construction. (2005). The 49 ethnic groups in Lao P.D.R.Vientaine. Lo Bianco, J., & Aliani, R. (2013). Language planning and student experiences: intention, rhetoric and implementation. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Ministry of Education. (1994a). National primary curriculum.Vientiane. Ministry of Education. (1994b). National secondary curriculum.Vientiane. Ministry of Education. (2005). Education for all action plan.Vientiane. Ministry of Education. (2008). National primary curriculum.Vientiane. Ministry of Education. (2009). Education sector development framework 2009–2015.Vientiane. Ministry of Education. (2010a). National lower secondary curriculum.Vientiane. Ministry of Education. (2010b). National policy on inclusive education.Vientiane. Ministry of Education. (2010c). Education sector development plan 2011–2015.Vientiane. Ministry of Education and Sports. (2011). National strategy and plan of action on inclusive education: 2011– 2015.Vientiane. Ministry of Education and Sports. (2015). Education and sports sector development plan 2016–2020.Vientiane. Ministry of Information and Culture. (1994). Khmu-Lao dictionary.Vientiane: Culture Institute. Noonan, R. (2012). Notes on the education reform of 1962. (History of Education in Laos. Working Paper Series No. 7).Vientiane. Noonan, R. (2014). US aid to education in Laos, 1955–1975: A contribution to historical comparative education, embedded in time and space. Journal of International and Comparative Education, 3(1), 153–169. Office of the Thai Prime Minister. (2012). History of education in Thailand. (http://www.thaimain.com/eng/ monarchy/). Ogawa, K. (2012). Higher education in Lao PDR. In Y. Hirosato & Y. Kitamura (Eds.), The political economy of educational reforms and capacity development in Southeast Asia: Cases of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (pp. 283–301). Dordrecht: Springer. Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (Eds.) (2017). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (20th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com. Stuart-Fox, M. (2008). Historical dictionary of Laos (3rd ed.). Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press. Traynor, M. (2012). Radio as an expression of nation and sub-nation in Laos. In R. Hand & M. Traynor (Eds.), Radio in small nations: Production, programmes, audiences (pp. 75–87). Cardiff: University of Wales Press. UNESCO. (2008). The current situation of higher education in Lao PDR. Report presented at the Asia Pacific Education and International Development (APEID) Conference, Macao. Winzeler, R. (2011). The peoples of Southeast Asia today: Ethnography, ethnology, and change in a complex region. Lanham, MD: Alta Mira Press. World Federation of the Deaf and Swedish National Association of the Deaf. (2008). Global survey report. WFD regional secretariat for Asia and the Pacific (WFD RSA/P). Global education pre-planning project on the human rights of Deaf people. Helsinki: World Federation of the Deaf.

214

Lao language policy 

Further reading Cincotta-Segi, A. (2011). ‘The big ones swallow the small ones’. Or do they? Language-in-education policy and ethnic minority education in the Lao PDR. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 32(1), 1–15. (Cincotta-Segi is an insightful review of how language policy in Lao has affected actual language use.) Enfield, N. (1999). Lao as a national language. In G. Evans (Ed.), Laos culture and society (pp. 258–290). Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. (Enfield provides excellent historical insights into Lao’s transformation into a national language). Evans, G. (Ed.) (1999). Laos culture and society. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. (A collection of academic papers dedicated to unveiling historical antecedents of Lao culture and language.) Noonan, R. (2014). US aid to education in Laos, 1955–1975: A contribution to historical comparative education, embedded in time and space. Journal of International and Comparative Education, 3(1), 153–169. (Review of French colonial rule and USAID subsequent contributions to education and language policy.) Stuart-Fox, M. (2008). Historical dictionary of Laos (3rd ed.). Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press. (A comprehensive historical overview of Laos with an excellent time line of key events.)

215

15 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN CAMBODIA Kimmo Kosonen

Introduction The Kingdom of Cambodia, like many of its Southeast Asian neighbours, has a self-evident dominant ethnolinguistic community, the Khmer, whose language has been made the national and official language. Khmer culture is also the foundation of the national identity of modern Cambodia. Khmer is one of the largest and most important languages of the Austro-Asiatic language family (Lewis et al. 2016), and the Khmer comprise approximately 90% of the Cambodian population. Cambodia also has numerous ethnolinguistic minority communities, some of which have linguistic and cultural connections with groups in the neighbouring countries. The linguistic situation in Cambodia is well-researched. Currently available sources indicate that 23 languages are spoken in Cambodia, making the country linguistically less diverse than most of its neighbours (Lewis et al., 2016; Kosonen, 2013, 2017). The Cham, Chinese, and Vietnamese are the largest ethnolinguistic minority groups, whose populations are in the hundreds of thousands, but other communities are smaller. English is the most important foreign language. Cambodia is mostly an agricultural society and one of the poorest Asian countries (UNDP, 2015). In Southeast Asia, only Myanmar ranks lower in the UNDP’s Human Development Index, and globally, Cambodia ranks 143 out of 188 countries. The post-conflict reconstruction since the early 1990s has attracted increasing foreign investment, and Cambodia has become a manufacturing base for many industries, garments in particular. Article 5 of the Cambodian Constitution of 1993 stipulates Khmer as the official language and the Khmer script as the official script (Kingdom of Cambodia, 1993). Until recently, the Khmer language has been the exclusive language of instruction at all levels of education. This is not surprising, as many agree with “the notion of Cambodia being home to an ethnically homogenous Khmer populace” (Frewer, 2014: 46). Typically, a rural Cambodian student is exposed only to the Khmer language and culture in his/her immediate environment. Further, schools not only use Khmer as the medium of instruction, but also include it as the only language subject. In some urban areas, Cambodian children may be exposed to other languages, such as Chinese, Vietnamese, or English. Most Cambodian schools are not yet able to provide English as a subject of study (despite English being a compulsory subject from Grade 4), and thus most Cambodian children still live in a rather monocultural and monolingual Khmer environment. Over the years, schools in some areas have taught Chinese or Vietnamese as subjects 216

Language education policy in Cambodia

of study, and Vietnamese was used as the language of instruction in some institutions of higher education in the 1980s. The Vietnamese-backed regime in the 1980s used many Vietnamese professors as instructors, because few educated Khmer-speaking people remained in the country due to the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge. Private Mandarin Chinese-medium schools have been operating for decades, and their importance is increasing with the support of the Chinese government. The extent of Chinese-medium education has varied in different points of time, depending on the prevailing political climate, and currently there is general antipathy against any use of Vietnamese in education (Clayton, 2007; Frewer, 2014). English and French have been used as the languages of instruction in some higher education institutions as part of development aid packages (Ahrens & McNamara, 2013; Clayton, 2007). The main reason has been a lack of Khmer-medium materials and instructors. The donors, mostly English- and French-speaking nations, have also been able to increase the prestige of these languages in Cambodia though these programmes. Over the past 20 years, first language-based education projects and programmes have been initiated by various international agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in collaboration with provincial education authorities and local communities. As of 2016, five non-dominant languages (NDL), namely Brao, Bunong, Kavet, Krung, and Tampuan, are used as languages of instruction in schools using multilingual education, and multilingual programmes are expected to expand to new languages (Benson, 2011; Benson & Kosonen, 2012; CARE International Cambodia, 2004; Im & Noorlander, 2016; Kosonen, 2009, 2013; MoEYS, 2015; Nowaczyk, 2015; Sun, 2009; Thomas, 2002). After a brief historical overview, this chapter attempts to: 1) document education policy developments in Cambodia from the 1990s until 2015, 2) discuss the use of different languages in Cambodian education, 3) analyse the reasons for the country’s progress towards increasingly pluralistic language education policies, and finally 4) discuss issues and challenges in policy implementation.

Review and critical discussion of earlier language education policies The polities in the area of today’s Kingdom of Cambodia were traditionally kingdoms influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism of India. The Khmer influence also extended to some geographical areas of today’s Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Khmer language was apparently the main oral language of the general public in these kingdoms, and other languages such as Cham, Lao, Thai, Vietnamese, and smaller, mostly Austro-Asiatic languages were probably also spoken by some inhabitants. In Buddhist monastery education, however, Sanskrit and Pali, the languages of Hindu and Buddhist scripture, respectively, were the main languages of education. Before the French colonisation in the 20th century, formal education options were limited to boys in temples and monasteries, where they mostly learned Buddhist chants in Pali. These educational opportunities were far from universal, and there were few formal education opportunities for girls (Chandler, 2008; Frewer, 2014; Hayden & Martin, 2011; Jacob, 1996; Leclerc, 2017; Neau, 2003). Cambodia became a French protectorate in 1863, and thus the influence of the French language began to gain ground. In 1887 Cambodia became an integral part of French Indochina. Consequently, the status and influence of French increased. During the colonial period (1887– 1953) French was the main language of administration. Educational opportunities for the masses were limited. Nonetheless, French was the main language of education for all those who had access to formal education – some members of Cambodian elites and middle classes. Teaching French in all schools became a common practice from the early 20th century. Formal education, however, still did not reach the whole population. Monastery education, still attracting many 217

Kimmo Kosonen

boys, used Khmer and Pali as the languages of education (Chandler, 2008; Frewer, 2014; Hayden & Martin, 2011; Jacob, 1996; Leclerc, 2017; Neau, 2003). After the Cambodian independence from France in 1953, French initially continued as the sole official language and the main language of education. In terms of languages, the colonial period was not merely about the promotion of French. It is important to note that the colonial government sponsored the work of a Cultural Committee to standardise the Khmer language. Consequently, the first modern Khmer language dictionary was produced (Chandler, 2008; Jacob, 1996; Neau, 2003). In the 1960s and 1970s, Indochina became a stage for Indochina wars between Western countries, the US in particular, supporting groups that favoured capitalist ideology, and different regimes and parties following the Soviet- and Chinese-backed communist ideology. Cambodia was caught in the middle of these calamities.The violence and suffering experienced by the people of Cambodia culminated in the mid-1970s, when the communist Khmer Rouge movement took control of Cambodia. In the coming years, one of the worst genocides in recent history took place in Cambodia (Chandler, 2008). The killing targeted particularly educated Khmer as well as Cambodians of Chinese and Vietnamese descent, most of whom had received French-medium education. The Khmer language was preferred and prioritised during the Khmer Rouge rule, as Khmer nationalism was one of the driving forces of the movement. The Khmer Rouge regime was ousted with the help of the Vietnamese in 1979, and yet another, this time Vietnamesebacked, regime took over the country for a decade. Rebuilding of the modern Cambodian nation began, but few educated people remained in the country. Most had been killed in the genocide, or lived as refugees in Thailand. Some had resettled in Western countries. Although few French speakers remained in the country, the newly established People's Republic of Kampuchea adopted French as the official language, and it was used as the main language of education until the early 1990s (Clayton, 2007; Chandler, 2008; Leclerc, 2017; McNamara, 2013; Neau, 2003). Until today, Cambodia has retained a relationship with the Francophone nations and is still a member of La Francophonie. Despite this, English has gradually replaced French as the main foreign language. Since 2014, English has been stipulated a compulsory school subject from Grade 4 (Clayton, 2007; Kirkpatrick, 2012; Leclerc, 2017; MoEYS, 2014). Implementing the English teaching policy has faced major challenges, which are elaborated on later. Modern Cambodia has been undertaking major nation-building endeavours since the early 1990s. After the adoption of the Constitution in 1993 Khmer has become the main language of public administration and the main language of education. Khmer language development, including standardisation, has continued (Clayton, 2007). The current status of Khmer as the most prominent language of the nation is undisputed.

Review and critical discussion of current language education policies Cambodia has faced tremendous challenges in socio-economic development since the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, which ended civil war and violence in Cambodia. This is partly due to a traumatic process of post-conflict recovery after decades of war and the genocide by the Khmer Rouge regime. The rebuilding of modern Cambodia which began as an UN-backed effort in the early 1990s is continuing. A Cambodian researcher has captured this situation well by saying that “[c]ivil war and the Khmer Rouge regime destroyed and paralyzed almost all socioeconomic infrastructure and human resources during the 1970s, and the country reverted to primitive conditions” (Sun, 2009: 63). The legacy of the violent conflicts in the 1950s–1980s remains, and the education and other social development sectors are still suffering from the effects of the conflicts. In light of this 218

Language education policy in Cambodia

background it comes as a surprise that Cambodia is perceived among leading Asian nations in providing first language-based education to its ethnolinguistic minority populations (Kosonen, 2013; Nowaczyk, 2015; MoEYS, 2015). During the nation-building processes, the status of the Khmer language has gradually increased, and the status of French, a colonial language, has accordingly decreased. Currently Khmer is without doubt the most dominant language of Cambodia. It is the main language of the government as well as the national education system. It has gradually replaced other languages, French in particular, also as the main language of higher education, though due to a lack of academic literature in Khmer, the role of English in higher education may increase (Ahrens & McNamara, 2013; Clayton, 2007; Hayden & Martin, 2011; McNamara, 2013; Neau, 2003). Educational initiatives that have included NDLs have been operating in North-eastern Cambodia since the mid-1990s (Benson & Kosonen, 2012; CARE International Cambodia, 2004; Im & Noorlander, 2016; Kosonen, 2007, 2010, 2013; Middelborg, 2005; Nowaczyk, 2015; Siren, 2009; Sun, 2009; Thomas, 2002). The most influential have been the programmes of bilingual education in the formal and non-formal sectors, supported by CARE International and International Cooperation for Cambodia (ICC) in the Ratanakiri province. They served later as models for further initiatives by the Ministry of Education,Youth and Sports (MoEYS). NDLs were introduced in non-formal education by ICC. In 2002 Care International introduced pilot programmes of bilingual education in formal schools. Before these initiatives, many languages in North-eastern Cambodia did not have written forms. ICC’s programmes included language development, and over the years the MoEYS has adopted an approval system for newly developed NDL orthographies and learning materials. All newly developed NDL orthographies have been based on the Khmer script (Kosonen, 2013). The reasons for this include the presumed benefits of transferring to Khmer literacy, as well as the strengthening of Khmer identity. However, questions have been raised by uninformed government officials about the unconventional use of the Khmer symbols for languages whose sound systems differ from Khmer. Some Cambodian NDLs are written in orthographies based on the scripts of the respective national languages in the neighbouring countries. Jarai in Vietnam, for example, is written in the Roman script (Lewis et al., 2016). The Highland Children’s Education Project on bilingual education sponsored by Care International was a particularly good example of the major role local NDL communities played in the administration and decision-making in multilingual education or other local level educational initiatives (Benson & Kosonen, 2012; Care International Cambodia, 2004; Im & Noorlander, 2016; Kosonen, 2009, 2013; Nowaczyk, 2015; Siren, 2009; Sun, 2009). In this and other projects, the community members have contributed to language development, curriculum development, the production of learning materials in NDLs, and the identification of local teachers with appropriate linguistic and cultural knowledge. Benson and Kosonen (2012) and Kosonen (2009, 2010, 2013) argue that educational activities in NDLs in Cambodia have preceded official written policies of the government. Government authorities allowed these local level initiatives to be established by international organisations in partnership with local NDL communities, though initially direct government support was minimal. Over time, various government agencies have joined forces with NDL communities and their partners, i.e. academics and NGOs, and these partnerships have resulted in the experimentation of NDLs in society and in education at the larger scale. As pilot projects using NDLs in education have shown positive results (e.g. Lee, Watt, & Frawley, 2015), the Cambodian government has reviewed its previously unwritten policies regarding language-related matters over the past decade (see also Middelborg, 2005; Nowaczyk, 2015; Siren, 2009; Sun, 2009; Thomas, 2002). Consequently, Cambodia has adopted various policies supporting education in minority 219

Kimmo Kosonen

areas, most recently the 2015 Multilingual Education National Action Plan (MoEYS, 2015). These policies provide an increasingly supportive environment for the use of NDLs in education. The following sections highlight the key points of current policy documents that relate to language education. The current Education Law which was adopted in 2007 gave local authorities the right to choose the language(s) of instruction in certain minority areas by issuing sub-decrees or decisions (Kosonen, 2009, 2013; MENAP, 2015; Sun, 2009; Im, 2013). This was the first Cambodian law providing explicit attention to NDLs in education. The Education Law, however, only referred to Khmer Lue languages. In Cambodia, ‘Khmer Lue’ is often translated to English as ‘indigenous’ or ‘indigenous people.’ Frewer (2014) provides a more thorough discussion of related terminology and their roots in Khmer nationalism in the 1950s–1990s. Reference to Khmer Lue languages usually means NDLs related to Khmer as well as Jarai, an unrelated Austronesian language. The Cham, referred to as Khmer Islam in the past, are usually not considered part of this group of languages. Although the 2007 law represented a major step towards acknowledging the importance of NDLs in education, it left many important issues unanswered. Kosonen (2009, 2013) has argued that the earlier drafts of the law gave some ethnic minority groups even the right to instruction in the local community language in public schools, but the final 2007 version of the law is weaker. The law only refers to Khmer Lue languages, and thus seemingly ignores the three largest NDLs: Cham, Chinese, and Vietnamese (Lewis et al., 2016). These languages are usually considered non-Indigenous (and the latter two considered immigrant) languages. The case of Chinese is also complicated due to a number of distinct oral varieties spoken among the people of Chinese descent. The Lao in Cambodia, with a larger population than many Indigenous Khmer Lue groups, also fall into this category. The government position on the Cham is problematic, as the community is still seen by many as Khmer Islam, i.e. Muslim Khmers (Bredenberg, 2008; Clayton, 2007; Frewer, 2014), though they have a distinct culture and language unrelated to Khmer (Lewis et al., 2016). Alleged high levels of bilingualism in Khmer among the Cham is given as a rationale, but to date such claims have not been substantiated by credible linguistic survey evidence. It is undeniable that many children from these larger ‘non-Indigenous’ ethnolinguistic communities – similarly as children from the smaller communities considered Indigenous – often lack access to the Khmer language. Unfortunately, government agencies do not yet consider the need for first language-based education for these children (Benson, 2011; Benson & Kosonen, 2012; Kosonen, 2013, 2017; Wong et al., 2015), despite advocacy by academics and non-governmental and international agencies. After the adoption of the 2007 law, corpus planning (mostly orthography development) of additional NDLs continued (Kosonen, 2013; Nowaczyk, 2015; Wong et al., 2015). The model of CARE-sponsored community schools (CARE International Cambodia, 2004; Im & Noorlander, 2016; Nowaczyk, 2015; Siren, 2009; Sun, 2009) provided the basis for the drafting of ‘Guidelines on implementation of bilingual education programmes for indigenous children in highland provinces’ (MoEYS, 2010) which was adopted in 2010. The 2007 law provided policy support for the use of some NDLs in education, but not all stakeholders fully understood what this meant in practice. The 2010 guidelines document attempted to concretise the law for the north-eastern minority regions by providing practical guidelines for programme implementation. The guidelines described how bilingual education was to be implemented and expanded at the primary level in five north-eastern provinces (Frewer, 2014; Im & Noorlander, 2016; Kosonen, 2013; MoEYS, 2010; Nowaczyk, 2015). The guidelines document (MoEYS, 2010) is not explicit about the definition of bilingual education in Cambodia. Nonetheless, the document describes how the learners’ first languages and Khmer are to be used in early education, in the provinces of Kratie, Mondulkiri, Preah 220

Language education policy in Cambodia

Vihear, Ratanakiri, and Stung Treng.The document provides a chart of an early-exit transitional education model which stipulates the use of the L1 (learner’s home language) and L2 (Khmer) at different grade levels. The dominant language, Khmer, is introduced gradually in the first three grades. From Grade 4 all instruction is in Khmer, also in non-Khmer-speaking areas. The guidelines also support the use of NDLs and the gradual introduction of the dominant language to non-Khmer-speaking children in early childhood education (MoEYS, 2010). Again, it is worth noting that, like the 2007 Education Law, the guidelines only referred to the Indigenous Khmer Lue languages, and accordingly did not provide any support for the larger NDLs not considered Indigenous. The Bilingual Education Decree1 of 2013 (MoEYS, 2013) further strengthened the position of NDLs in education by providing more details on the implementation of the bilingual education programme. The focus was again on the same language communities as in the 2007 law and 2010 guidelines. The decree refers to the similar transitional model of bilingual education as discussed earlier with reference to the guidelines. The decree stipulates that the Ministry of Education,Youth and Sport provides guidance on key areas of bilingual education, including the geographical location of programme schools, their curricula, and learning-teaching materials as well as pedagogies to be used. The decree also includes the administration of annual tests on learners’ language proficiency. The language of the tests, however, is not explicitly mentioned, and can thus be assumed to be Khmer. If this interpretation is correct, it means that no compulsory testing of the L1 is decreed. This may mean that actual teaching-learning practices will lean more towards proficiency in the minority learners’ second language, Khmer, and not to language development in the L1. After a series of workshops, seminars, and consultations in 2014 and 2015, the ‘Multilingual Education National Action Plan’ (MENAP) was finalised in late 2015 and officially launched in March 2016. The MENAP (MoEYS, 2015) is a detailed four-year plan on MLE implementation, and its early drafts included strengthening the Cambodian MLE model with a new late-exit pilot project, and the expansion of MLE provision to new languages. MENAP also brought Cambodian terminology in line with most other Asian countries by replacing ‘bilingual education’ with ‘multilingual education.’ The MENAP did not bring, however, any major changes to the Cambodian model of multilingual education, which has been criticised for being a transitional early-exit model (Benson, 2011; Benson & Kosonen, 2012; Kosonen, 2013; Wong et al., 2015). Minority learners’ L1 is used as a language of instruction only until the end of primary Grade 3, after which Khmer is the exclusive language of instruction (MENAP, 2015).This is usually considered too short for sufficient development of a child’s first language, which would provide a strong foundation for all further learning, including learning the dominant Khmer. Attempts to introduce ‘stronger’ forms of multilingual education (particularly long-term use of NDL students’ L1 as a language of instruction) in the MENAP were apparently too sensitive for some government officials. Consequently, a pilot project which would use the learners’ L1 for seven years, that was included in early drafts of the MENAP, was removed before its adoption in late 2015. However, various actors are currently attempting to get permission for such a pilot outside the national action plan. Likewise, plans for extension of the MLE programme to new languages which already have Khmer-based orthographies were taken out of the MENAP. The work is continuing and the expansion of multilingual education to Jarai, Kui, and Cham communities may be delayed by some years. One reason may be that the Cham and Jarai are politically sensitive language communities. The first is sensitive due the fact that most Cham are Muslims. Work among Jarai is sensitive due to their close connection with Vietnam. Many Cambodian Jarai are in fact refugees or the children of refugees from Vietnam and still live in 221

Kimmo Kosonen

the border areas. There are claims of high levels of bilingualism among the Kui, and therefore some MoEYS officials claim that there is no need for MLE among the group. External actors and donors are recommending a survey of the situation, before any decisions are made. Despite criticism on the policy and practice of multilingual education, the progress towards multilingual education in Cambodia has been remarkable. As of early 2016, more than 5,500 children had studied in or were attending formal schools providing multilingual education, and 150 people have hitherto been trained as teachers in MLE. It is estimated that the number of MLE students will double by the end of 2018, and the MoEYS is budgeting funds for this expansion (Cambodia Daily, 2016; Im & Noorlander, 2016; Phnom Penh Post, 2016; UNICEF, 2016). In conclusion, the year 2016 can be seen as a turning point in multilingual education in Cambodia.The time of MLE projects by external agencies is over and the government has made multilingual education an essential component in their national education strategy. In other words, multilingual education is rapidly becoming institutionalised in Cambodia, a goal of many development practitioners and donors. In terms of the dominant foreign language, Cambodia has seen a shift from French to English over the past few decades. Clayton (2007) provides convincing arguments on the reasons behind the rapid interest in teaching and learning of English in Cambodia. He claims that, firstly, the arrival of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) in 1992, and secondly, Cambodia’s membership in ASEAN in 1999, have been the main milestones which have increased the popularity and importance of English. As Cambodia begun a new phase after the conflicts of the past, the increased demand for English-speaking personnel in the everexpanding aid and business sectors provided a strong motivation for many to achieve a working knowledge of English. Sitha and Visal (2015, p. 3), for example, argue that “Cambodians are passionate and enthusiastic about learning English, … Cambodians embrace the belief that they will have better jobs and a better lifestyle if they have English competence.” The increased use of and interest in learning English has resulted in a rapid decline in the importance of French as the main foreign language in Cambodia. In 2014 the Ministry of Education Youth and Sport stipulated that English be introduced from Grade 4 as a subject in the national curriculum of formal education (MoEYS, 2014). Despite a few pockets around the country where pilot initiatives in improving English teaching and learning have taken place, the basic goals of this policy (such as the availability of appropriate teaching-learning materials or trained English teachers capable of using those materials) have not yet been reached. Sitha and Visal (2015) evaluated an intervention by Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) to improve the quality of English education in government primary schools. As a part of the evaluation they also studied English teaching and learning in what they claim to be representatives of typical Cambodian primary schools. Beyond anecdotal evidence, their report is currently the best available source on the realities of English language education at the primary level of education, but other sources (e.g. Mao, 2013) corroborate these arguments.The Sitha and Visal report provides a rather bleak view on teaching-learning practice, as the following quote exemplifies: “There is a lack of effective mechanisms to systematically prepare and support teachers who have low or no capacity to carry out the new challenging task of teaching English to students” (Sitha & Visal, 2015, p. 24). Sitha and Visal’s (2015) report corroborates the often-heard personal communication of people knowledgeable about English teaching and learning practice in Cambodia.The report claims that not all primary schools have access even to the teaching and learning materials designed to convey the endorsed curriculum. Further, many schools that indeed have the materials are not using them. Many teachers have not received any training in foreign language teaching or the use the English language materials. “With no English competence and absence of English training, 222

Language education policy in Cambodia

the teachers can neither use nor guide students to utilize the English books” (Sitha & Visal, 2015, p. 13). Furthermore, “those teachers who knew a few words in English added that insufficient and poor quality of teaching and learning materials also prevented them from teaching the subject” (Sitha & Visal, 2015, p. 17). Many teachers who are expected to teach English have very low or no skills in the English language. As a result, in practice, many schools do not include English in their teaching syllabus (Mao, 2013; Sitha & Visal, 2015). Although a policy to include English as a required school subject is in place, it is not practiced in most primary schools of the country (P. Hudges, pers. comm. February 2016). Eventually, the low-quality English teaching practice obviously results in nonexistent or very low-level achievement of skills in English (Mao, 2013; Sitha & Visal, 2015). To put these discouraging facts about the quality of English teaching into perspective, it has been reported (e.g. Hayden & Martin, 2011) that many other teachers responsible for teaching other subjects, particularly in rural areas, are poorly qualified and demotivated. Therefore, the poor quality of English language teaching may merely reflect the common challenges and the low quality of most public education in Cambodia. Frewer (2014) claims that Cambodian school curricula are imposed by donors who represent liberal democratic worldviews. Many aspects of such curricula do not suit the Cambodian context, as “their utility within the hierarchical, patrimonial politics of contemporary Cambodia” (Frewer, 2014, p. 61) is not self-evident. Frewer (2014, p. 62) elaborates on this issue by arguing that “a disjuncture is created between the seemingly utopian liberal democratic states where human rights, freedom and gender equality are taken for granted, and complete political disenfranchisement and material hardship which form the daily realities of life for most Cambodians.” Given the available human and other resources for education in Cambodia, the hurried attempts to promote English language teaching seem to reflect the perhaps over-ambitious goals of political leaders. Hitherto, the results of these early attempts at universal foreign language teaching in a context such as Cambodia are low, as expected. The low-quality teaching and learning of English, as well as teachers and principals without the sufficient skills, resources, or support to implement the English teaching policy, clearly mean that few schools can fulfil their mandate of teaching English. This situation has improved in areas with innovative projects to build capacity in English teaching at the primary level.Voluntary Service Overseas, for example, has supported the capacity building of Cambodian English teachers. These projects have produced a complete English language syllabus for primary Grades 4–6. Further, high-quality textbooks with teachers’ guides using innovative learning approaches have also been produced. The projects have included workshops and consultations. Hitherto English teachers from 100 schools and teacher trainers from a number of Provincial Teacher Training Centres have been trained (Sitha & Visal, 2015; VSO Cambodia, 2012, 2014). Poor quality English instruction in government schools has meant a good market for private English tutoring and education in the capital city, Phnom Penh, as well as in many provincial towns. Quality of English instruction varies in the private sector, as most people working in these private classes have no formal training (Mao, 2013; Sitha & Visal, 2015). The secondary level of education has experienced similar challenges in English teaching as the primary level discussed above. Compared to primary schools, however, secondary school English teachers are generally better trained and more capable to cover the English language syllabi. Nonetheless, many secondary students lack a solid foundation in English when beginning Grade 7. Consequently, it can be assumed that few students gain high proficiency in English in government high schools (P. Hudges, pers. comm. February 2016). French, Khmer,Vietnamese, and English have been used as languages of higher education in different times in recent Cambodian history. Since the 1990s Khmer has increased in importance and currently is the self-evident academic language in Cambodia, though standardisation 223

Kimmo Kosonen

and elaboration of Khmer is ongoing in some academic disciplines. The importance of French-medium university programmes is decreasing, and it is possible that English-medium programmes will increase. Khmer will likely remain as the main language of instruction in higher education (Clayton, 2009; Ahrens & McNamara, 2013). Currently, English is by far the most popular foreign language studied in universities and colleges, though major Asian and European languages can also be studied.The Institute of Foreign Languages at Royal University of Phnom Penh, for example, offers studies in Chinese, English, French, Japanese, and Korean (Institute of Foreign Languages, 2017; Mao, 2013).

Language education in Cambodia: the future Kosonen (2015, 2016) argues on the basis of various accounts (Benson, 2011; Benson & Kosonen, 2012; CARE International Cambodia, 2004; Kosonen, 2007, 2010, 2013; Middelborg, 2005; Nowaczyk, 2015; Siren, 2009; Sun, 2009; Thomas, 2002; Wong et al., 2015) that the following factors have contributed to the increased pro-minority policies in multilingual education: 1) long-term commitment of external actors (mostly INGOs and academics) to advocacy for and corpus planning of NDLs; 2) fruitful partnerships between local communities, government agencies, and external actors; 3) the existence of ‘benevolent’ Cambodian leaders who have provided official support for NDL use; 4) strong NDL community participation at the local level; 5) timely and sustainable transfer of responsibility from external actors to government agencies; and 6) a relatively small minority population as a proportion of the whole population. Kosonen (2015, 2016) has also discussed the current challenges in language education which include: 1) contested ethnolinguistic classification; 2) political sensitivities regarding some NDL communities which hinders language development and MLE delivery; 3) a lack of technical resources which would enable MLE in all NDLs communities; 4) limited understanding among some government officials of the role of the L1 in learning – resulting in slow expansion of MLE; and 5) inefficient use of NDLs in non-formal education. Further investigation is needed to provide a thorough and detailed interpretation on the future of Cambodian language education policy. Nevertheless, the issues listed above will certainly influence the future foci of language education. Discussions will likely continue on the balance of various languages in education: the national language Khmer, all NDLs of Cambodia, as well as international languages such as English and Chinese. Language education is not the only sector that needs to revisit its vision, goals, and available resources. Such soul-searching is definitely needed broadly in a nation which has experienced many dramatic changes over the past decade, and where the national identity is still developing. Tensions still exist in terms of balance between different languages. Frewer (2014: 62), asks a valid question about the relevance of the national curricula for those Cambodians who do not come from the Khmer background. He adds that: “the education system continues to use distinctly Khmer traditions, histories and perspectives to establish what it means to be a Cambodian” (Frewer, 2014, p. 62). Such questions will need to be addressed in language education as well. It is evident, however, that as English already is the main lingua franca of Southeast Asians and the working language of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), its importance is likely to increase also in Cambodia (Mao, 2013). Like elsewhere in the region, the number of English-medium schools and private institutions teaching English is growing rapidly in the capital city of Phnom Penh (Kirkpatrick, 2012).This trend will likely increase and spread to provincial towns. There is an indication that Chinese-medium education in the private sector will also increase. Multilingual education in different NDLs is likely to continue, but it is currently difficult to predict the extent of expansion of MLE to new languages and new geographical 224

Language education policy in Cambodia

areas. Nonetheless, the MENAP provides a good general framework for multilingual education, if there is sufficient political will to fully implement it. Current assessments are inconsistent in the future latitude for NDLs in the Cambodia society. The situation should be clearer after the general elections of July 2018.

Conclusion This chapter has discussed the changing role and status of Cambodia’s national language, Khmer, and dominant international languages, namely French and English, in Cambodia over time. Discussion has included some rationale for the increasing importance of English over French as the most important foreign language in Cambodia. The chapter has also discussed the increasing role of NDL in education. It has attempted to argue that the initial introduction of NDLs in non-formal education have, over time, facilitated a wider acceptance of linguistic diversity and first language-based education in the formal education sector. Over the past two decades Cambodia has been a case in point of such a process. In several multilingual Asian countries early childhood education and adult literacy in the non-formal sector of education have been important in processes towards more pluralistic language education policies. Such processes have included the development of previously oral NDLs by means of corpus planning, literature written in these languages, and raising general awareness to the potential these languages offer in promoting learning among minority learners. Although the progress in Cambodia towards more pluralistic language education policies over the past two decades has been quite dramatic, the situation is far from stable. As modern Cambodia is finding its place in Southeast Asia and continuing its process of rebuilding the nation, it is only natural that issues related to national identity – including language issues – and diversity in a nation-state are highly politicised. Party politics and even direct political interference in language education make the future uncertain. Even a well-established education system that does not fit the nationalist Khmer agenda may be used as a tool in political battles, and anything diverting from the dominant Khmer agenda can be seen suspiciously. Nevertheless, over the past few decades a number of benevolent Cambodian leaders have understood the situation well and have provided their strong support for more pluralistic Cambodia, and pluralistic language education policies as well. Such leaders hold positions in various sectors of the Cambodian government. Hopefully a new generation of leaders will play as important a role in maintaining and strengthening provisions for Cambodians of non-Khmer background as did their predecessors.

Note 1 Also referred to as ’Prakas’ by some government stakeholders.

References Ahrens, L., & McNamara,V. (2013). Cambodia: Evolving quality issues in higher education. In L. P. Symaco (Ed.), Education in South-East Asia (pp. 45–69). London: Bloomsbury. Benson, C. (2011). Evaluation of the state of bilingual education in Cambodia. Undertaken November 2010 to March 2011 for MoEYS with UNICEF support. Unpublished. Benson, C., & Kosonen, K. (2012). A critical comparison of language-in-education policy and practice in four Southeast Asian countries and Ethiopia. In K. Heugh & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.), Multilingual education and sustainable diversity work: From periphery to center (pp. 111–137). New York: Routledge. Bredenberg, K. (2008). Educational marginalization of Cham Muslim populations:A report from Cambodia. Journal of Education for International Development, 3(3),1–26.

225

Kimmo Kosonen Cambodia Daily. (2016). Government takes over multilingual school program. Cambodia Daily. March 2, 2016. Available at https​://ww​w.cam​bodia​daily​.com/​news/​gover​nment​-take​s-ove​r-mul​tilin​gual-​schoo​ l-pro​g ram-​10928​9/ CARE International Cambodia. (2004). Cambodia: Highland Children’s Education Project (HCEP), Ratanakiri Province. In L. King & S. Schielmann (Eds.), The challenge of indigenous education: Practice and perspectives (pp. 113–122). Paris: UNESCO. Clayton, T. (2007). Transition, culture, and language in Cambodia. In A. B. M. Tsui & J. Tollefson (Eds.), Language policy, culture, and identity in Asian contexts (pp. 95–117). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Frewer, T. (2014). Diversity and development: The challenges of education in Cambodia. In P. Sercombe & R. Tupas (Eds.), Language, education and nation-building: assimilation and shift in Southeast Asia (pp. 200– 231). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hayden, M., & Martin, R. (2011). The education system in Cambodia: making progress under difficult circumstances. In C. Brock & L. P. Symaco (Eds.), Education in South-East Asia (pp. 31–51). Oxford: Symposium Books. Im, T. S., & Noorlander, J. (2016). Cambodian multilingual education system teacher education. A paper presented at 5th International Conference on Language and Education: Sustainable Development through Multilingual Education, October 19–21, 2016, Bangkok, Thailand. Available at http:​//www​.lc.m​ahido​ l.ac.​th/ml​econf​/2016​/Docu​ments​/Pres​ented​Files​/Plen​ary%2​0II%2​0-%20​Ton%2​0Sa%2​0Im%2​0and%​ 20Jan​%20No​orlan​der.p​df. Institute of Foreign Languages. (2017). Royal University of Phnom Penh, Institute of Foreign Languages. Available at http://www.rupp.edu.kh/ifl/. Jacob, J. (1996). The traditional literature of Cambodia: a preliminary guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf, R. B. (2003). Language and language-in-education planning in the Pacific basin. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Kingdom of Cambodia. (1993). Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia. Adopted by Constitutional Assembly in Phnom Penh on 21 September 1993. Available at http:​//www​.crrt​-camb​odia.​org/w​p-con​ tent/​uploa​ds/20​11/01​/Cons​titut​ion-o​f-the​-king​dom-o​f-Cam​bodia​-EN.p​df. Kirkpatrick, A. (2012). English in ASEAN: implications for regional multilingualism. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(4), 331–344. Kosonen, K. (2005). Education in local languages: Policy and practice in South-East Asia. In First language first: Community-based literacy programmes for minority language context in Asia (pp. 96–134). Bangkok: UNESCO. Kosonen, K. (2007). Vernaculars in literacy and basic education in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. In A. J. Liddicoat (Ed.), Issues in language planning and literacy (pp. 122–142). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Kosonen, K. (2009). Language-in-education policies in Southeast Asia: An overview. In K. Kosonen & C. Young (Eds.), Mother tongue as bridge language of instruction: Policies and experiences in Southeast Asia (pp. 22–43). Bangkok: Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO). Kosonen, K. (2010). Ethnolinguistic minorities and non-dominant languages in mainland Southeast Asian language-in-education policies. In M. A. Geo-JaJa & S. Majhanovich (Eds.), Education, language, and economics: Growing national and global dilemmas (pp. 73–88). Rotterdam, Boston, Taipei: Sense Publishers. Kosonen, K. (2013).The use of non-dominant languages in education in Cambodia,Thailand and Vietnam: Two steps forward, one step back. In C. Benson & K. Kosonen (Eds.), Language issues in comparative education: Inclusive teaching and learning in non-dominant languages and cultures (pp. 39–58). Rotterdam, Boston, Taipei: Sense Publishers. Kosonen, K. (2015). Twenty years of non-dominant language use in Cambodian education: A critical analysis. A paper presented at the 59th Annual Conference of Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), Washington DC, United States, March 2015. Kosonen, K. (2016). MLE policy developments in Cambodia. A paper presented at the International Conference on Language Policy in Multicultural and Multilingual Settings, Mandalay, Myanmar, February 8–11, 2016. Kosonen, K. (2017). Language policy and education in Southeast Asia. In T. McCarty & S. May (Eds.), Language policy and political issues in education, encyclopedia of language and education (3rd ed., pp. 477–490). New York: Springer. Leclerc, J. (2017). Cambodge. In L’Aménagement Linguistique dans le Monde [Language planning around the world]. Quebec: TLFQ, Université Laval. Available at http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/index.html

226

Language education policy in Cambodia Lee, S., Watt, R., & Frawley, J. (2015). Effectiveness of bilingual education in Cambodia: A longitudinal comparative case study of ethnic minority children in bilingual and monolingual schools. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 45(4), 526–544. doi: 10.1080/03057925.2014.909717. Lewis, M. P., Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (Ed.). (2016). Ethnologue: Languages of the world, nineteenth edition. Dallas, TX: SIL International. Available at http://www.ethnologue.com. Mao, S. (2013). Education and policy on English language in Cambodia. In T/. W. Bigalke & S. Sharbawi (Eds.), English tor ASEAN integration: Policies and practices in the region (pp. 22–31). Bandar Seri Begawan: Universiti Brunei Darussalam. McNamara,V. (2013). Cambodia: From dependency to sovereignty – emerging national leadership. In L. P. Symaco (Ed.), Education in South-East Asia (pp. 23–45). London: Bloomsbury. Middelborg, J. (2005). Highland children’s education project: A pilot project on bilingual education in Cambodia. Bangkok: UNESCO. MoEYS. (2010). Guidelines on implementation of bilingual education programs for indigenous children in highland provinces (No. 2972). Phnom Penh: Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS), official document. MoEYS. (2013). Prakas on identification of languages for Khmer national learners who are Indigenous People. Phnom Penh: Ministry of Education,Youth and Sport (MoEYS), official document. (Several Cambodian officials and civil servants refer to this document in English as ‘Bilingual Education Decree’.) MoEYS. (2014). Guideline for teaching English at primary schools 2014. Phnom Penh: Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS), official document. MoEYS. (2015). Multilingual education national action plan (MENAP) 2015 – 2018. Phnom Penh: Ministry of Education,Youth and Sport (MoEYS), official document. Neau,V. (2003). The teaching of foreign languages in Cambodia: A historical perspective. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 16(3), 253–268. doi: 10.1080/07908310308666673 Nowaczyk, M. (2015). Advocating for multilingual education in Cambodia: Experiences and strategies. Phnom Penh: CARE Cambodia. Phnom Penh Post. (2016). Multilingual education push. Wed, March 2, 2016. Available at http:​//www​ .phno​mpenh​post.​com/n​ation​al/mu​ltili​ngual​-educ​ation​-push​ Siren, U. (2009). The mother tongue as a bridge language of instruction in Cambodia. In K. Kosonen & C.Young (Eds.), Mother tongue as bridge language of instruction: Policies and experiences in Southeast Asia (pp. 148–152). Bangkok: Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO). Sitha, C., & Visal, S. (2015). The effectiveness of VSO intervention for the teaching of English to Grade 4 in Cambodia, September 2015. Unpublished. Sun, N. (2009). Education policies for ethnic minorities in Cambodia. In K. Kosonen & C. Young (Eds.), Mother tongue as bridge language of instruction: Policies and experiences in Southeast Asia (pp. 62–68). Bangkok: Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO). Thomas, A. (2002). Bilingual community-based education in the Cambodian highlands: A successful approach for enabling access to education by indigenous peoples. Journal of Southeast Asian Education, 3(1), 26–58. UNDP. (2015). Human development report 2015: Work for human development. New York: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Available at http://report.hdr.undp.org/. UNICEF. (2016). National action plan launched to promote multilingual education in Cambodia. Available at http:​ //www​.unic​ef.or​g/cam​bodia​/1268​1_252​91.ht​ml . VSO Cambodia. (2014). Cambodia education case study: Primary English Curriculum (PEC), Phnom Penh: Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), unpublished. VSO Cambodia. (2012). Case study, Cambodia: New English curriculum for primary School. Phnom Penh: Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), unpublished. Wong, K., Li Y.Y., & Benson, C. (2015). Evaluation of the state of multilingual education in Cambodia. Undertaken June 2015 for CARE Cambodia. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, unpublished.

Further reading Frewer, T. (2014). Diversity and development: The challenges of education in Cambodia. In P. Sercombe & R. Tupas (Eds.), Language, education and nation-building: Assimilation and shift in Southeast Asia (pp. 200–231). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

227

Kimmo Kosonen Hayden, M., & Martin, R. (2011). The education system in Cambodia: Making progress under difficult circumstances. In C. Brock & L. P. Symaco (Eds.), Education in South-East Asia (pp. 31–51). Oxford: Symposium Books. Kosonen, K. (2013).The use of non-dominant languages in education in Cambodia,Thailand and Vietnam: Two steps forward, one step back. In C. Benson & K. Kosonen (Eds.), Language issues in comparative education: Inclusive teaching and learning in non-dominant languages and cultures (pp. 39–58). Rotterdam, Boston, Taipei: Sense Publishers. Noorlander, J. (forthcoming) Education for indigenous ethnic minorities in the north east of Cambodia. In C. Rethy & V. McNamara (Eds.), Education in Cambodia: From year zero towards international standards. Dordrecht: Springer.

228

16 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN THAILAND John Draper

Background Thailand was mainly inhabited by indigenous Austro-Asiatic (Mon-Khmer, Khmu, and Lawa) peoples in the central plains and Northeast and by Malayo-Sumbawan (Malay) peoples in the South until the arrival of the Tai. Sino-Tibetan peoples (Hmong and Mien) arrived from China (Kweichow) in the North and West much later, either via Lao or Vietnam and then Lao, or in the case of the Loloish Tibeto-Burman peoples (Akha, Lahu), over several centuries up until one hundred years ago. The Karen, another Tibeto-Burman people, began populating the border between Burma and Siam in the 13th century. From perhaps the 7th up to the 13th centuries, the Tai, who may have originated in what is now Guangxi in China and bordering areas of Northwest Vietnam, gradually populated the river valleys of the Mekong, Chao Praya, and Salween, propelled by a sophisticated system of rice production. As they came into contact with the resident Mon-Khmer, they adopted Indic juristic systems and Theravadan Buddhism, and ultimately writing systems based on Mon (Shan, Lanna) and Khmer (Thai, Lao). Strong Tai societies emerged on the Shan plateau in upper Myanmar, along the Mekong in the north in Xishuangbanna, in the Yuan empire of Lanna, and in the Middle Mekong in the Lao empire of Lan Xang. These societies emerged as polities, such as Sukhothai and Chiang Mai, capital of Lanna. The most powerful of these was Ayutthaya, which superseded Sukhothai in the 16th century. The Khmer Empire was vanquished when Angkor fell to Tai invaders at the end of the 14th century. The conquering Siamese, over time, brought many Brahmins and artisans to their court and borrowed heavily from the Khmer language and literature, not to mention the notion of divine kinship, to the point that some scholars regard the Siamese as Khmero-Thai (Khanittanan 2001). From the 16th to the 18th centuries the Burmese expanded east, occupying Lanna and Xishuangbanna and eventually destroying Ayutthaya. Nonetheless, Thonburi, the Tai successor state to Ayutthaya, succeeded in uniting the Lanna, Luang Prabang, and Malay states as vassals and then in driving the Burmese back. Under the Bangkok-based Chakri dynasty, Siam brought the remaining Lan Xang city states of Vientiane (destroyed in 1827) and Champassak under direct control in the 19th century. The much-reduced Lanna then became a tributary until 1896, when its last full king died, after which it was formally annexed. In the Malay Peninsula, in 1816, Siam divided the Muslim tributary sultanate of Patani into seven provinces. 229

John Draper

Despite occasional subsequent rebellions, the policy was largely successful in bringing peace until the end of the century. Siam in 1901 restructured the seven provinces into a single administrative unit under the new Ministry of Interior, ‘Monthon Patani’, which consolidated the seven provinces into four: Patani, Bangnara, Saiburi, and Yala. Kedah was ceded to the English under the 1909 Anglo–Siamese Treaty, in which a more integrated (from a Siamese perspective) district formerly belonging to Kedah became Satun Province (Che Man 1990). Present-day Lao PDR, together with some Cambodian provinces, were permanently ceded in the formation of French Indochina, having once been vassals of the Siamese. In the early reigns of the Chakri dynasty, Siamese armies had invaded areas of Laos and brought back large numbers of prisoners of war, in particular Tai Dam and Phuan peoples, who were scattered over large stretches of the Central Plains. In the process, the linguistic and cultural map of Siam became varied. The entire Khorat plateau, once part of the Lao Lan Xang empire (see Rogers 1996 and Keyes 2014), remained part of Siam. Siam was re-named Thailand in 1939 as a deliberate design of nation-state building. In 1943, the influential National Culture Commission was established to define and disseminate Thai culture. Thailand received an influx of Vietnamese after the end of the French–Indochina war and a large number of Northern Khmer during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, some of whom permanently settled with indigenous Khmer. These migrants complement the indigenous peoples residing there, mainly the Lao, Khorat, and Phu Thai, but also smaller ethnic groups such as the Yoy and So, as well as the Kuy, Nyahkur, and Khmu along the Khmer border. In addition,Thailand received Chinese immigrants for several hundred years until the 1930s, meaning many Thai urban centres have large Chinese-speaking populations (mainly Teochew speakers) (Smalley 1994). The 1904 census deliberately omitted the Lao identity in order to prevent further French colonial predations, resulting in the Thai becoming 85% of the population, increasing to 89% in 1912 (Grabowsky 1996). Thai census data, now more detailed, still does not disaggregate by either the largest or smallest ethnic groups and so is simply a reflection of how the Thai state sees itself. In the 1930s, ethnocentric thinking was developed by Thai nationalist Luang Wichitwathakan to eventually equate the Tai linguistic family with a greater pan-Thai race-based ‘nation.’ Membership of the Thai race formed the basis of citizenship in the first of the 12 Cultural Mandates of June 24, 1939, which renamed Siam ‘Thailand’ or as it was sometimes termed the ‘Great Thai Empire’ (Keyes 1995: 57). In the depths of the Cold War, the result became a polity where Tai and Thai were conflated and nearly everyone spoke Thai or Thai ‘dialects’ (Seidenfaden 1967). This meant that from the 1960s, census data now indicated 97% officially spoke CT/ST and that up to 99% were ethnic Thais, naturally meaning a language education policy for minorities was superfluous. However, scientific research in the same period suggests of the Thai Tai, only 33% spoke Central Thai (CT), with over 50% speaking Lao or a Lao dialect (Diller 2002). Thus, in 1994, Smalley estimated only 10.4 million speakers of Standard Thai (ST) as a native language, with a further 14.4 million speaking the related regional language of CT (meaning both geographically [of the Central Plains, dominated by Bangkok] and normatively as well as intermediately), with a total of 53,280,000 million speakers of 67 languages. ST is a form of (written) CT which began to be called ST in the early 1980s but which is still interchangeable as a term for non-specialists with (spoken) CT (Diller 2002). ST is essentially a modified CT deriving from Bangkok standards as expressed, for example, by prescriptive institutions such as the Office of the Royal Society. ST, as the sole national language of an idealised Thailand, is generally seen as “highly functional, widely used, highly desired and greatly admired” (Smalley 1994: 40). As such, it is a symbolic pillar of official policy promoting Thai identity and national unity. ST is 230

Language education policy in Thailand

mainly spread through the school system but is also the language of public radio stations, almost all television programming, and the majority of national print newspapers. In addition to ST and CT, approximately 12.2 million in Smalley’s 1994 estimate spoke Lao, with a further 4.8 million speaking Kammeuang, linguistically closer to Lao than to CT. The fourth regional language, Paktay, was spoken by 4.3 million, and various Chinese languages made up over 3.6 million. In the Southern border provinces, Thai-Malay was spoken by approximately one million ‘Thai Muslims’, an invented ethnonym (Simpson and Thammasatien 2007: 403) and on the southern border of the Northeast, one million spoke Northern Khmer. Moreover, based on a 1989 estimate (Smalley 1994), 46.4 million or 87.1% spoke Tai-Kadai languages, 4.1 million or 7.7% spoke Sino-Tibetan languages, 1.6 million or 3.1% spoke Mon-Khmer languages, and 1.0 million or 1.9% spoke Austronesian languages. A further 116,000 or 0.2% spoke Hmong-Mien languages. At the time, Smalley divided the languages in what has become a standard hierarchy into international languages (2,000 speakers), the national language (10.4 million), regional languages (35.7 million), marginal regional languages (2.42 million), languages of towns and cities (3.628 million), marginal languages (838,250), displaced Tai languages (260,000), enclave languages (31,250), and others (500).The language appendices in Smalley (1994) are still useful. Latest Ethnologue data (Lewis, Simons & Fennig 2015) suggest 71 languages (25 Austro-Asiatic, six Austronesian, three deaf sign languages, three Hmong-Mien, 19 Sino-Tibetan, and 16 Tai-Kadai). In terms of first language speakers, two languages are spoken by ten–20 million speakers (Thai and Thai Lao), five languages each by one–ten million speakers (Kammeuang, Paktay, Thai-Malay, Chinese Minnan, and Northern Khmer), and 100,000–1 million speakers, 23 languages by 10,000–100,000 speakers, 16 languages by 1,000–10,000 speakers, and 20 languages of under 1,000 speakers or for whom data is not known. Similarly to Smalley, the data suggests under 35% of the population have access to education in their first language, though the extent of bilingualism is uncertain. In how Thailand presents itself internationally, its latest position on its ethnolinguistic groups and on some of their ‘official’ origins is available in a report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racism (Thailand 2011) and is partly based on a district-level analysis of main household language from the Ethnolinguistic Maps of Thailand project (Office of the National Culture Commission 2005). The data is approximate, and the report itself is self-contradictory in places, providing insights into Thai nationalist ideology and how it subsumes major Tai-Kadai groups under ‘Thai.’ For example, the report begins by stating 85% of Thailand’s population is Thai “intermingled with various races,” which is later contradicted by more scientific data in Table 3, which lists nearly 17 million people in Northeast Thailand who are not ethnolinguistically Thai, mainly the Thai Lao. Sixty-two ethnolinguistic groups are listed in the report, comprising 24 Tai-Kadai groups (92%), 22 Austro-Asiatic groups (4.3%), 11 Sino-Tibetan groups (3.1%, though see Premsrirat 2007, which lists seven Chinese dialects and 14 Tibeto-Burman languages), three Austronesian groups (or 0.3%), and two Hmong-Mien groups (0.3%), based on the 2005 data. Moreover, official data compiled in 2002 provides population data for nonTai-Kadai ethnicities in 20 ‘highlands’ provinces, reflecting a Cold War interest in the ethnic makeup of these provinces due to possible ethnic-based interactions involving Myanmar and Lao (Buadeng 2006). This resulted in ten officially recognised mountain or tribal peoples by 2002, the Akha (68,653), Hmong (153,955), H’tin (42,657), Karen (438,131), Khmu (10,573), Lahu (102,876), Lisu (38,299), Lua (22,260), Iu Mien (45,571), and Mlabri (282) (Department of Social Development and Welfare 2002; for pop. estimates see Thailand 2011). The report ultimately divides all ‘non-Thai’ ethnolinguistic groups in Thailand into four main groups, namely highlands peoples (roughly, Sino-Tibetan and Austro-Asiatic mountain peoples), sea gypsies (Austronesian islanders), Malayu-descended Thais (Austronesian Muslims), and ‘other’ (33% of the population: North-eastern Tai-Kadai, mainly the Thai Lao, and Austroasiatics, mainly the Northern Khmer). 231

John Draper

The language and culture map of modern Thailand thus reflects a long history of peoples and their languages in intimate contact, borrowing and blending DNA along with vibrant cultures. Local languages preserve many local knowledge systems that if lost, means a lessening of the wisdom of minority peoples bound up in their medical, agricultural, and aspirational practices and beliefs. The lack of a policy of rights-based official support for Thailand’s ethnolinguistic groups means that over a dozen languages are endangered and that the majority of languages are at risk (Premsrirat 2007).

Review and critical discussion of earlier language education policies Thai Thai language education policy began in 1892, when the Ministry of Education (MoE) was established, together with a new English curriculum and examination criteria which stated that primary school in Thai must be completed before English (and Malay) could be taught as electives starting at secondary school; this position was maintained until 1909. Countering weak provincial demand for modern elementary education, in 1898 the first national education plan was announced. Provisional regulations modernised the Buddhist Sangha and its role in education, including language education, with only schools teaching Thai being supported (Breazeale 1975). English became compulsory in upper secondary. The 1902 Sangha Administration Act eventually led, in 1911, to a national ecclesiastical exam system for Pali (Wyatt 1994). Efforts to institute vocational education as an instrument of social mobility created a mass education system by 1909, under the Common Modern Educational Curriculum, where English became a mandatory subject at primary grades. This initiative introduced “a common national syllabus, using common textbooks and the national language, and overriding provincial dialects and minority languages” (Wyatt 1969, pp. 328–329). One innovation was a prescriptive official grammar introduced in 1905 and revised under King Vajiravudh (r.1910–1925), who emphasised the centrality of Thai to Siamese nation formation. Three decades of revisions of the grammar led to the 1937 Principles of the Thai Language, which influenced all subsequent textbooks and examinations. In 1911, the curriculum was again revised and divided into the Common and Special Streams, with English mandatory at all grades in the latter. The Primary Education Act of 1921 introduced mandatory education for ages seven to 14 for both sexes. Syllabus, length of term, and textbooks were set by the MoE. English was mandatory in lower secondary, with French, German, or Chinese required in the middle or upper secondary grades (Sukamolson 1998). Many of its provisions, such as the mandatory teaching of Thai, were already in place via the monastery school system. Language and language policy since the 1932 revolution have been determined by the military. The language education problems facing the military in this early period were (a) a low electorate literacy rate (Mills 1942), (b) a poorly integrated non-Thai speaking Muslim minority, (c) integrated but unassimilated Tai-language speakers in the North and Northeast (especially the Lao), and (d) 500,000–800,000 un-assimilated Chinese (Thompson 1942). One standardisation initiative was to burn manuscripts in non-standard languages (Diller 2002).The dominance of the military in language education policy was made explicit in the Twelve Cultural Mandates issued by Field Marshall Plaek Pibulsonggram between 1939 and 1942, forming one of the cornerstones of ‘Thaification’, a process of creating the nation state along ideological lines adapted from the West and including language education policy as core. The Mandates created a weak form of totalitarianism, changing the name of Siam to Thailand and mandating all Thais be 232

Language education policy in Thailand

referred to as Thais, with no identification of minorities permitted. Mandate 9 introduced the state language education policy: (1) Thai people must extol, honor and respect the Thai language, and must feel honored to speak it; (2) Thai people must consider it the duty of a good citizen to study the national language, and must at least be able to read and write;Thai people must also consider it their important duty to assist and support citizens who do not speak Thai or cannot read Thai to learn it. (Cabinet Secretariat 1940: 78) In subsequent periods promoting only the use of ST, signs were erected in minority areas banning ‘local dialects,’ and the state sought to erase all knowledge of cultural background, for example through corporal punishment in schools for language infringements. Nonetheless, even in years of absolute dictatorship, there was a recognition that the regional ‘dialects’ and minority languages existed, though these were subordinated to Thai. In 1978, the year in which compulsory Thai increased to six years (from four in 1921) under the new curriculum, the National Education Council classified languages in Thailand into 1) the national language, 2) foreign languages, 3) regional ‘dialects’, and 4) minority languages. In addition, five principles of educational language policy were announced, namely that Thai be used for education, national security, and racial integration, English for information dissemination, and the languages of friendly countries (including Malay, Vietnamese, and Mandarin) for international relations (Noss 1984). Essentially, in the 1970s and 1980s the purpose of schooling in the regions was to provide ethnic minorities with a basic education in Thai to ensure access to job markets as well as a mass socialisation experience in Thai ‘values’ (Vaddhanaphuti 1991). The National Education Scheme of 1992, which came into full effect in 1996 in response to globalisation, sought to teach Thai as one of five groups of subjects, the ‘Basic Skills Group’, and to promote an “understanding and appreciation of local knowledge, language and culture of Thai society… in order to optimize the use of modern knowledge relevant to the local context and needs… to preserve the Thai national identity and culture” (ONEC 1992, pp. 7–10; cited in Witte 2000, p. 235). However, this is not significantly dissimilar from the 1978 position.

Minority languages Tai languages From 1906, only Thai was officially supported in North-eastern schools, though local languages were not yet banned (Wyatt 1969). This restriction meant traditional North-eastern temple-based teaching in non-standard scripts was quickly replaced; in the North, however, strong resistance was encountered until 1939 (Keyes 2003). The aim of nationalist policies was to promote Thaification and sever links between the Lao in Thailand and those in the Frenchcontrolled Lao (Breazeale 1975); these policies successfully imprinted on Northeast citizens that Lao was a separate country, and subsequently the Lao were successfully subsumed into a Northeastern Thai ethno-regional identity (Keyes 2014).

Chinese Because of the influential position of the Chinese, both the 1898 educational reforms (Skinner 1957) and the 1918 Private Schools Act regulated the Chinese private schools. The latter required 233

John Draper

all students to be “taught to read, write and understand the Siamese language with reasonable facility” (Vella 1978, p. 190). Additional strict regulations on Chinese private schools in 1933 included the requirement to adopt the standard curriculum and the limiting of teaching in Chinese to afternoon classes. The Twelve Cultural Mandates immediately resulted in the closing of hundreds of Chinese schools (Thompson 1942), and the rise of Chinese communism led to the MoE strictly regulating Chinese schools in 1949. New schools were banned and headmasters had to be Thai, with government subsidies only for schools teaching under six hours of Chinese per week. Moreover, Chinese was not an officially accredited subject. In addition, Chinese secondary schools except for two foreign language schools were banned (Ueda 2001). By the 1960s, the amount of Chinese being taught was not more than ten hours per week, with earlier restrictions still enforced. Nonetheless, by 1989 Chinese language education was popular for economic reasons, via 213 Chinese language schools (Tong & Chan 2001).

Malay Some Pattani-Malays (PMs) see themselves through the lens of colonial history. Consequently, for PMs to speak Thai may be “tantamount to abandoning their language, religion, culture, and the Muslim Ummah” while “the Malay language is an instrument for emphasizing their uniqueness and a focal point of their unity” (Yegar 2002, p. 80). Thus, in uprisings following the 1921 Primary Education Act, the Siamese were accused of closing the PM vernacular and Quranic schools (Che Man 1990), which led to a less culturally suppressive policy. However, assimilation was still practised, with schools teaching in Thai and a national education programme targeting ethnic and religious minorities being launched in 1936 (Yegar 2002). As the Twelve Cultural Mandates were applied, conflict erupted again. Then, Hajji Sulong’s demands in 1947 called for both Malay and Siamese to be official languages and for Malay to be the medium of instruction; these were ignored (Che Man 1990). A low-level insurrection intensified in 1948, leading to a brief period of conciliation in which Malay was permitted to be the language of instruction (Haemindra 1976). In the 1950s, PM leaders embraced the pondok school system, which teaches Arabic and PM. However, disappointed at the slow progress of assimilation, in 1961 the government re-defined these schools as ‘Private Schools Teaching Islam’ (PSTIs) to both regulate and secularise them (Che Man 1990). Moreover, the government prevented the opening of new PSTIs, mandated their registration, and introduced a Thai-language curriculum to replace Malay, which was banned. The PM community reacted through promoting religious teaching and the learning of PM and Arabic during evenings and at weekends (Smalley 1994). While English, French, German, and Arabic were all available as second languages in the PSTIs, Malay was, and continues to be, excluded outside pilot programmes.

Other non-Tai languages Multiple problems with Thai public education in peripheral areas include the curriculum being in ST, linguistically a foreign language to non-Tai minorities (Smalley 1994). Since the 1970s tailored educational programmes have been provided for northern mountain peoples. However, until recently all teaching was conducted in Thai (Buadaeng 2006). In the Northeast, in 1991, one of Thailand’s first officially sanctioned experimental projects for teaching Northern Khmer (NK) and Kuy was initiated due to an emerging sentiment that Thai-centric immersion was failing and that NK needed to be written to avoid language shift to monolingualism. To overcome nationalist concerns about teaching NK in heritage scripts, Thai-based systems were employed to teach the languages for one to two hours per week at lower secondary only. This programme 234

Language education policy in Thailand

was criticised for passively endorsing a position which sees NK and Cambodian identity as fundamentally separate (Vail & Pantakod 2013).

Foreign languages In 1928, the 1921 education system was revised, with English, French, and German all becoming electives and up to two foreign languages becoming mandatory at upper secondary to introduce modernity to Thailand. In 1937 reforms, while English continued to be compulsory from upper secondary, schools could apply to teach French or Chinese instead of English. In 1951, influenced by the US curriculum, English became compulsory from lower secondary, with other languages, mainly French, being available instead on request. In 1955, the curricula for primary and tertiary were revised, with English being an elective in primary and mandatory at tertiary, at which stage French, German, Chinese, or Pali became available. In 1960, English became compulsory in upper primary. English was particularly valued in the 1960s and 1970s because of the increase in international trade, the Vietnam War, and the lack of Thai universities (Sukamolson 1998). The 1978 reforms created a system originally with no foreign languages in primary grades and four foreign languages available at lower secondary: English, French, Japanese, and Arabic. At upper secondary, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, and Pali were available. The absence of English at primary was because teaching English under the 1960 curriculum was seen as a failure. In addition, a 1977 campaign to promote ‘Thainess’ rejected Western culture and led to policy makers deciding to focus on Thai in primary grades; moreover, a US loss of influence meant English was viewed as one of many available foreign languages. In 1990, schools were permitted to offer French, German, and Japanese in response to the economic boom, and English was formally re-introduced as an elective in upper primary. By 1992, in lower secondary English, French, Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese became available, with German, Spanish, Italian, and Pali becoming options at upper secondary. Pressure to include English from primary led to the 1996 National Education Curriculum, with English becoming available from Grade 1 as an elective; English accounted for over 95% of foreign languages being studied. At tertiary level, six hours of English were required, with English, French, German, and Pali all being used in admission exams (Wongsothorn et al. 1996).

Review and critical discussion of current language education policy Thai Thai is the de facto national language and the language of education, government, law, mass media, and religion (Diller 2002). The curriculum introduced by the 1999 National Education Act introduced 12 years of free education, with Thai emphasised as the national language (Office of the National Education Commission 1999, Section 23, point 4). Nonetheless, the monolingual education system is generally seen as ineffective, with one-third of teenagers functionally illiterate (World Bank 2015). Illiteracy in Thai is particularly widespread in the Deep South due to Pattani-Malay being the mother tongue for the majority. This language barrier is also attributed to high poverty levels and a lack of inter-agency cooperation and results in low university entrance examination scores and a barrier to further education (Lerdbumrungchai 2013). Serious regional disparities in national test results also exist, which may be linked to the tests not being available in the mother tongues (Draper 2014). In international testing, the mean score in the OECD PISA reading comprehension test for Thailand was 441, significantly below the OECD mean of 496 (OECD 2014). 235

John Draper

Current language education policy is presented in the 2008 Basic Education Core Curriculum, the revision of a previous curriculum piloted in 2001 and introduced nationwide in 2003 (MoE 2008). Thai is defined as follows: “Thai language: Knowledge, skills and culture in language application for communication; delight in and appreciation of Thai wisdom; and pride in the national language” (MOE 2008, p. 10). The MoE’s rationale for learning Thai first centres on promoting national identity, national unity, and strengthening ‘Thainess.’ It then goes on to specify some social functions, namely as a communication tool “for creating mutual understanding and happy relationships among the people” as well as the ability to pursue a livelihood and enjoy “peaceful coexistence in a democratic society.”The functional aspect of Thai is also mentioned in terms of “seeking knowledge and experiences from various sources of data and information in order to acquire knowledge and engage in processes of analytical, critical and creative thinking, so as to be attuned to social change and scientific and technological progress” and “the useful purpose of occupational development for achieving economic security.” Finally, there is recognition of the fact that Thai is a cultural resource and aesthetic expression of “our ancestors’ wisdom regarding culture, tradition and aesthetics, representing a treasure of the highest value, worthy of learning, conserving and transmitting to succeeding generations as a permanent feature of the Thai nation” (MoE 2008, p. 41). In Grades 7–9, 120 hours per year are dedicated to Thai; in Grades 10–12, this is reduced to 80 hours per year. In the curriculum, the Thai language is specified in terms of the macro-skills of reading; writing; listening, viewing, and speaking; principles of usage of Thai language; and literature and literary works.There is little sign of an integrated approach. Grade quality standards are approximately what one might expect from a modern functional-notional and communicative curriculum, though only expressed at a very high level. Interestingly, there is an emphasis in Grade 6 on students being able to compose classical Thai poetry, namely Four-Stanza Verse and Yani 11 Verse, and in Grade 9 on students understanding and using “royal words, Pali and Sanskrit words… transliterations and terms coined in Thai language” as well as to understand “characteristics of formal, semi-formal and informal language,” i.e. the royal and religious vocabulary from key sutras as well as the normal registers (MoE 2008, p. 44). This, then, is the 21st century definition of the ideal ‘King’s Thai.’

Minority languages Minority language teaching is now tolerated, especially following the 1997 constitution, which recognised the rights of traditional communities to restore and conserve their customs, knowledge, arts, and ‘good culture.’ Moreover, the 1999 Education Act permits the teaching of local practices and customs, described as ‘local wisdom’ in local school curricula (Junck & Kajornsin 2003). Additionally, the 2008 curriculum recognises minority languages, which are, however, described as ‘dialects.’ Different grade goals mention minority languages, namely an ability to “choose standard Thai language and dialects appropriately to the occasion,” implying codeswitching, together with knowing “lullabies representing local culture” (MOE 2008, p. 42); singing “local folk songs”; knowing “words from dialects” (MOE 2008, pp. 42–44); possession of a holistic view of the Thai language, including ‘dialects’ and foreign languages; and comprehension of how the Thai language governs social behaviour in that students “understand influences of dialects and foreign languages on Thai language and understand dialects… know and understand outstanding characteristics of… folk literary works” (MOE 2008, pp. 42–45). This system permits the teaching of local languages, up to 20% of class time, meaning about one hour per week in practice (Vail & Pantakod 2013). The first ‘official’ mother tongue-based mother language education programme in Thailand was sponsored by ONFEC and involved the Pwo Karen in Chiang Mai in 2007 (UNESCO 2007; 236

Language education policy in Thailand

Petcharugsa, Chouenon & Prapaspong 2008).This was subsequently cancelled for national security reasons.The next such programme was an MoE pilot study in 21 schools in the Deep South as well as in Mon, Pwo Karen, and Hmong areas in cooperation with UNICEF, NGOs, and universities. The initiative is primarily led by Mahidol University and has informed the draft National Language Policy. This ‘Mahidol Model’ builds on a history of embracing a pluralistic concept of Thainess and a ‘Unity in Diversity’ approach of documenting endangered languages and supporting grassroots language revitalisation (Premsrirat 2014).

Tai languages In the North, informal attempts to revitalise the at-risk language of Kammeuang began in the 1990s (Charoenmuang 1995). The regional government university now possesses two centres promoting linguistic human rights and offers a diploma in Kammeuang studies. Another government university in Chiang Mai teaches Kammeuang (Howard 2010). In the Northeast, a four-year pilot study began in 2012 with the aim of maintaining and revitalising Isan culture and introducing Thai Lao in four municipalities’ schools, under the Ministry of the Interior’s 1999 Decentralization Act, with an MoE-approved curriculum (Draper 2015). However, such small regional initiatives lack central government support. Yet, in the Northeast, only 59.1% of children are on track in terms of literacy-numeracy compared to 71.8% in Bangkok (National Statistical Office et al. 2012), and use of a second language appears to be one cause of low literacy levels.

Pattani-Malay While knowledge of ST in the Deep South has risen, the mother tongue of 83% is still PM except for in Satun, with more Thai speakers. Approximately 35% of children in the Deep South are illiterate at Grade 3, and communities have chronic low confidence in the education system due to persistent fears that it destroys the language and religious identity (Premsrirat 2010). Many ethnic minority students do not understand their Thai-speaking teachers (Prapasapong 2009) nor the materials. From the state’s perspective, community pondok schools with religiously educated teachers teaching in PM are seen as inadequate in terms of the curriculum as well as potentially dangerous for encouraging political activity (Smalley 1994). Children studying in a tadika may be seen by the Thai military as “an incitement of the insurgency… Simply teaching children in the Malay language is seen as a form of insubordination” (quote by a tadika teacher, Human Rights Watch 2010, p. 92) and can lead to intensive state surveillance. In turn, state schools are seen as legitimate targets in the ongoing insurgency. An MoE-sponsored initiative in 12 schools in the Deep South began in 2006 using a weak model of bilingual education of only oral PM in order to bridge to Thai. Three critical challenges leading to this initiative are “low attendance rate, poor working skills, and low achievement” with “low value on secular education among parents and extreme poverty” (Jumpatong 2008, p. 2) being complicating factors. Moreover, the MoE in 2007 permitted a small pilot project directed by Mahidol University to teach PM to approximately 120 students in four pilot schools. PM is taught initially using Thai phonetics, and then Thai is introduced as a bridging language for academic subjects. In 2012, the number of schools was increased to 16 (UNESCO n.d.). Concerns were expressed regarding national security, accusations of cultural assimilation, the difficulties of multilingual education, and the possibility of worsening school grades in Thai. Nonetheless, the results of students have improved, thus allaying some concerns. As the choice of script is contentious, the project uses a Thai-based script to initially teach PM and then later 237

John Draper

introduces Yawi for religious teachings, in Grade 3, together with the Romanised script for teaching Standard Malay (Rumi), in Grade 6. Critically, the programme has been acceptable to the influential Office of the Royal Society (Premsrirat & Samo 2012). However, in 2006 a recommendation by the now defunct National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) to establish PM as a working language alongside Thai in the Deep South (National Reconciliation Commission 2006, p. 100) was rejected, and thus the future widespread implementation of multilingual education including PM now rests on the passing of a draft National Language Policy.

Other non-Tai languages The national developments outlined above have led to small ‘official’ initiatives, involving collaborations between NGOs and the MoE in a Mon school (Tienmee 2009) and in four schools in the North using Akha, Hmong, Lahu, and Pwo Karen (Kosonen 2013). Some minority languages are now taught in formal education based on community initiatives, including Chong (Premsrirat 2007), Mon, and Kammeuang, with positive effects on group esteem being reported (Kosonen 2003). In addition, community-based literacy programmes have been organised by churches and NGOs, for Sgaw Karen, Lahu, Akha, Shan, and Lisu (UNESCO 2007) and Lawue, White Hmong, Pwo Karen, Red Lahu, Black Lahu, and Yellow Lahu (IEN & NIPT 2015). In 2010, a cabinet resolution on the Karen, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, affirmed the need for integrated curricula which could accommodate mother tongues and local cultures (Kosonen & Person 2014, p. 217). These initiatives have led to rights-claiming behaviour in the North in the form of shadow reports to UN committees asserting the need for a decentralised, human rights-based approach to multilingual education (IEN & NIPT 2015).

Foreign languages The 1999 act made English the principal foreign language while the 2008 Basic Education Core Curriculum specifies that foreign languages be learned “for communication, seeking further knowledge and livelihood” (MoE 2008, p. 10). The primary and secondary English curricula emphasise culture, communication, connection, and communities. At the tertiary level, 12 credits of English are required.The emphasis on English is due to its importance in multiple domains requiring intercultural communicative competence, ranging from business to tourism (Foley 2005). However, writing and speaking are under-emphasised, and the English education system is generally seen as a failure (Luangthongkum 2007) for a number of persistent reasons, including teaching to the multiple-choice university entrance examination. Other than mandatory English, foreign languages specifically mentioned are “French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Pali and languages of neighbouring countries” (266), with Chinese now widely taught. The higher-level grade objectives reflect functional-notional and communicative goals, and the justification for learning foreign languages includes their being communication tools; their utility in learning, seeking knowledge, and in employment; their role in intercultural understanding conducive to cooperation and friendship; and their role in providing a vision of self-development (MOE 2008). Bilingual Thai–English education was only officially permitted from 1995 and in 2003 developed into the English Program (EP) and Mini-English Programme (MEP) fee-paying schemes for state and private schools, though the latter are not true English-medium international schools.The MEP offers at least two core subjects taught in English while the EP offers at

238

Language education policy in Thailand

least four core subjects (Keyuravong 2008). At university level, the position of English has been heightened by the opening of often self-accredited ‘international programmes.’

Potential future developments At present there exists a draft National Language Policy (NLP) (Royal Institute 2012) which could lead to officially supported MTB-MLE education, but the rate of progress is glacial. The NLP was initiated by the Royal Institute in 2006, which proposed and then received approval to draft a national language policy. Described as a statement of principles, it has been in development since 2007, following an RI-sponsored conference which in turn led to six RI committees being initiated in 2008. The overall approach is one of languages as resource, with Thai seen as under threat from globalisation. The regional and other minority languages are seen as part of the “richness and beauty of the Thai language” (Warotamasikkhadit & Person 2011, p. 34). The main objectives of the NLP are: 1 to strengthen and bring stability to Standard Thai, which is the national language; 2 to promote within Thailand’s multilingual society respect for human equality and social justice, for the security of the various indigenous cultures and ethnic groups; 3 to promote and support the country’s competitive capacity in economic, social, and political affairs. (RI 2012: 11) If passed, the NLP would make Thai the national language and schedule an unknown number of minority languages. It lists 15 severely endangered languages and specifically mentions the insecure position of larger ethnolinguistic groups, including Mon, Thai-Malay, Northern Khmer, and the Thai ‘dialects’ (RI 2012). The policy makes the strong recommendation for mother tongue-based education in order to increase educational standards, including for immigrants: “the National Language Policy and policies related to language in education, should support the use of the ethnic languages, or the mother tongue, as the first language of children in the education system” (RI 2012, p. 12). The NLP also recognises languages necessary for commercial and professional purposes and categorises them into three groups: (a) Western languages; (b) Eastern and Middle-eastern languages; and (c) neighbouring languages. However, the policy does not specifically recommend which foreign languages, except English, should be taught.

Conclusion The Thai language, communication in Thai, and Thai literature are at the heart of the ‘Thainess’ comprising national Thai identity (Streckfuss 1998). Moreover, the official discourse is that they always have been and always will be.As pointed out by the President of the Privy Council, General Prem Tinsulanonda, when he rejected the 2006 National Reconciliation Commission proposal for Thai-Malay to become a working language in the Deep South: “We cannot accept that as we are Thai. The country is Thai and the language is Thai. So we have to make efforts to learn Thai and [everyone should have a uniform] command with the rest of the Kingdom… We have to be proud to be Thai and have the Thai language as the sole national language” (The Nation 2006). Similar statements, substituting ‘Siam’ for ‘Thai’ as necessary, could have been uttered by any of Thailand’s monarchs, dictators, or prime ministers from the late Chulalongkorn period onwards. The only possible exception is the Thaksin Shinawatra era and 2010–2011, when the National Language Policy was approved by both the Abhisit Vejjajiva and Yingluck Shinawatra 239

John Draper

governments. Under the present military government, on National Thai Language Day, initiated in 1999 in honour of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, official statements appeal to Thais to be proud of the Thai language. The link between Thai national identity and the language is thus extremely strong.The ‘Mahidol Model’ may lay “the foundation for significant improvements in the prospects of the children in the south of Thailand” and “is in line with growing awareness that the linguistic and cultural rights of minorities demand the attention of governments and policy-makers, who have a responsibility to preserve and protect such diversity, wealth and heritage from abuse or extinction” (Premsrirat 2008, p. 5). Nonetheless, scaling up the model and introducing a pluralistic language education policy geared towards Thailand’s own ethnicities as well as those of fellow ASEAN countries by passing the draft National Language Policy depends on the Thai military.

References Breazeale, K. (1975). The integration of the Lao states into the Thai kingdom.Thesis (PhD). University of Oxford. Buadaeng, K. (2006). The rise and fall of the Tribal Research Institute (TRI). Southeast Asian Studies, 44(3), 359–384. Charoenmuang, T. (1995). When the young cannot speak their own mother tongue. In V. Grabowsky (Ed.), Regions and national integration in Thailand (pp. 82–93). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Cabinet Secretariat. (1940). Cultural mandate no. 9. The Royal Gazette, 57, 78. Che Man, W. K. (1990). Muslim separatism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Che Man, W. K. (2003). Democratization and national integration. Intellectual Discourse, 11(1), 1–26. Department of Social Development and Welfare. (2002). A directory of ethnic highland communities in twenty provinces. Bangkok: Author. Diller, A. (2002).What makes central Thai a national language? In C. J. Reynolds (Ed.), National identity and its defenders (pp. 71–107). Chiang Mai: Silkworm. Draper, J. (2014). PISA Thailand regional breakdown shows inequalities between Bangkok and Upper North with the rest of Thailand. Isaan Record, 21 February. Available from: http:​//isa​anrec​ord.c​om/20​ 14/02​/21/p​isa-t​haila​nd-re​g iona​l-bre​akdow​n-sho​ws-in​equal​ities​-betw​een-b​angko​k-and​-uppe​r-nor​ th-wi​th-th​e-res​t-of-​thail​and/ Draper, J. (2015). Towards a curriculum for the Thai Lao of Northeast Thailand? Current Issues in Language Planning, 16(2), 238–258. Grabowsky,V. (1996). The Thai census of 1904. Journal of the Siam Society, 84(1), 49–86. Haemindra, N. (1976). The problem of the Thai-Muslims in the four southern provinces of Thailand (Part One). Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 7(2), 197–225. Howard, K. M. (2010). Social relationships and shifting languages in Northern Thailand. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 14(3), 313–340. Human Rights Watch. (2010). Targets of both sides. New York: Author. IEN & NIPT. (2015). Alternative report on the situation of access to quality and relevant education for indigenous children and youth in Thailand. Chiang Mai: Authors. Jumpatong, D. (2008). Bilingual education in the Deep South. Bangkok: Office of the Basic Education Commission, Ministry of Education. Keyes, C. (1995). Who are the Tai? In L. Romanucci-Ross & G. A. De Vos (Eds.), Ethnic identity (pp. 136– 160). Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press. Keyes, C. (2003). The politics of language in Thailand and Laos. In M. E. Brown & Š. Ganguly (Eds.), Fighting Words (pp. 177–210). Cambridge: MIT Press. Keyes, C. (2014). Finding their voice. Chiang Mai: Silkworm. Keyuravong, S. (2008). CLIL PEAC 2008 insights Thailand. Unpublished report. Khanittanan, W. (2001). Khmero-Thai. Paper presented at the Ninth Annual Meeting of South East Asian Linguistic Society, Bangkok. Kosonen, K. (2003). Community participation in minority language education in Thailand. Journal of Southeast Asian Education, 4(1), 104–136. Kosonen, K. (2013).The use of non-dominant languages in education in Cambodia,Thailand, and Vietnam. In C. Benson and K. Kosonen (Eds.), Language issues in comparative education (pp. 39–58). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

240

Language education policy in Thailand Kosonen, K., & K. Person (2014). Languages, identities, and education in Thailand. In P. Sercombe & R. Tupas (Eds.), Language, education, and nation-building (pp. 200–231). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lewis, M. P., Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (Eds.) (2015). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (18th ed.). Dallas: SIL International. Luangthongkum, T. (2007). The positions of non-Thai languages in Thailand. In Lee Hock Guan & L. Suryadinata (Eds.), Language, nation and development in Southeast Asia (pp. 181–194). Singapore: ISEAS. Mills, L. A. (1942). The governments of Southeast Asia. In W. L. Holland (Ed.), Government and nationalism in Southeast Asia (pp. 118–124). New York: Institute of Pacific Relations. Ministry of Education (MOE). (2008). Basic education core curriculum. Bangkok: Author. National Reconciliation Commission. (2006). Overcoming violence with the power of reconciliation. Bangkok:Author. Noss, R. B. (Ed.) (1984). An overview of language issues in South-east Asia 1950–1980. Singapore: Oxford University Press. Office of the National Education Commission. (1999). National education act of B.E.2542. Bangkok: Author. Office of the National Culture Commission. (2005). Ethnolinguistic maps of Thailand. Bangkok: Author. Available from: http:​//asi​apaci​fic.a​nu.ed​u.au/​newma​ndala​/wp-c​onten​t/upl​oads/​2015/​05/Th​ailan​dEth​nolin​guist​ic-Ma​ps.pd​f Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2014). PISA 2012 results. Paris: OECD Publishing. Petcharugsa, S., Chouenon, A., & Prapaspong, B. (2009). Thailand. In UNESCO, Improving the quality of mother tongue-based literacy and learning (pp. 97–105). Bangkok: Author. Prapasapong, B. (2009). Language policy and practice in public schools in Thailand. In K. Kosonen & C.Young (Eds.), Mother tongue as bridge language of instruction (pp. 102–108). Bangkok: SEAMEO. Premsrirat, S. (2007). Endangered languages of Thailand. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 186, 75–93. Premsrirat, S. (2008). Language for national reconciliation: Southern Thailand. Enabling Education, 12. Available from: http:​//www​.eene​t.org​.uk/r​esour​ces/e​enet_​newsl​etter​/news​12/pa​ge12.​php Premsrirat, S. (2010). The role of MTB MLE in ECD and education. Paper presented at the International Conference on Language, Education and the MDGs, November 9–11, Bangkok. Premsrirat, S. (2014). Redefining “Thainess”. In P. Liamputtong (Ed.), Contemporary socio-cultural and political perspectives in Thailand (pp. 3–22). London: Springer. Premsrirat, S., & Samo, U. (2012). Planning and implementing Patani Malay in bilingual education in Southern Thailand. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 5, 85–96. Rogers, P. (1996). Northeast Thailand. Bangkok: DK. Royal Institute. (2012). National language policy draft. Bangkok: Author. Seidenfaden, E. (1967). The Thai peoples, book 1. Bangkok: The Siam Society. Simpson, A., & Thammasathien, N. (2007). Thailand and Laos. In A. Simpson (Ed.), Language and national identity in Asia (pp. 391–414). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skinner, W. G. (1957). Chinese society in Thailand. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Smalley, W. A. (1994). Linguistic diversity and national unity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Streckfuss, D. (1998). The poetics of subversion. Thesis (PhD). University of Wisconsin Madison. Sukamolson, S. (1998). English language education policy in Thailand. Asian Englishes, 1(1), 68–91. Thailand. (2011). First to third periodic reports of States parties due in 2008. Thailand. Available from: http:​// www​.baye​fsky.​com/r​eport​s/tha​iland​_cerd​_c_th​a_1_3​_adv.​doc The Nation. (2006). Prem disagrees with proposed use of Malay as official language. The Nation, June 25. http:​//www​.nati​onmul​timed​ia.co​m/200​6/06/​25/he​adlin​es/he​adlin​es_30​00726​8.php​ Tienmee, W. (2009). The Mon-Thai bilingual project, Wat Wang Wiwekaram School, Kanchanaburi province. Paper presented at SEAMEO’s Regional Meeting on the Dissemination of Project Results and Identification of Good Functioning Models, February 24–26, Bangkok. Thompson, V. (1942). Nationalism and nationalist movements in Southeast Asia. In W. L. Holland (Ed.), Government and nationalism in Southeast Asia (Vol. III, pp. 125–222). New York: Institute of Pacific Relations. Tong, C. K., & Chan, K. B. (2001). Rethinking assimilation and ethnicity. In C. K.Tong & K. B. Chan (Eds.), Alternate identities (pp. 9–40). Singapore: Times Academic Press. Ueda,Y. (2001). Sino-Thai entrepreneurs and the provincial economies in Thailand. In C. K. Tong & K. B. Chan (Eds.), Alternate identities (pp. 169–188). Singapore: Times Academic Press. UNESCO. (n.d.). Patani Malay – Thai bilingual/multilingual education. Available from: http:​//www​.unes​co.or​ g/uil​/litb​ase/?​menu=​4&programme=147

241

John Draper UNESCO. (2007). Mother tongue-based literacy programmes. Bangkok: Author. Vaddhanaphuti, C. (1991). Social and ideological reproduction in rural Northern Thai schools. In C. F. Keyes (Ed.), Reshaping local worlds (pp. 153–173). New Haven:Yale Southeast Asia Studies. Vail, P., & Pantakod, P. (2013). The politics of scripts. In C. Barry (Ed.), Rights to culture (pp. 135–162). Chiang Mai: Silkworm. Warotamasikkhadit, U., & Person, K. (2011). Development of the national language policy (2006–2010). The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand, 3-2011, 29–44. Witte, J. (2000). Education in Thailand after the crisis. International Journal of Educational Development, 20, 223–245. Wongsothorn, A. et al. (1996). National profiles of language education: Thailand. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University. World Bank. (2015). Thailand economic monitor – June 2015. Available from: http:​//www​.worl​dbank​.org/​en/ co​untry​/thai​land/​publi​catio​n/tha​iland​-econ​omic-​monit​or-ju​ne-20​15 Wyatt, D. K. (1969). The politics of reform in Thailand. New Haven:Yale University Press. Wyatt, D. K. (1994). Studies in Thai history. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Yegar, M. (2002). Between integration and secession. Oxford: Lexington Books.

Further reading Rappa, A. L., & Wee, L. (2006). Language policy and modernity in Southeast Asia. New York: Springer. See also Diller (2002), Keyes (2003), Kosonen & Person (2014), Smalley (1994), and Wongsothorn et al. (1996) in the references.

242

17 LANGUAGE POLICY IN MYANMAR Patrick McCormick

1 Background The Republic of the Union of Myanmar, still popularly called Burma, is a country of complex ethno-linguistic diversity.1 Since independence from British rule in 1948, successive regimes have not been able to address language diversity and policy in ways that accommodate the concerns of ethnic minorities. Questions of language use and policy, especially in education, have both caused conflict and also been formed as a result of conflict. As a legacy of British rule, English plays a large, albeit largely unexamined, role in national life. The themes of language policy, education, conflict between some ethnic groups and the central government, and peace building are all closely inter-related. With recent changes in the government, starting in 2010 and again with the accession of a democratically elected government in 2016, a reform process has begun, raising hopes among local and international actors for bringing questions of language policy to greater national attention. A discussion of language policy in Burma must take into consideration the political and historical realities of the country in order to present a more complete picture. The position of the central government and the policies it has set are central to the discussion. However, a long history of armed ethnic conflict means that the central government has not been sovereign within the internationally demarcated borders of the country since independence. Several of these armed ethnic groups have built up administrative functions, including the provision of education, which includes language policy. The following discussion therefore considers not only the “national” policies of the central government, but also some of the ethnic education systems. Similarly, the power, effectiveness, and reach of the state and its services are unequal. Policies do not always translate into practice, and practices do not always reflect policy or law. The complex context in which central governments and ethnic administrations have attempted to formulate and implement language policy reflects the historical and political developments of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the centuries preceding British conquest starting in 1824, Burma was a multilingual empire of fluctuating size, at its height reaching as far as Assam and what is now Thailand. With the final takeover of the last parts of the kingdom in 1885, the British created a nation-state. In the process, they drew together languages and peoples who had previously only been loosely or indirectly associated with the Burman court and drew hard, modern boundaries around them. As part of the strategy to rule the new colony, the 243

Patrick McCormick

British made expedient accommodations with some upland groups, promising them the possibility of autonomy or even secession. Since independence and the transfer of power to the ethnic majority Burmans (Bamā), various ethnic groups have taken up arms against the central government, including various Kachin, Mon, Shan, and Karen groups. Questions of secession, autonomy, control over natural resources, and education rights, especially related to the right to transmit ethnic language and history, are at the heart of the armed conflict. Successive governments have seen ethnicity and minority languages as potentially dangerous. A favorite theme of nationalist rhetoric is the “non-disintegration” of the Union, reflecting a fear that various ethnic groups will take greater autonomy or even independence by force. As of this writing (February 2016), most large armed groups have signed ceasefires, with the major exception of the Kachin Independence Organization.

2  Languages and ethnicities of Myanmar Of a population of around 53 million, approximately 68% is Burman (Bamā). The other major indigenous ethnic categories are Shan (9%), Karen (7%), Rakhaing (4%), and Mon (2%) (Ethnologue 2016). In addition to the Burmans, many people who consider themselves Mon, Shan, Karen, Chinese, and of Indian origin speak Burmese as their first or only language. Approximately 30% of the population speaks Burmese as a second language with varying degrees of proficiency, reflecting exposure, geography, and access to government education – many minorities do not speak Burmese at all. Burmese shows little dialectal variation across the core regions where it is spoken, the lowlands at the center of the country, and often major cities and towns elsewhere. The language spread from its original heartland in Upper Burma, around Pagan, Kyaukse, and Mandalay to areas further south only in recent centuries, a factor responsible for the relative uniformity. Divergent forms have developed in places that were geographically or socially cut off from the main body of speakers, including Tavoyan spoken in parts of the Tenasserim (Taninthāyi) coasts; Rakhaing (also under the related name Marma), spoken in Rakhaing State, Bangladesh, and Northeast India; Intha, spoken around Inlay Lake in Shan State which was historically surrounded by Shan speakers; and the other smaller dialects Danu, Yaw, and Taung’yo. Burmese uses its own Indic-based script. Administratively, the country is divided into seven states and seven regions. The “regions” – Yangon, Mandalay, Magwe, Ayeyarwaddy (Irrawaddy), Sagaing, Bago (Pegu), and Taninthāyi (Tenasserim) – are in theory predominantly ethnically Burman, but the reality is far more complicated, with significant mixing of languages. The “states” – Mon, Rakhaing (Rakhine), Kayin (Karen), Kayah, Chin, and Kachin are again in theory named after the ethnicity they are named for, but here again the reality involves a great deal of mixing. More Karens live outside of Kayin State than within it, for example. Settlement patterns in Southeast Asia have historically reflected elevation and ecological niche more than contiguous area, so that there is often a poor fit between state and ethnicity. Each ethnic group or a very closely related group lives on the other side of every one of Burma’s borders, including the Burmans themselves if migrants are taken into consideration. Approximately 78% of the population speaks a language of the Tibeto-Burman family, 9% Tai-Kadai (Shan), and 7% Austro-Asiatic (Mon-Khmer) languages. The Burmese language has by far the largest number of native speakers, estimated at around 36 million. Aside from Burmese itself, other languages in the Tibeto-Burman family cluster around several large super-ethnic categories, Kachin, Chin, and Naga. Under Kachin are Jinghpaw, Lhao Vo (Maru), Zaiwa, Rawang, Lacid, and Lisu, with Jinghpaw often acting as a language of wider communication and identification. While all from the Tibeto-Burman family, the languages under this cultural category 244

Language policy in Myanmar

do not all come from the same branch of the family, and so represent quite distinct languages. Some of these languages are associated with territory, but Kachin marriage practices mean that there is a tendency in many places for the various languages to co-exist as lineages. The Karen group includes several distinct but closely related languages, including Sgaw, Pwo (Phloun), Kayah (Karenni), Pa-O, and several other small languages and dialects. For historical and political reasons, not all of these groups necessarily consider themselves to fall under the rubric of “Karen.” Much of the Karen population lives outside of Karen State, living in Bago Region and Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) Region. Chin languages and groups tend to be small and fissiparous, perhaps reflecting the difficult geography of Chin State and affiliated Mizoram in Northeast India. The largest Chin languages in Burma are Tedim, Hakha, Falam, and Zomi. Populations of Chins also live in parts of Rakhaing State. The term Naga, sometimes erroneously placed under Chin by the government, likewise comprises numerous small languages including Sumi, Angami, Ao, and many others. “Nagamese,” a partially relexified Assamese-based creole, has developed among Naga populations in Nagaland across the border in Northeast India, and may be spreading into Burma as a language of wider intra-group communication. Communities of Meitei speakers (“Kathe” or “Pounna” in Burmese, also known as “Manipuri” in English) live in and around Mandalay, Amarapura, and Sagaing, numbering perhaps 40,000. At least in Mandalay, the language is no longer transmitted to younger speakers. Aside from Burmese, Sgaw, and Pwo, nearly all other Tibeto-Burman languages are usually written in a modification of the Roman script, reflecting their close contact with Christianity and missionaries. Various kinds of Shan, members of the Tai-Kadai family, include a number of more-or-less closely related, mutually intelligible languages and dialects. Five major subgroupings are Tai Yai (the largest, what is usually meant by “Shan” in Burmese), Tai Neua, Tai Leu, Khamti, and the rather different Tai Kheun (“Goun Shan” in Burmese), which as a language of eastern Shan State blends into Kham Meuang or Lanna Thai. Several Indic-based writing systems exist for these languages. While Shan scripts have existed for several centuries, the one used for Tai Yai was modified to represent the full sound system of the language only in the 1960s. The Tai Kheun script is a variant of the Mon-Burmese script, Tham, used in Sipsongpanna in Yunnan, Northern Thailand, and historically in Laos and elsewhere. It is important to note that several peoples who live in Shan State or who have close ties with the Shan do not actually speak TaiKadai languages. The final major group represented in Burma is Austroasiatic. The religiously, culturally, and historically important Mon, with around 800,000–1,000,000 speakers, is the third largest Austroasiatic language after Vietnamese and Khmer. The Austroasiatic centre of gravity is much further east in Mainland Southeast Asia. The wide geographical distribution suggests that the Austroasiatic languages were among the first to spread into the area. As elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the other Austroasiatic languages in Burma are spoken by small upland communities, the Palaung (Ta’ang) groups and Wa. Mon uses the same alphabet as Burmese with a few modifications, although the phonetic values of the letters are quite different, reflecting diverging evolution in the respective sound systems. A Burmese-based script is used for the Palaung languages, while Wa is written using the Roman script. Other language families of the region are represented in smaller numbers, including Austronesian in the Moken or Salon populations and a small Malay-speaking minority, and the Hmong-Mien family spoken by small numbers of Hmong. Chinese-speaking populations include communities speaking various southern Chinese languages who arrived either directly from China or through Malacca Straits communities during the 19th and early 20th centuries and settled in places like Yangon and Mawlamyaing. It is not clear to what extent these languages are being maintained. More recent immigrants from China, largely Yunnan, form a substantial 245

Patrick McCormick

community in upper Burma, as in Mandalay. Estimates of their numbers range from one to two million. Because of their perceived racial similarities and their support for Buddhist institutions, these immigrants generally fare better than those from the Subcontinent in terms of social acceptance, being able to navigate the legal system to obtain residency permits and even citizenship, and intermarrying with locals. Indo-European Pāli is the liturgical language of Theravāda Buddhism and as such, has no native speakers. Additionally, speakers of languages of the Indian subcontinent, both IndoEuropean (Hindu-Urdu, Bengali and related Chittagonian, Nepali under the name “Gurkha”) and Dravidian (Tamil, Telugu), form substantial minorities in most larger cities and even in the surrounding countryside. Telugu villages, for example, exist on Bilu Gyun (“Ogre Island”) across from Mawlamyaing, and there are also Bengali-speaking villages in Mon State. Under the Gurkha label may also fall Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal, such as Eastern Tamang. These languages and their speakers are not considered “indigenous” under the definition outlined below. Together with a historical antipathy towards Indians, and a close association in many people’s minds between many South Asians and Islam, exact numbers of speakers are either unknown, or central authorities may consider the information as destabilizing and so do not publicize them. Indeed, all statistical data from Burma must be treated with caution because of difficulties of access and in verifying information independently. For the first time in decades, a census was conducted in 2014, but was heavily criticized for the lack of transparency and inclusivity.The collection of data on certain contested ethnic groups, such as the Rohingya, was disallowed. For detailed listings of the languages of Burma, Ethnologue (www.ethnologue.com) provides excellent information. When the British arrived in Burma, they tried to make sense of the diversity they found. They found that the categories of caste and religion, which had been useful in India, were not so in Burma, and so took language as a marker of difference and identity into discrete “races” (Mullaney 2011). The census and anthropological classifications were two technologies of governance in the newly acquired territory, used in part to identify populations useful to the colonial state (as policemen or soldiers) and for taxation. This link between language, race, and identity endures through today. Today the government speaks of 135 “national races,” which have since been aggregated into eight higher-order categories: Burman (Bamā), Karen (Kayin), Kayah, Shan, Mon, Rakhaing, Chin, and Kachin.This number is a legacy of the colonial equation of language with race, a term which has been recast in English outside the country as “ethnicity.” Ethnologue cites a figure of 117 living languages, but neither of these numbers clarifies the picture of emergent ethnolinguistic identifications on the one hand, nor much of the complex interactions and inter-permeability between these classifications on the other. What this one-to-one equation fails to address is the high degree of multilingualism and multiple identities, especially prevalent among “upland” peoples who historically lived in small, politically acephalous communities, practiced until recently animism (now largely replaced with Christianity and some Buddhism), and were shifting or swidden agriculturalists. The case of the Kachin is illustrative: a “Kachin” woman may speak Lhaovo with her mother, Rawang with her father, Jinghpaw with other Kachin subgroups or in church, and Shan in the market, in addition to being educated in Burmese and English. Depending on the context, her languages and ethnic identities could include Lhaovo and Rawang, Jinghpaw or Kachin as a superordinate identity, and Burmese as a national identity, none of which can be reduced down to a single essential identity. It is crucial to keep in mind that local peoples have always had their own understandings of community and have been aware of differences, whether physical, religious, political, cultural, economic, geographical, or any of the other myriad ways that humans have thought about these 246

Language policy in Myanmar

things. What happened as a result of the British presence was that understandings of difference were reorganized along racial – what we would today call ethnic – lines, implying that everyone who speaks the same language should have the same identity, one that can be projected back into the past. These categories are singular and essentialized, and each person can only have one background.The most recent census still disallowed multiple identifications: census enumerators were told to mark multi-racial respondents as having the same identity as their fathers. While this may reflect the logic of patrilinear British society, such a practice is a surprise in a country where in which the majority (the Burmans) trace descent through both parents and are matrilocal, meaning that newly married couples tend to live with the bride’s family, to say nothing of how surnames are not used. The content of these official categories reflects politics and history as much as any kind of scientific classification. The terms Kachin, Chin, Naga, and Karen encompass over-arching cultural, religious, and geographical groupings. Under Kachin are languages from different branches of the Tibeto-Burman family, and some Lisu may contest their inclusion under the Kachin umbrella. For political and historical reasons, the Kayah often do not consider themselves “Karen,” and they have a separate state from Kayin State. More generally, the ethnic groups who have a state named after them do not live exclusively, or sometimes even predominantly, in that state. Karens, for example, live spread throughout much of Bago and Ayeyarwady Regions, while Kachins and Shans often live in close proximity to each other. As the recent census and ongoing efforts by local and international scholars to survey languages, identities, and prepare bible translations have found, ethnolinguistic classification is an on-going, contested process. Against these fissiparous tendencies, however, some groups have banded together under their overarching category, despite whatever linguistic diversity exists among them. Such is the case among the Karen. As alluded to above, ethnic classifications are based on legal definitions of indigeneity. To be eligible for indigenous or tàin’yìnthà (sometimes misleadingly translated as “ethnic minority,” but more accurately “native of the country”) status, and therefore full citizenship, one’s grandparents had to have been residents of the country before the beginning of British rule, which started in 1826 in some parts of the country. When these qualifications for citizenship were imposed following independence, large numbers of Chinese and Indians who had come to the country during the colonial period were left disenfranchised. Many, but not all, of those who remain or have since arrived more recently from China have found ways to reside in Burma. The end result, however, is that sizeable numbers of people living in the country are excluded from language policies and face restrictions in accessing government services or are simply denied them altogether. Legal and linguistic classifications are at the heart of the Rohingya question today. The people themselves, numbering perhaps one million and living predominantly in northern Rakhaing State, speak a variant of Chittagonian Bengali and claim indigeneity. Their Rakhaing neighbors and the central government, however, claim they are either recent migrants or illegal immigrants.

3  Language policy in education Burmese is the sole language of government administration, mass media, and the sole legal medium of instruction in government schools. In practice, however, Burmese is often secondary to English, especially in written form. Under British rule, English became the official language. The use of Burmese and other languages in education, and more widely the speaking and teaching of these other languages were permitted. Some language rights were included in the first constitution of the newly independent country in 1948: all citizens were guaranteed the right to 247

Patrick McCormick

practice their own cultures and religions (Ganesan et al. 2007). Importantly, government schools could use local languages as a medium of instruction, and a number of ethnic-language versions of government textbooks were created in the 1950s. The 1960s saw several changes with U Ne Win’s military government coming to power in 1962. In addition to the changes to citizenship laws mentioned above, Ne Win claimed to be concerned with the potential breakup of the Union of Burma. A fear was that certain ethnic groups would try to secede from the country, the possibility of which was enshrined in the original constitution of the country. In an effort to promote greater unity, Burmese became the sole medium of instruction in government schools, at least in theory. It is not clear whether using other languages was officially made illegal, or whether the practice was simply discouraged. From a military perspective, this change may have had a certain logic for the government and army, but created resentment and anger among a substantial portion of the population, and put countless ethnic minority children at a disadvantage in the educational system. Burmese was also made the sole medium of instruction in the universities, which had been until then wholly British institutions. A brief overview of the government education sector will help clarify the contexts in which language policies have played out. Before the arrival of the British, education was provided through monastic institutions, and was largely for males. Under the British, education was managed by the state and a greater number of children, both boys and girls, began to attend the 7,000 basic education schools, where instruction was in Burmese (Thein Lwin 2000). Other government schools used English as the medium of instruction, as this was useful for employment in government service, and so these schools were well-funded. Under colonial rule, educational institutions, and especially colleges and universities, became centers of social and political activism. By the 1920s, for example, university students had begun striking against the University Act Bill which established English as the medium of instruction, and set fees that were too high for most Burmese. After independence, the government followed the “Simla Scheme,” a policy that brought various types of schools under a single system, with the full support of the government. Education was made free, with the entry age set at six years. Many of the decisions made under the Simla Scheme have influenced the shape of contemporary education. Under Ne Win, the “University Act” decreased the size of Rangoon and Mandalay Universities by having them focus on specialized courses. Since then, a student’s choice of study has been determined by their high school matriculation examination (serving as a university entrance examination) results, with Myanmar Language and Literature being the lowest-ranking course of study. Over the decades since then, policies have restricted the ethnic makeup of certain courses of study, such as medicine. At one point, the government considered Sino-Burmese to be over-represented in the universities and their numbers were restricted. As part of his nationalization schemes, Ne Win nationalized all schools, including mission schools and those that had been run by Chinese and Indians. Education continues to fall largely under the Ministry of Education, with important exceptions. Monastic schools fall in part under the Ministry of Religion and operate throughout the country. These are schools traditionally associated with Buddhist institutions, most notably the village monastery, although now Christian schools also offer education in some regions. Clergy, if Buddhist, monks and sometimes nuns, if Christian, the local priests or pastors, operate the schools, although many of the teachers may be lay people. The monastic schools represent a historical continuity between the function of the monastery as a place of learning, social advancement, and community service and often have the infrastructure to teach lay students. Monastic schools generally follow the government curriculum, but because they fall under less strict scrutiny, administrators have sometimes been able to introduce innovations. Until quite 248

Language policy in Myanmar

recently, monastic schools were the only places where international organizations could legally operate through their educational programs. Private schools, including the various “international schools” catering to elite Burmese and the small foreign community in Yangon, operate as businesses and follow their own curriculums, and generally teach little or nothing in or about local languages. Chinese-language schools operate in a similar manner. Both government and monastic schools are underfunded, and by the admission of the government, teacher training, teaching methods, and the curriculum are outmoded. In general, the power, effectiveness, and reach of the state and its services are unequal, with rural and “border” areas often receiving less spending than urban areas. This situation obtains in education. School infrastructure is often inadequate, with small, noisy classrooms, and large classes. Schools themselves are often far apart, especially in rural areas. Together with rote memorization, informal school fees, and the use of corporal punishment, “push out” rates are high throughout the system, especially between primary and middle school, and between middle school and high school. Reflecting societal preferences and economic calculations, families often pull girls, especially adolescent girls, out of school in order to work or take care of younger siblings. Girls tend to perform better than boys when they have the opportunity to attend school (Zobrist 2010). Although technically provided free of charge, there are numerous, often burdensome informal fees associated with schooling. Most notorious is the common practice of “tuition,” in which teachers do not teach the answers to tests during school hours, but only in paid “tutoring” classes. Two other important points related to language policy have to do with teaching practices and the assignment of teachers. Burmese pedagogy, at least informally, makes a distinction between “teaching” and “explaining.” As part of the rote memorization process, the former involves the reading of a textbook, and “explaining” that text in more colloquial language. In the case of university instruction, English textbooks are usually read aloud in English and then explained in Burmese. The possibility has existed, at least in theory, to use the same process in areas where ethnic languages are spoken. In 2014, the government announced that Karen, Mon, and Shan schools would be allowed to use their languages in government schools. It remains to be seen how this law will be implemented: in some situations, ethnic minority languages can be taught as a subject after school hours in government buildings. In other places, there may be actual teaching in the local language. In Dawei (Tavoy), where the local language is a Burmese dialect, the teachers, who are local, largely speak in dialect. Overall, however, government policy assigns teaching positions to teachers who have gone through the government teacher training curriculum.There is a strong tendency, therefore, for Burman Buddhist teachers – largely women in the lower levels – to be sent to teach in areas where languages other than Burmese are spoken. In these situations, cut off as they are from their families and support groups and faced with an “uneducable” population, morale among teachers tends to drop.

4  Major ethnic education systems and policies In a context of great ethno-linguistic diversity and long-term armed conflict between various armed groups and the central government, a number of so-called “ethnic education systems” have arisen in parts of the territory of Burma. It is important to keep in mind that not all ethnic minorities are associated with armed ethnic groups; not all ethnic minorities which do have armed groups set up educational systems; nor again are all ethnic languages served by ethnic education systems. Where ethnic armed groups have set up their own administrative functions, the school systems provide an education for children. A function of many – though not necessarily all – of these systems is to provide mother tongue education (or the language of the politically dominant or majority ethnic group of the area) and the transmission of minority culture 249

Patrick McCormick

and history. Ethnic education systems do not operate solely in territory held by ethnic armed groups, but can also complement or make up for the inadequacies of the government school system. Some groups may see eventual integration with Burma as a whole as desirable, as long as there is adequate respect for the teaching of ethnic language and content, and greater autonomy in what has been the highly centralized and top-down governance of Burma. Other groups are less certain of a future within Burma and may call for independence, even if the geopolitical situation in the region is not likely to support such calls. The shape of each ethnic education system reflects differences in history, politics, and relations with the Burmese military. Each of the ethnic systems considered here – the Mon, Kachin, and Karen – reflect differences in historical and political experience in addition to differences in philosophies. Harmonization or integration with the government system is not necessarily the goal of these systems. While the Mon system is fairly coherent and represents a single entity, this is not true of the others, with the “Karen System” actually encompassing a number of arrangements and accommodations. Mon national schools are affiliated with the largest armed Mon group, the New Mon State Party, and were started under the Mon National Education Committee in 1972. Around the time of the ceasefire between the Burmese military and the New Mon State Party, there were about 76 national schools in Mon-majority areas of Mon and Karen State (South and Lall 2016). Various strategies and local accommodations have allowed Mon-medium and Mon-content education to spread through Mon communities, especially in monastic settings. Typically, the Mon schools teach using Mon as the sole medium of instruction through primary school. Burmese and English are taught as subjects, as is Mon history. In middle school, Burmese is the medium of instruction, with Mon history and language taught as subjects. Through local, unofficial agreements, students from the Mon schools have been able to take the examinations to enter government high schools. As is the case with all the ethnic systems, none of these agreements are the result of official legislation, but rather depend on the attitudes and inclinations of local government officials. There are also a number of government schools where varying degrees of accommodation are made to the local Mon community, called “mixed schools” in English. The exact nature of the accommodations remains to be elucidated, whether it means allowing instruction in the Mon language after school hours in government school buildings, providing Mon-speaking teachers to either “teach” or “explain” following the practice outlined above, or actually using Mon-language textbooks and teaching Mon-relevant content such as history and language. Monastic schools have been a site of expansion of Mon-medium and Mon-content instruction. The supposed ease of crossover from the Mon system into the government system is one of the most distinctive features of this system. Many, including international donors and observers, have seen the Mon system as ideal because it allows for the preservation and transmission of the ethnic language and ethnic history, while also fostering integration into national life.The length of the ceasefire between the New Mon State Party and the Burmese military, together with the generally good relations with the central government and historical cultural and religious overlap between the Mons and Burmans have all no doubt worked together to support this system. At another level, however, the lack of high-value natural resources in Mon State has meant that the New Mon State Party has not been in a strong position to continue fighting. As outlined above, self-identified Karens speak a variety of languages and dialects, some of which are not at all mutually intelligible. The Karen population is scattered through parts of Karen State, Bago, and Ayeyarwady Regions. Not all of these areas are Karen majority, nor are they geographically contiguous. In addition to these geographical and linguistic divisions, there are also sharp religious and class divisions. About 20% of the Karen population is Christian, 250

Language policy in Myanmar

but a Christian elite represents the Karens in many peoples’ minds. This Christian, western educated elite has played a central role in Karen politics and demands for territorial control and autonomy since independence. Territory under the control of Karen armed groups, and the geographical extent of the Karen populations do not overlap, meaning that Karen systems have a more diffuse impact. The systems associated with the Karen are highly diverse, reflecting geography and politics. Most Karen schooling is organized and controlled by local communities. As in the monastic system, some Karen schools have been the site for interventions of local and international NGOs trying to introduce new curriculum or teaching methods. Many Karens live in fact in government-controlled areas, but as is the case more generally, not all children can go to these schools. In areas along the Thai–Burma border, the Karen Education Department (affiliated with the Karen National Union), the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, and several refugee camps all provide schooling. In areas with a longer history of armed conflict, there is a much weaker vision of trying to unite the local systems with the government system, or indeed a shared vision of being part of the same country. Not all local Karen systems feed into the government system. The use of Burmese or instruction in Burmese may be limited. This tendency is strongest in the refugee camps in Thailand, where students are taught in English and one of the Karen languages, preparing them for national life neither in Burma nor in Thailand, but possibly only a third country. Indeed, many Karen in the camps have been eligible for resettlement in the US and elsewhere. The Kachin system shows most clearly the influence of politics on education. As with the Karen, the Kachins live throughout a wide region of Upper Burma, not only in Kachin State, but also in many parts of Shan State. Key to understanding the situation is the breakdown of the ceasefire between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Organization in June 2011. The start of the conflict was in 1971, but in 1994, the KIO signed a ceasefire with the central government and began to build their own state apparatus, including schools.The Kachin Education Department teaches the government curriculum with additions for Jinghpaw language and culture. The medium of instruction, however, has been Burmese and more recently, English. Textbooks were all in Burmese, even in places where teachers and students have little Burmese ability, a situation resulting in much hardship. The return to fighting between the KIO and the central government in 2011 has had profound impacts on the Kachin education system. Large numbers of people have become internally displaced and therefore no longer able to go to school. Graduates of the Kachin system are no longer being allowed to take exams to enter the government system, curtailing education and career choices. With a greater antagonism towards the idea of being part of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and a desire for independence among some – a not wholly impossible proposition given the considerable jade resources in KIO-controlled areas – many schools are using less Burmese and more Jinghpaw and English as their medium of instruction (South and Lall 2016) The switch to English is part of creating a curriculum aimed at sending students abroad to study, and thus represents a wider trend of creating a separate system altogether.

5  Recent policy developments Since the change of government beginning in 2010, the central government has declared its intention to review and update policies and practices of governance through an on-going reform process. Many hope that the new National League for Democracy government, which formally took power in February 2016, will usher in further changes related to language policy. Under education reform, the government embarked on a Comprehensive Education Sector 251

Patrick McCormick

Review (CESR) to transform the education system. To what extent the new government will accept such education-related policy recommendations started under the previous government, or to what extent they will prefer to create new policies and programs, remains to be seen. There has been great interest, at least among the local and international NGO sector and among such organizations as UNICEF to promote “mother tongue education” as a way to promote better educational outcomes. These programs typically focus on ethnic minority languages, and create bridges between the local language(s) and the national language. Typically, local languages are used as the medium of instruction in primary school before switching to the national language in middle school, as is the case in the Mon national schools. There is an increased interest in addressing the use of English in the universities. While technically university departments are allowed to use either English or Burmese, or some combination of the two, by long tradition, a majority of departments across the country use English as the sole medium of instruction (as opposed to “explanation,” as outlined above), and many require that examinations and theses be written only in English. The central problem with this proposition is the low English levels among both teachers and students, and a lack of access to trained English teachers. At a conference on multilingual policy in Mandalay in February 2016, Thant Sin Aye, herself an instructor at a Burmese university, provided the results of her survey research of faculty and students across universities in Burma showed that the majority would prefer to teach and be taught in Burmese, even if textbooks remain in English.

6  Other policy considerations Language policy tends to focus on the use of language in education. In Burma, however, many areas of language use, particularly written language, seem to have fallen outside of policy consideration and conversations. The use of English rather than Burmese or other indigenous languages in the media, packaging, and government services are the main focus of this discussion. As a legacy of British rule, English was established as the main language of their rule. Many Burmese came to associate English with modernity, city life, and prosperity. Nationalization policies beginning in the 1960s encouraged the use of Burmese in all areas of life.These policies, however, ushered in an era of slow economic decline and impoverishment. Many of the products made by government-owned enterprises, which used Burmese-language packaging, were of inferior quality. Many people today seem to associate the Burmese language with economic decline and backwardness. The severely limited economic choices people living in the country faced meant that those who could, studied English in order to seek employment elsewhere. Many traditions from the colonial period have either continued or spontaneously revived in recent years, showing how English is still a language of command. Much government paperwork is only in English, not in Burmese: the Burmese passport is written only in Burmese on its cover, while inside, not even the citizen’s name is written in Burmese script. Many official signs, such as traffic notices, are only in English. Company names tend to be in English and rules prevent the use of Burmese names or scripts being used in relation to financial institutions. Recently, perhaps in anticipation of ASEAN unity, Burmese-language license plates for cars disappeared almost overnight, replaced instead with English-language plates (Thailand and Cambodia both continue to use their native scripts on their license plates). Indeed, the preference for written English as more “official” is marked throughout many parts of society. People often give or sign their (Burmese) names in Roman script; CVs and resumés are written in English, and much packaging of local – and increasingly, imported – products is only in the English language, including locally produced medicines. A tendency in the business and NGO worlds is to speak Burmese mixing in English words as a way to show one’s education 252

Language policy in Myanmar

and status aspirations, but use English for anything written, including PowerPoint presentations or even informal meeting notes. In society more widely, this code-mixing of English into Burmese is quite frequent. Unlike in India or the Philippines, however, outright code-switching into English is fairly rare and confined to urban elites, such as those who have attended local international schools. Graphically, a similar visual “code-mixing” is increasingly common in written Burmese, with English words and phrases mixed into Burmese sentences. The Myanmar Language Commission (Myanmāza Ahpwé) is an official government body charged with the regulation of the language. In practice, this has meant mostly the compilation of Burmese–English dictionaries. Unlike similar bodies in Thailand or in Europe, the Myanmar Language Commission has done little to create new vocabulary to keep up with changes in technology and the introduction of new ideas. Many Burmese intellectuals have called for the creation of new vocabulary, but so far little has come of it. Not only would a body like the Myanmar Language Commission have to create new vocabulary, preferably in consultation with the public, but there would have to exist a process to disseminate the new words, and ultimately society would have to see the value in adopting them. Unicode, a computing industry standard for the encoding, representation, and handling of text in non-Roman characters, is still not included in computer operating systems in a way that will allow users to type Burmese and other languages of the country. Several groups inside and outside of the country have worked on Unicode proposals, often to cross purposes. Local language experts may have little understanding of computers, while the young computer experts may not understand the intricacies of local languages. Unlike India, where each major language has its own assigned block of characters in Unicode – even languages like Assamese and Bengali, which vary by only a few letters – for political reasons, in Burma all the writing systems using non-Roman script are treated as graphic variants. Certain indigenous writing systems of Burma, such as that of Tai Kheun and some of the other Shan systems are not included in the Myanmar block. Until Unicode sets a standard and is included both as a system for representation and typing, major software developers will not make their programs Unicode compliant for Burmese. The result is the continued use of “heritage fonts” (Roman fonts in the shape of Burmese letters, such as Zawgyi), whose representation is not consistent across platforms or programs. The role of English as a crucially important language allowing access to new scholarship and technology, not to mention economic opportunity, cannot be minimized. However, in the context of Burma, English is not only a language of potential economic empowerment, but potentially a language of disempowerment. Those who do not control it – especially in its written forms – may be put at risk or even in danger when dealing with government services, advertising, and packaging.

7  Future of language policy Central government accommodation on points of language policy has a great potential to foster peace, while non-accommodation will be a serious threat towards long-term stability and peace. Policies which foster mother tongue education will go a long way towards improved educational equity and outcomes, but will ideally be part of an on-going, long-term, consultative process addressing curriculum, teacher training, funding, and learning philosophies. An at times inconsistent, even incoherent, set of attitudes and practices towards the use of the English language may have the effect of disempowering many people in society generally, and hindering, rather than promoting, better educational outcomes, especially at the tertiary level. Language policy need not be solely about minority languages: the government or other bodies could take 253

Patrick McCormick

action to deal with the need to create new vocabulary, if indeed society more generally sees this as a genuine need. The creation of language policies which serve the best long-term interests of all members of Burmese society will be dependent upon attitudinal change. The idea that multilingualism is a problem and that dealing with it is not practical or possible is still quite strong among Burmans, who tend to be monolingual or speak only a foreign language, such as English, or possibly Japanese or Korean, as a second language. There is still a lingering suspicion that allowing the use of languages other than Burmese will promote separationist sentiment. Relatedly, many in the Burmese education system have grave doubts about mother tongue education, particularly in relation to educational materials being made available in local languages, which local language to choose, and finding teachers who are qualified both to teach and in the local languages. Debates about the possibilities for mother tongue instruction may mean that aspects of the ethnic education systems will change in the coming years. At the same time that the Kachin system disfavors Burmese, it may increase the use of English and the various Kachin languages, while the Karen, Mon, and even government systems may reconsider their heavy emphasis on English, at least in the early years of education. A third consideration is the legal and constitutional framework. It is not yet clear to what extent minority issues will get the attention of the new government. Before the November 2015 elections in which the National League for Democracy, headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, was voted into power, there was a widespread expectation that ethnic minorities would vote for their own ethnic parties in order to promote their ethnic interests. This did not happen. It remains to be seen to what extent “national” politics will be a Burman-majority affair and whether there will be much accommodation of ethnic concerns. The Mon National Education Committee has plans to try to make Mon an official language in Mon State, which would set a precedent for giving at least some ethnic languages official regional recognition. Related to the legal and constitutional frameworks is the possibility for the devolution of power. One way to approach language policy, at least as it concerns ethnic minority languages, is through decentralization. A recognition of the ethnic education systems, or allowing local communities to make language policy would be a way to devolve power to local levels and to recognize areas of local autonomy. From a strictly legal perspective, however, according to the constitution, matters related to education in terms of policy and curriculum are decided at the national level. Devolution of control would necessitate a constitutional amendment. Fourth, technical challenges having to do with training, recognition, and equity remain. As discussed above, all education systems throughout the country are underfunded, teachers are not necessarily properly trained, and there is a widespread recognition that curriculum, teaching methods, and textbooks are all in need of an overhaul. As local and international organizations provide policy makers with support, exposing them to the language policies and solutions from neighboring countries – both successes and failures – may go a long way towards keeping language policy a top legislative priority. Precisely because the government does not have a language policy, it is hard to gauge the impact of some recent developments. Meanwhile, while some parts of policy may seem to move forward, others seem to go backwards. The government has ostensibly been open to new consultative processes. UNICEF, for example, has been active in holding grassroots discussions with various ethnic minority communities to a plan for mother tongue-based education. So far, none of these ideas have appeared in government policy. Perhaps more striking is the Myanmar National Education Law 2014, meant to overhaul the education system. Students, teachers’ unions, and civil society groups all criticized the law from the beginning. One of the most vocal among these was the National Network for Educational Reform (NNER), which represents 254

Language policy in Myanmar

a broad cross-section of society including ethnic education groups and had held a national conference on education reform and even took part in meetings with legislators. In the end, the government ended their consultations with them and cracked down on student protestors. In conversation, many in government and society point to what they perceive of the disadvantages, even impossibility, of providing mother tongue education, reflecting a widespread perception that language diversity is a problem. They give examples of places in the country where there is no clear majority and wonder which language to choose to use a medium of instruction, or how to accommodate more than one language in the classroom, especially in areas which already tend to receive scant funding. A related assumption is that a language must have a script and texts in order to be used as the medium of instruction, even though teachers or some kind of classroom assistants could use one local medium orally for “explaining” rather than teaching. Blanket policies of making the “state” language the medium of instruction may also face resistance – minorities in Shan State, for example, may chafe under having to be taught in Shan. The default answer in these situations is often that it is better to simply keep using Burmese. Despite these contradictions, it seems reasonable to be cautiously optimistic that the central government will accommodate ethnic education systems and mother tongue education, especially since these are two key matters to promoting peace and prosperity.

Note 1 Throughout I prefer “Burma” for the country, “Burman” for the ethnic majority, and “Burmese” as the name of the language and any citizen. The term “Myanmar” – whose adoption the Burmese government has pushed for only in English, not in any other language – does not make these distinctions grammatically between language, country, people, or citizenship in English.

References British Academy and the École Française d’Extrême-Orient. (Eds.) (2015). Language choice in higher education: Challenges and opportunities.Yangon: British Academy and the École Française d’Extrême-Orient. Callahan, M. (2004). Making enemies:War and state building in Burma. Singapore: NUS Press. Ganesan, N. and Hlaing, K.Y. (2007). Myanmar: State, society and ethnicity. Singapore: ISEAS. Jacquet, C. (2015). The Kachin conflict: Testing the limits of the political transition of Myanmar, (IRASEC Occasional Paper Series 2). Bangkok: Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia. Lo Bianco, J. et al. (2016). Myanmar country report: Language education and social cohesion (LESC) initiative. Yangon: UNICEF. Mullaney, T. (2011). Coming to terms with the nation: Ethnic classification in modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Romaine, S. (2002). The impact of language policy on endangered languages. International Journal on Multicultural Societies, 4(2), 194–212. South, A. and Lall, M. (2016). Schooling and conflict: Ethnic education and mother tongue-based teaching in Myanmar.Yangon: Asia Foundation. Steinberg, D. (2001). Burma:The state of Myanmar. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Taylor, R. (2009). The state in Myanmar (2nd ed.). Singapore: NUS Press. Thant Sin Aye. (2016). The role of the Myanmar language and English language as mediums of instruction to teach academic disciplines in higher education. Paper presented at the International Conference on Language Policy in Multicultural and Multilingual Settings, Mandalay University (Mandalay, Myanmar), February 8–11. Thein Lwin. (2000). Education in Burma 1945–2000. Available from: http:​//bur​malib​rary.​org/d​ocs/E​ducat​ ion_i​n_Bur​ma_(1​945-2​000).​htm. Zobrist, B. (2010). Mapping teaching-learning and operational experiences in fifty monastery schools across Myanmar. Yangon: Pyoe Pin Programme. Zobrist, B. and McCormick, P. (2013). A preliminary assessment of decentralization in education: Experiences in Mon State and Yangon region.Yangon: Asia Foundation.

255

Patrick McCormick

Further reading Allott, A. (1985). Language policy and language planning in Burma. In D. Bradley (Ed.), Language policy, language planning and sociolinguistics in South East Asia (pp. 131–154). Canberra: Australian National University, Department of Linguistics. Bradley, D. (2012). The science of language planning. In N. Chapelle (Ed.), The encyclopedia of applied linguistics. London: Routledge . Cheesman, N. (2003). School, state and sangha in Burma. Comparative Education, 39(1), 45–63. De, L.T. K. (1980). Colonial education in Burma and Malaya:The move away from Indian education policy. Jebat: Malaysian Journal of History, Politics and Strategic Studies, 10, 105–113.

256

18 MALAYSIA’S COMPLEX LANGUAGE POLICY JOURNEY VIA BAHASA MELAYU AND ENGLISH Saran Kaur Gill and Azianura Hani Shaari

1 Introduction Malaysia is a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual nation comprising the dominant, autochthonous, Malay community and significant minority communities largely constituting Chinese and Indians of immigrant ancestry, many smaller minority communities comprising the Punjabis, the Sindhis, the Gujeratis, as well as other non-Malay Bumiputra in Sabah and Sarawak such as Iban, Bidayuh and Bajau. The 2014 Population and Housing Census of Malaysia estimated Malaysia’s population to be 30,261,170. The Malays formed 50.33% of the population, the ethnic Chinese 21.76% and the ethnic Indians 6.52%.The other unlisted indigenous ethnic groups formed 0.87% of the population (Department of Statistics, Malaysia, February 2015). Malaysia was colonised by the British from 1874 to 1957. The British left a strong legacy of the English language as a medium of instruction for schools and universities. This resulted in a generation of Malaysians, especially those from the urban areas, who possessed strong competencies in the English language. Upon attaining independence in 1957, Malaya, like many other post-colonial nations around the globe, embarked on a journey of asserting its independence and developing its national identity through the establishment of Bahasa Melayu as the national language. Following on from this, Malaysia’s language policy journey has gone on a rollercoaster ride over the years demonstrated by the constant dichotomy and changes in the roles and policies of Bahasa Melayu and English in this multi-ethnic nation. To explicate this complex situation, this chapter will examine the journey of language policy from the colonial period, the post-independence period to the 21st century, a period of almost 50 years. This will be done in the context of disentangling the complex social and political agendas that underlie decisions on medium-of-instruction policies in Malaysia focusing on the dichotomy between Bahasa Melayu and English, ending with an analysis of the position we are in right now – have we progressed? Or are we where we began in the post-independence years?

2  Pre-independence period – the colonial period The multi-ethnic and multi-lingual diversity of Malaysia is a result of the exigencies of history. By the end of colonial rule in 1957, Malaya, as it was then known, inherited a plural society with diverse ethnic groups “whose differences in language, religion and culture provided no natural 257

Saran Kaur Gill and Azianura Hani Shaari

basis for national integration” (Chai 1977: 5). It was not by any conscious design that the three major racial groups of Malays, Chinese and Indians lived worlds apart from each other in terms of language, beliefs and value systems. According to Asmah, “Each had its own traditions and was rooted within those traditions before their members came in contact with one another on Malayan soil. The divide and rule cum divide and educate policy of the British colonial government however emphasized the division” (2007: 344). What was meant was that the British encouraged a system of social management where immigrant groups had their own “space” and worked in their separate economic sectors and did not intermingle much with one another as “each went their own way without causing discomfort to the other” (Asmah 2007: 344). The Chinese immigrants had come to Malaya and settled in areas where tin was being mined. The Indians provided cheap labour for the British in the rubber plantations and the Malays mainly remained in the rural areas as fishermen and farmers. Hence, this set the pattern for the gradual emergence of a plural society where each race or community existed side by side with the others without any real integration, but in a state of “mutual accommodation” so there was no conflict as such among the various ethnic groups. The Malays and the immigrant Chinese and Indians continued to cling to their own languages, culture and religious practices. British policy regarding education perpetuated this separateness. Thus, three socio-cultural entities, each different and separate from the other, could readily be identified (Loh 1975: 1). When the need for white collar workers in the administration arose, the British introduced education in English. This however, was kept to a minimum and it was only the activities of missionary organisations in Malaya that gave the impetus to English education. The activities of these missionaries were confined mainly to non-Malay urban areas and hence the students in these schools were mainly Chinese. By the 1920s, English education became highly desirable as it provided a step-up in social status and gradually Malays and a few Indian students enrolled in these schools if they could afford the fees and the travel to the mainly urban areas where these schools were situated.

3  Post-independence Malaysia – nationalistic language policies Malaya attained its independence from the British colonial powers in 1957. When a nation is colonised by a foreign power or when it has gained independence, the feeling of nationalism is normally at its peak. Many such countries were determined to build up their own national identity after gaining independence and one of the manifestations of national identity was a change in language policy. Some of the colonised countries, upon attaining independence, reacted against the language of the ‘colonial powers,’ which in this case was English, and used the language of the dominant ethnic group as the national language. In the words of the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tengku Abdul Rahman: It is only right that as a developing nation we should want to have a language of our own. If the national language is not introduced our country will be devoid of a unified character and personality – as I could put it, a nation without a soul and without a life.” (Cited in Francis Wong & Ee Tiang Hong 1975: 79) In the case of Malaysia, the language of the Malays (the dominant ethnic group in the country), that is Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Melayu or Malay, was instituted as the national language. It was aimed for this decision to provide the dominant ethnic group with advantage in the development of the nation. In addition, there were various other reasons why Malay was 258

Malaysia’s complex language policy journey

chosen as the national language. These were “its indigeneity, its role as a lingua franca, its position as a major language, its possession of high literature and the fact that it once had been an important language of administration and diplomacy in the Malay archipelago” (Asmah 1997: 15). Where did this place English? If we look at developments in the language policy in postindependence Malaysia, from the post-colonial period to now, we can observe a careful balance between traditional nationalism and pragmatism in the process of reducing the importance of English. There was no drastic severing of English from the official linguistic scene – it was done gradually and pragmatically. The ultimate aim was to reduce the prominence of English and replace it with Bahasa Melayu. The transition from English to Bahasa Melayu as the main medium of instruction began in 1969 in schools and reached university level in 1983. The predominant layers of English were peeled away gradually but surely before the essential inner core, Bahasa Melayu, was revealed and placed in a predominant position. By planting seeds in the public sector, schools and public institutions of higher learning, Bahasa Melayu was allowed to grow without impediment. If English had been retained as the joint official language with Bahasa Melayu, it would have been difficult for the latter to establish itself as the official language of administration and the language of education. This is for two reasons. The first is that Malaysia is a multi-ethnic country and in the early days, the non-Malays held partisan views, which were biased towards English rather than Bahasa Melayu, which is the language of the Malay majority in the country. In fact, there was an exodus of middle-class non-Malays from the country during the period of language change because of the fear that Bahasa Melayu as the language of education and the national language of the country would cause Malaysians to lose out in global competition (Gill 2000: 109). Any measure of change naturally brings along with it feelings of anxiety. But, unless these national language policy measures had been taken, there would not have been the impetus to learn the Malay language and to use it for official purposes. Second, English was a strong language in terms of being the language of the former colonial power and the language of the British Empire, which traversed many countries. A combination of this factor and the international economic and technological strength of the language made it a threat to the establishment, the growth and the development of the Malay language.Therefore, for Bahasa Melayu to secure prominent status, English had to be relegated to a less dominant role (Gill 2000: 109). The role of English became that of the primary second language – from being the medium of instruction in schools it became a subject that was compulsory to take but not to pass for all students in the school system and was described as a second language.

4  Post-independence period: impact of strengthening Bahasa Melayu and weakening English The enhancement of the role of Bahasa Melayu and the corresponding reduction in the role of English led to a drastic decrease in the amount of exposure to English for the students. This reduction in exposure and the natural cross-fertilisation between Bahasa Melayu, English and various other ethnic languages such as Tamil and Cantonese led to changes in the nature and development of English. In this context, English could not help but be influenced by the various other languages and develop into a number of different varieties. In the Malaysian context, this diversity has been reflected by works mainly in the area of the lexico-semantic and phonological varieties of Malaysian English, such as Platt and Weber (1980), Wong (1983, 1991), Baskaran (1987) and Anthonysamy (1997). 259

Saran Kaur Gill and Azianura Hani Shaari

In the research above, the investigations were largely conducted in the socio-cultural framework of the use of English in the local Malaysian context, very often in informal social contexts. Over time, this liberated linguistic phase provided recognition and a strong sense of confidence for the use of the varieties of Malaysian English as a means of communication within the country for intra-national communication. At the same time, Malaysians were constantly reminded that even though they have adopted and used the English language for various functions and purposes and it has “acquired unparalleled functional and societal depth” (Kachru 1994: 3), the main value of English for Malaysians is for international communication. There is a need for speakers to be internationally mutually intelligible to nurture and sustain the synergy between various countries for political and diplomatic, trade and economic, and scientific and technological purposes (Fong 1997). The main impact then of this reduction in the exposure to the English language has led to the biggest challenge that the country faces in these present times, which is the increasing lack of capacity of Malaysians to be able to communicate in English for international purposes, using a standard that is both global with regards to syntax and lexicon and local with regards to the phonology and accent (Gill 2002: 45).

4.1  Linguistic pragmatism phase This then takes us to the most important phase of linguistic development for a nation that needs the English language as an international language to express its stand on various issues, to showcase its abilities and products, and to establish political, trade and technological relations in the numerous international scenarios – that is, the age of linguistic pragmatism which is one of consolidation and progress. It started in the 1990s, and in the 21st century, with challenges of globalisation on the nation’s doorstep, has taken on a more predominant role. This is the age where pragmatic concerns need to be addressed together with the concerns of nationalism. The maintenance of extreme nationalistic language policies would have led to Malaysia’s economic and technological isolation because these policies would have resulted in a lack of people who would be able to operate effectively in English on the international scene. It is time, in the face of globalisation and international communication in trade, scientific and technological advancements, to take stock of the role of English as an international means of communication. A reconsideration of the role of English was especially important given the three concrete plans put forward by the government for the future development of Malaysia. They are: the development of Malaysia into an industrialised nation in line with Vision 2020, the establishment of the multi-media super corridor and the establishment of Malaysia as a regional centre of education. These three plans have implications for the change in language policy. The nation needs a population that is proficient in English, and it needs to allow English to play a more dominant role (Awang Had Salleh 1994; Asmah 1997; Mansor Daim 1997). Despite still strong feelings of traditionalism from certain quarters, the journey of the English language in Malaysia has almost come full circle – from being relegated from the upper end to the lower end of the scale of importance, it is now gradually moving back to occupy an important position. This was reflected in the Education Acts drawn up as far back as 1996. This was a result of the development plans for the nation and the need to keep up with the latest developments in science and technology, which led to greater emphasis on the importance of English in the language policy. In 1996, the Education Act 1996, and the 1996 Private Higher Education Institutions Act were introduced. The former approved the use of English as a medium of 260

Malaysia’s complex language policy journey

instruction for technical areas in post-secondary courses and the latter allowed for the use of English in courses which were provided through twinning arrangements with overseas institutions, as well as off-shore campuses. The legislation provided for this by stating that, “where the main medium of instruction in an educational institution is other than the national language, the national language shall be taught as a compulsory subject in the educational institution” (Laws of Malaysia, Education Act 1996: 23). Following on from the above legislations, many meetings were held by the National Economic Consultative Council 11 (MAPEN 2) from 1999 to 2000. The members of this council were made up of representatives of political parties, business/industry leaders, civil society leaders, and university and think tank representatives, all of whom represented a cross-section of Malaysian society. MAPEN 2 recommended to the government that in order to achieve the objectives of Mahathir’s Vision 2020, science and mathematics should be taught in English and should begin as early as possible.1As such, a courageous move to change the medium of instruction for maths and science was made to provide the nation a boost on its path towards the fulfilment of Mahathir’s Vision 2020 and industrialisation.

4.2  Drastic reversal in language policy: from Bahasa Melayu to English A sudden change in the medium of instruction was then announced in the mass media by the then Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamed, on May 11, 2002 (NST 2002, May 11). This particular instance demonstrated that changes to medium of instruction are top-down decisions since they are “policies that come from people of power and authority to make decisions for a certain group, without consulting the end-users of the language” (Kaplan & Baldauf 1997: 196) and the government implemented the language policy change from Bahasa Melayu to English at school level in a staggered fashion for 2003. The implementation of the PPSMI, which is Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik Dalam Bahasa Inggeris (PPSMI) or its English equivalent, the teaching of science and mathematics in English, began with Primary One (which is the first year at primary level), Secondary Form One (which is the first year at secondary level) and Lower Six (which is equivalent to the first year of the ‘A-levels’) (Ling 2002, July 21: 1). This took place within a swift period of six months from the time of the announcement to implementation in the school system. The Ministry of Education felt that it was expedient that science and mathematics be taught in English in order to equip the students with the necessary knowledge and skills for accelerated access to and mastery of these fields of knowledge in order to compete effectively in the international arena (Ministry of Education 2002: 2). This also meant that public universities which had developed and used Bahasa Melayu as the language of knowledge all these years now had to prepare themselves for 2005 when the first cohort of students who studied in the English medium for science and math subjects in the school system entered the public universities as undergraduates. There were many factors that spurred the change (refer to Gill 2014: 5567, for a detailed explication of factors for this reversal in language policy) but the main factor is the fact that it was the Malay community that was being disadvantaged by the very national policy that had been implemented all these years. The elevation of Bahasa Melayu and the reduction of the English language impacted negatively on the very group that it was supposed to advantage. The problem peaked in the year 2002 when 40,000 graduates from public universities were unemployed, most of them members of the dominant ethnic group, the Malays (Mustapha 2002, March 14: 1, 2). Mustapha Mohamad, a former executive director of the government-sponsored 261

Saran Kaur Gill and Azianura Hani Shaari

National Economic Action Council (NEAC), articulates the reasons for this problem clearly. He says: This is basically a Malay problem as 94 per cent of those registered with the Government are bumiputeras (sons of the soil), Chinese constitute 3.7 per cent and Indians, 1.6 per cent. It has to do with the courses taken, and … Also their poor performance in and command of the English language. (New Straits Times 2002, March 14: 1, 12) In the post-independence period, economic advantage was a dominant reason for the change of medium from English to Bahasa Melayu. In 2003, the same factor of economic inequity reappears to stimulate a reversal of the language policy. Globalisation and economic competitiveness were to pose a dilemma for policy planners. The current policy, therefore, had to be substituted with one which, in fact, was directly opposed to the earlier policy. English now had to be propagated amongst a population schooled only in Malay and with a vested interest in its continued dominance (Lowe & Khattab 2003: 219) Way back in the 1990s, Mahathir was already convinced that Malays needed to master English in order to upgrade their scientific and technical knowledge and skills and for the community to stay relevant and competitive in the increasingly globalised knowledge economy. It was in this context that he stressed the need for Malaysians and especially the dominant ethnic group to co-exist with the other developed nations of the world with “dignity and honour” (Mahathir 1997), strongly linking competency of the English language with acquisition of self-respect. The consistency in Mahathir’s messaging was demonstrated many years later, in an interview carried out on June 16, 2005. He issued a clarion call for the need to be respected via competency of the international language again.This is in the context of citizens needing to realise the value of development-oriented nationalism which enables the maximisation of global opportunities, rather than being held back by linguistic-oriented nationalism. He strongly asserted, Everybody realizes the importance of English, but in Malaysia, it is countered through the extreme form of nationalism which concentrates on being a language nationalist only, not a knowledge nationalist, not a development oriented nationalist. I feel that we should be a development oriented nationalist. We want our people to succeed, to be able to stand tall, to be respected by the rest of the world. Not to be people with no knowledge of science and technology, very poor, very backwards, working as servants to other people. If we have no knowledge we will be servants to those with knowledge. Despite the former Prime Minister’s constant calls to the people to develop strength and competitive capacity through competencies in the English language, he still faced stiff resistance from the linguistic nationalists. This drastic reversal resulted in great unhappiness and protests amongst this sector. Smolicz helps us understand the reasons for these negative responses to language policy change which impacted on the national language. He explains that there will be a strong reaction of any group towards any attempt to alter the position of the language that represents a core element of their cultural identity. This is because: When people feel that there is a direct link between their identity as a group and what they regard as the most crucial and distinguishing element of their culture, the element concerned becomes a core value for the group … any attempt to alter its traditional 262

Malaysia’s complex language policy journey

culture, brings forth counter measures that help to pinpoint those values that the group considers as its cultural core, and therefore, as meriting all efforts in their defence. (Smolicz 1981: 76) This then takes us to the next phase of change in language policy in Malaysia, which is the rereversal from English to Bahasa Melayu as medium of instruction for science and maths. This is examined and analysed in detail in the book, Language policy challenges in multi-ethnic Malaysia (Gill 2014: 71–88) and is summarised below.

4.3  Re-reversal of language policy: from English to Bahasa Melayu After six years of implementation, amidst mounting pressure from many sectors, the teaching of science and mathematics in English was abolished. There was a Gerakan Mansuhkan PPSMI (GMP is a movement to abolish PPSMI) which had organised rallies to “urge a reversal of the misguided policy to teach Math and Science in English” (Wong 2009). There were luminaries who strongly resisted PPSMI. They were Royal Professor Ungku Aziz, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Malaysia, Gapena’s (Malaysian National Writers Association), Prof Emeritus Ismail Hussein, former Education Minister, Abdul Rahman Yaakob, former Director-General of Education, Abdul Rahman Arshad and a host of Malay academics (Ang 2010). In response to society’s divergent responses, the Ministry of Education organised roundtable discussions (there were five in all) to which select parties were invited. These were closed-door affairs. The invited parties included representatives from the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP), educationists from the main political groups, Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), members of the academia, key members of language-based organisations and representatives of the Australian Qualifications and Standards Assessment Body. After several of these discussions, the cabinet decided in 2008 that all national primary and secondary schools would teach science and mathematics in Bahasa Melayu beginning 2012. In the Star, July 8, 2009, it was reported that: The Cabinet decided that Mathematics and Science would be taught in Bahasa Malaysia and vernacular languages in stages from 2012 onwards. Deputy Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, who announced this, however, said more emphasis would be placed on learning English. This policy is to be implemented in stages from Year One,Year Four, Form One and Form Four in 2012.The changes did not involve Form Six and Matriculation students. All exams for science and maths would remain bilingual until 2014 so as not to jeopardise the performance of students under the current policy – Teaching Science and Maths in English (PPSMI). Muhyiddin Yasin, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, said the government was aware that its decision to revert the medium of instruction for math and science to Bahasa Melayu from 2012 would not go down well with everyone. “The reversal in policy is not a knee-jerk decision as it was based on empirical studies and other specialist reviews. … The government made this decision after studying in detail the result of studies and close monitoring of the PPSMI by the Education Ministry and independent bodies since 2003” (The Sunday Star 2009). He stressed that the previous policy was not a complete failure; it just had not achieved the desired objectives. Two large scale studies came up with negative findings as to the impact of the use of English for science and maths. The first was conducted by 50 academics from seven public universities 263

Saran Kaur Gill and Azianura Hani Shaari

(UPM, UiTM, UPSI, USM, UUM, UMS and UTM). They carried out a nation-wide study of students in the fourth year of secondary education in 70 secondary schools, and students in the fifth year of primary school in 90 primary schools. This study concluded that PPSMI had been deleterious to students, especially the Malay students in rural areas. In a few states, for instance, Perlis, Kelantan, Sabah and Sarawak, students who failed mathematics and science, getting D and E results, exceeded 50%.The research claimed that the causes of this stemmed from the inability of teachers and students to interact in English competently (Jimadie Shah Othman 2009). The second study was carried out by UPSI (The Sultan Idris University of Education) (Isahak et al. 2008).Two of the main findings will be mentioned here.The first was that “70% of the students from the primary schools ‘do not / barely comprehend’ their teachers’ teaching of Mathematics”, and 80% of the students reported that the teacher code-switched from English to Bahasa Melayu and vice-versa as a strategy to promote teaching and learning. These, then, were some of the research findings and empirical studies that Muhyiddin cited as reasons for reverting to the teaching of science and mathematics in Bahasa Melayu. He said studies showed that PPSMI was never implemented as originally hoped. Instead, teachers were using both Bahasa Melayu and English to teach science and mathematics, and there was a reluctance on the part of teachers to use English to teach the subjects. In addition, the gap between urban and rural schools’ performance in the two subjects had grown wider after PPSMI was implemented. Last, the government felt that PPSMI had not helped in developing English proficiency (Gill 2014: 74–75). Thus, on November 25, 2009 Muhyiddin made another announcement regarding this issue: The policy of dignifying Bahasa Malayu and strengthening English language usage or “Memartabatkan Bahasa Melayu dan Memperkasakan Bahasa Inggeris” (MBMBI) will be implemented in 2011, a year earlier than scheduled. He said meeting the objective would require the full commitment of teachers, school heads and principals, and the Education Ministry as this was a big responsibility. … We should now be focusing on efforts to raise the standard of our education system, and from 2011 we will be implementing the new (MBMBI) policy. (Bernama News 2009)

5  2015/2016 – policy measures to strengthen competency of English 5.1  Institution of English as a subject that is compulsory to pass to attain SPM certification In September 2013, Muhyiddin Yassin, declared the long overdue proposal to make English a compulsory pass in the SPM in 2016 (SPM is equivalent to the GCE O-Levels), in a bid to improve English competency among students nationwide. This was a move that will affect over 400,000 students every year (The Star Online September 6, 2013) “NEB 2013-25: English a compulsory pass for SPM from 2016.” To understand the impact of this decision, we need to go back to the 1970s, when the New Education Policy was implemented and Bahasa Melayu replaced English as the medium of instruction in all schools and tertiary institutions.This was explicated earlier but is revisited here to demonstrate the impact of this decision. Almost five decades ago, English, from being medium of instruction in schools, was designated as a second language and relegated to become a subject in schools, a subject which was compulsory to take but not to pass. Herein lay the decision that was the main failing of the education system and led to the development of a generation of 264

Malaysia’s complex language policy journey

Malaysians who did not take the English language seriously and acquired weak competencies in the English language. We have developed a generation of Malaysians who are victims of policy and now are not able to provide the talent needed for Malaysia in this competitive global world. The announcement that English was going to be a compulsory subject to pass at SPM levels spurred teachers and students to regard the subject more seriously. The Ministry had also since 2013 implemented various initiatives to improve competencies of the language of both the teachers and students (see StarEducate for listing of achievements August 23, 2015: 9). Despite the above efforts, two years later in August 2015, like a bolt out of the blue, the Examination Syndicate announced that the English compulsory-to-pass ruling for 2016 would be put on hold (Ann-Marie Khor in The Star August 23, 2015: 8). There were no reasons provided apart from that it was to “allow teachers and students to have more time and opportunities to prepare.” Much later, the Ministry of Education explained that the main reason for the delay in implementation was that 15,000 teachers were not proficient enough in English to teach the subject: Stressing that these 15,000 are just a part of the 60,000-odd English teachers nationwide, the Deputy Minister of Education, Kamalanathan said more than 20,000 of them are proficient and perfectly equipped to teach the language, befitting international standards. Kamalanathan also said that if the policy had come into place last year, between 25% and 30% of the students would have failed in English even after more than 11 years of formal education in the language. (Karen Arukesamy, The Sun Daily, March 24, 2016: 1–2) The bulk of them would be from the rural areas and they would have to join the workforce without the basic paper qualification if a pass was compulsory (Karen Arukesamy in the Sun March 24, 2016: 1–2). There were mixed reactions to this delay in implementation. Extracts from the following interviews carried out by Ann-Marie Khor demonstrated divergent viewpoints on this issue (StarEducate August 23, 2015: 8). The Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (MELTA) whose members are teachers from all over the country, is satisfied with the decision. Its President said, “Many teachers have expressed concern that with the ruling, many teachers would simply resort to drilling students in order for them to pass the examination. This would defeat the true purpose of the policy implementation which is to create genuine competency in the English language.” The National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) praised the ministry for “understanding the situation. We have been saying time and time again that students, especially those in the rural areas, are not ready for this.” Leanne Goh, a senior journalist in the field of education, expressed society’s disappointment: Just as it was for the implementation of Science and Maths in English, we’re now doing the same for English.We want to bring everyone down to the lowest denominator.We are always holding back the strong so that the weak can catch up – while the rest of the world leapfrogs over us. (Goh August 23, 2015: 24) Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia (PAGE) chairman, Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim, who has provided integral leadership for parents to express their viewpoints to the Ministry over many years, said the Ministry should “raise the bar” for those who are weak in English. “When are we going to start improving the standard of English in the country, if we are going to 265

Saran Kaur Gill and Azianura Hani Shaari

keep pandering to the weak ones?” she asked. She also said she was surprised by the Education Ministry’s decision to put the ruling on hold. “This is especially since there were concerted efforts made by the ministry towards English excellence among the students and teachers,” she said, referring to the “Upholding Bahasa Malaysia and strengthening English (MBMMBI) policy introduced in 2011 (Ann-Marie Khor, English at a Crossroads, The Star Malaysia, August 23, 2015). The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) also said they were disappointed with the ministry’s decision. They said “the postponement could weaken the on-going efforts to improve the employability of Malaysian graduates.” Nazir Razak, group chairman of one of the biggest banks in Malaysia, CIMB, stressed that “proficiency in the English language is a traditional edge that the workforce is losing fast and it had to stop as the nation is in decline. We must reverse the deterioration now” (Achariam July 22, 2015: 7). But we have to focus on the core player in these plans to strengthen the English language and these are the teachers. The fundamental requirement is that teachers need mastery of their subject, then they need to inspire their students, they are the role models that our young and even parents look up to. It is a heavy load that they carry but one that is so critical for the development of our education system and our nation. Therefore, it is shocking that 15,000 teachers have failed to obtain the desired scores in the Cambridge Placement Test and the British Council Aptis Test and have been sent for retraining for up to six months. These are the very teachers who have been in the education system all these years. How did the government allow this situation to develop? The entry level of the teachers for the English language (whether they are major or minor) would have been very weak to start with. Would they have allowed this for other content subjects? Would they have allowed the entry levels for medicine or science to be as weak? It reflects the seriousness, or the lack of it, with which the quality of English teachers is regarded. Training to acquire competency in a language is not the same as for content-based subjects. Language mastery poses greater challenges. Learning a language is not like learning science or mathematics. While the essential components of language learning could be acquired from formal training, the intricacies and nuances that make up proficiency come from using the language. Short training of 6 months will not produce the desired results we need. … why punish the teachers and penalize the students for no fault of theirs? … the problem of lack of proficiency among teachers is the fault and failure of our education system which has been cursed with shabby and shaggy policies. … we will never see daylight to this issue so long as the long arms of politicians have access to our education system and the policies. (Bhavani Krishna Iyer April 5, 2016: 14)

5.2  The PEMANDU survey In the last quarter of 2015, an online survey was carried out by the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU) which is in the Prime Minister’s department. The aim of this survey was to obtain society’s responses to the importance of English and the teaching of maths and science in English in schools. The seven-question survey was conducted from October 5 to 11, 2015.

266

Malaysia’s complex language policy journey

Among the questions were: Would you consider some subjects in school to be taught in another language besides Bahasa Malaysia? Do you think teaching English in other subjects would reduce the importance of Bahasa Malaysia as our national language? It also asked about the importance of the application of English for the workforce. According to reports, 90% of the survey’s 190,000 respondents supported improving English proficiency. The complete findings of the survey, however, have not been made public as the survey was conducted for the purpose of planning the future English language programmes in Malaysia (Reena Raj October 30, 2015).

5.3  The Dual Language Programme (DLP) and Highly Immersive Programme (HIP) Following this, Prime Minister, Najib Abdul Razak announced a move to implement the Dual Language Programme (DLP) and Highly Immersive Programme (HIP) in schools to improve English proficiency when he tabled the budget for 2016. HIP will see an increase in activities conducted during English language lessons but without an increase in teaching hours. HIP enrichment activities are not entirely new.What is new is the implementation approach – empowering schools, by the schools and for the schools. Toolkits for purposeful activity planning featuring best practice examples from urban and rural schools would be provided based on their local contexts and capabilities. Support mechanisms at the district and state levels will be ramped up and by the end of 2016, approximately 1,000 schools are expected to implement the HIP. See more at: http:​//etp​.pema​ndu.g​ov.my​/Tran​sform​ation​_Unpl​ugged​-@-Al​ignin​g_the​_cons​tella​ tions​.aspx​#stha​sh.DC​XxjhD​m.dpu​f (accessed on April 11, 2016) The DLP is a programme where schools will be given the option to teach science and mathematics in English or Bahasa Melayu to Year One and Year Four pupils.This will be offered to 300 pilot schools. The Education Director-General explained that the 300 schools involved in DLP must meet three criteria – proper resources, teachers who can teach in English and Bahasa Melayu, and school heads and parents who are supportive. The selected schools could offer the programme to Years One and Four pupils (primary level) and Form One students (secondary level) in 2016. As with any language policy plan which involves Bahasa Melayu and English that Malaysia has implemented over the years, with this, there are similar conflicting responses.The chairman of the National Malaysian Writers’ Association (Gapena) says that “the DLP involving 300 schools will lead to discrimination between urban schools and their rural counterparts. It will also lead to a widening gap between urban and rural schools” (Robin Augustin, January 26, 2016, Pena: Dual Language Programme will lead to discrimination). However, the chairman of the Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia (PAGE) had a different take on the situation. Its chairman said the DLP addressed the weaknesses of teaching science and maths in English (PPSMI) and added, “The last time, parents complained PPSMI was compulsory so this is why DLP gives parents and students a choice. She said that science and maths were chosen as DLP as it had the highest concentration of teachers who had a minor in English” (Robin Augustin January 26, 2016).

267

Saran Kaur Gill and Azianura Hani Shaari

6  Conclusion – voices of the people and the need for development-oriented political will Looking at the various initiatives that have been implemented for the strengthening of English and repositioning the status of Bahasa Melayu as medium of instruction for all content subjects in schools, it is clear that we have been on a journey of fluctuation or what is often described as a flip-flop journey by many members of Malaysian society. In examining the stand of both the linguistic nationalist and the development-oriented nationalist vis-à-vis Bahasa Melayu and English over the past 50 years, there are consistent arguments from these two opposing parties. Presently, in 2016, Malaysia is pretty much in the same position it was a decade ago – standards of English are increasingly declining with terrible impact on the students and youth and their employability opportunities and also a decline in the human capital essential for industrialisation and technological development. There are parents, members of society, corporate leaders, royal state leaders and some political leaders who despair at the declining standards of English and appeal to the government to make strong decisions to rectify this. The headlines captured from the main newspapers in 2015/2016 demonstrate the desperation that is echoed by Malaysian society. The headlines state, “Go for English or risk falling back” (Ramon Navaratnam, The Sun Daily, November 30, 2015), “Wake up, we need English” (The Star Malaysia, December 28, 2015), “A few generations, yes, a few generations, are paying the price – unable to speak and write in proper English – because of our education system” (The Star Malaysia, June 21, 2015). For Malaysia to improve and for the nation to recapture its competitive edge, Malaysia has to benchmark against the best and develop them further but not drag the best down in comparison with the weak. We have to also provide for the weak to elevate them to higher levels of achievement so that they can develop to be effective bilinguals – having not only Bahasa Melayu but also English, to be able to maximise the opportunities that are available both nationally and regionally. But because of politically motivated decisions that have been made over the years, and the impact on the quality of the human capital we are developing, Malaysia is losing out to other countries in the region – nations who take English very seriously for their people.These include Singapore, South Korea, China,Vietnam and the Philippines. Decisions on language policy in education in Malaysia are underpinned by a strong political agenda. As Tsui and Tollefson explicate, “All too often, policy makers put forward an educational agenda that justifies policy decisions regarding the use and/or the prohibition of a particular language or languages. Yet, behind the educational agenda are political, social and economic agendas that serve to protect the interests of particular political and social groups” (2004: 2). The Sultan of Johor (a state in the south of Malaysia), one of the royal rulers who often speaks out with courage on behalf of his people, aptly captures the essence of the quote above. He said, We have politicians in Malaysia who are in self-denial or who choose to play politics with education. They want to be heroes of their own race. In Malaysia, decisions on language are made with reference to how the dominant ethnic group benefits from or is disadvantaged by these decisions. Over the years, when the going gets tough, the fall back is on working out the journey of least resistance for the dominant ethnic group and this is going back to the use of Bahasa Melayu as the main language of education for schools and especially for valuable content subjects. In response to this approach, Farish Noor, a respected 268

Malaysia’s complex language policy journey

political historian and scientist, who writes on socio-political issues, strongly expresses a timely reminder for all of us in this context. He reminds us that, linguistic nationalism has become a favourite tool of many an ethno-nationalist politician who favours a return to a pre-colonial past. Yet the world will not wait for any nation, and nor does the world owe any nation a living. The champions of vernacular education in Asia and Africa may find momentary comfort and solace in the familiar territory of a vernacular culture that they recognise as their own, but refusal to face up to the realities of the global age we live in means that we are in danger of condemning the future generation of our societies to a marginal position” (Farish A. Noor, Khaleej Times, July 11, 2009).

Note 1 Mahathir Mohamad is the longest serving Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the post for 22 years from 1981 to 2003. He developed Vision 2020, for the nation to achieve a self-sufficient industrialised nation status by the year 2020.

References Achariam, T. (July 22, 2015). Nazir: Proficiency in English should be nation’s top priority. The Sun Daily. Ang, H. (March 9, 2010). Math and science: The case for BM. The Nut Graph. Ann-Marie Khor. (August 23, 2015). English at a Crossroads, The Star Malaysia. Anthonysamy, J. (1997). Lexico-semantic variations in Malaysian English. Unpublished Masters dissertation. University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. Arukesamy, K. (March 24, 2016). Not Ready. The Sun. Asmah, H. O. (1997). From imperialism to Malaysianisation: A discussion of the path taken by English towards becoming a Malaysian language. In Halimah Mohd Said & Ng. Keat Siew (Eds.), English is an Asian language in the Malaysian context (pp. 12–21). Kuala Lumpur: Association of Modern Languages, Malaysia. Asmah, H. O. (2007). Malaysia & Brunei. In A. Simpson (Ed.), Language & national identity in Asia (pp. 312–226). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Augustin, R. (January 26, 2016) Pena: Dual Language Programme will lead to discrimination. Free Malaysia Today. Awang, H. S. (1994). Multiple dimensions for policy and pedagogical considerations. In Saran Kaur Gill et al. (Eds.), English education in Malaysia. In The First International English Language Education Conference – National and International Challenges and Responses (pp. 20–30). Bangi: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Baskaran, L. (1987). Aspects of Malaysian English syntax. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. London: University of London. Bernama News. (2009). MBMBI to be implemented one year earlier than planned-Muhyiddin. Chai, H. C. (1977). Education & nation building in plural societies: The West Malaysia experience. Canberra: The Australian National University Press. Department of Statistics, Malaysia. (September 2010). http://www.statistics.gov.my. Accessed April 15, 2012. Fong, C. O. (1997). Former Deputy Minister of Education, Official Address. Presented at the International Symposium – English is an Asian Language: The Malaysian Context, August 18–19. Association of Modern Languages, Malaysia and the Macquarie Library Ltd. Australia, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. Goh, L. (August 23, 2015). Will we ever be ready? Sunday Star. Gill, S. K. (2000). International communication: English language challenges for Malaysia. Selangor: Universiti Putra Malaysia Press Gill, S. K. (2000).The past, present, future of English as a global/international language: Issues and concerns in the Malaysian context. Asian Englishes, 3(2), 98–126.

269

Saran Kaur Gill and Azianura Hani Shaari Gill, S. K. (2002). Language policy and English language standards in Malaysia: Nationalism versus pragmatism. Journal of Asia-Pacific Communication (JAPC), 12(1), 95–115. Gill, S. K. (2014). Language policy challenges in multi-ethnic Malaysia. Multilingual Education, (Vol. 8). Dordrecht: Springer. Isahak, H., Abdul Latif, Halim Ibrahim Abdul, & Mohamed Nor Mariam (2008). Kesan dasar pengajaran matematik dan sains dalam bahasa Inggeris di sekolah rendah [The effects of the teaching of mathematics and science in English in primary schools]. Penerbit Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris,Tanjung Malim, Malaysia. Iyer, Bhavani Krishna. (April 5, 2016). The A to Z of English – Doing it right the first time. The Sun. Jimadie Shah Othman. (22 March, 2009). Language issues in Malaysia. Study: Language switch has marginal benefits. Malaysiakini online. Available from: http:​//d.h​atena​.ne.j​p/itu​nalil​y2/20​09032​2. Accessed December 12, 2009. Kachru, B. B. (1994). English in South Asia. In R. Burchfield (Ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language vol. 5: English in Britain and overseas: Origins and development (pp. 497–626). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kaplan, R. B., & Baldauf R. B. (1997). Language planning from practice to theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Limited. Khor, A.-M. (August 23, 2015). English at a crossroads. The Star Malaysia. Laws of Malaysia Act 550, Education Act (1996). Loh, F. S. P. (1975). Seeds of separatism: Educational policy in Malaya 1874–1940. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Lowe,V., & Khattab U. (2003). Malaysian language planning and cultural rights in the face of aglobal world. In A. Goonasekara, C. Hamelink & V. Iyer (Eds.), Cultural rights in a global world (pp. 217–222). Singapore: Eastern Universities Press. Ling, C. S. (July 21, 2002). English at three levels next year. New Sunday Times. Mahathir, M. (1997). Vision 2020: The way forward. Presented by Tun Mahathir Mohamad at the Malaysian Business Council, dated February 28, 1991. Mahathir, M. (2002). Globalisation and the new realities. In Hashim Makaruddin (Ed.), Selected speeches of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia. Subang Jaya: Pelanduk Publications. Mansor, D. (1997). Education policy for English in Malaysia. In Halimah Mohd Said & Ng. Keat Siew (Eds.), English is an Asian language in the Malaysian context (pp. 22–25). Kuala Lumpur: Modern Language Association, Malaysia. Mustapha, M. (March 14, 2002). NEAC: Institutions must ensure graduates are employable. New Straits Times Navaratnam, R. (November 30, 2015). Go for English or risk falling back. The Sun Daily. Available from: https://www.thesundaily.my/archive/1625733-YSARCH340104 Noor Azimah. (November 18, 2009). Letter to editor: PPSMI: It’s the language of knowledge. The New Straits Times. Available from: http:​//pag​emala​ysia.​org/n​ews.p​hp?re​admor​e=28 Noor, F. A. (July 8, 2013). Linguistic nationalism and the world we live in. Khaleej Times, July 11. http:// www.othermalaysia.org/. One for all, all for one. (June 21, 2015). The Star Malaysia. Platt, J., & Weber, H. (1980). English in Singapore and Malaysia: Status, features, functions. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Raj, Reena. (October 30, 2015). Aye for English, say Pemandu survey respondents. The Malay Mail Online. Report on the National Brains Trust on Education. (2002). Ministry of Education. Sani, R. (December 15, 2015). All-round concerted efforts needed. News Straits Times. Available from: https://www.nst.com.my/news/2017/03/117441/all-round-concerted-efforts-needed Smolicz, J. J. (1981). Core values and cultural identity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 4(1), 75–90. StarEducate. (August 23, 2015). Listing of achievements. The Star. The Ministry of Education Malaysia. Highly Immersive Programme: Padu Stories. http://padustories.my/. Accessed 11 April 2016. The Star Online, (September 6, 2013). NEB 2013–25: English a compulsory pass for SPM from 2016. The Star. Tollefson, J. W., & Tsui, A. B. M. (Eds.) (2004). Medium of instruction policies: Which agenda? Whose agenda? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wake up, we need English. (2015, December 28). The Star Malaysia.

270

Malaysia’s complex language policy journey Wong, I. (1983). Simplification features in the structure of colloquial Malaysian English. In R. B. Noss (Ed.), Varieties of English in Southeast Asia, anthology series no. 11 (pp. 125–149). Singapore: Singapore University Press. Wong, I. (1991). Models for written English in Malaysia. In M. L. Tickoo (Ed.), Languages and standards: Issues, attitudes, case studies, anthology series no. 26 (pp. 97–108). Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. Wong, Chin Huat. (July 22, 2009). The language of equality. The Nut Graph. Accessed 6 Jan 2010. Wong, Francis, & Ee Thiang Hong (1975). Education in Malaysia. Heinemann Educational Books Asia.

Further reading Ali, N. L. (2013). A changing paradigm in language planning: English-medium instruction policy at the tertiary level in Malaysia. Current Issues in Language Planning, 14(1), 73–92. Albury, N. J., & Aye, K. K. (2016). Malaysia’s national language policy in international theoretical context. Journal of Nusantara Studies (JONUS), 1(1), 71–84. Dumanig, F. P., David, M. K., & Symaco, L. (2012). Competing roles of the national language and English in Malaysia and the Philippines: Planning, policy and use. Journal of International and Comparative Education, 1(2), 104–115. doi: 10.14425/00.45. 77. Fishman, J. (2012). Do not leave your language alone:The hidden status agendas within corpus planning in language policy. New York: Routledge. Gill, S. K. (2012). The complexities of re-reversal of language-in-education policy in Malaysia. In A. Kirkpatrick & R. Sussex (Eds.), English as an international language in Asia: Implications for language education (pp. 45–61). Springer Netherlands. Li,Y., Mei, K. P., & Xin, L. Z. (2016). Language Policy and Planning (LPP) for English in Malaysian education system in the 21st century. Journal of English Language and Literature, 6(2), 455–463.

271

19 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY Singapore Ritu Jain and Lionel Wee

1 Introduction The Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore, with land area of 719.1 sq km1 and a total resident population of 3.9 million has undergone tremendous economic growth since its formal constitution in 1965. Its government has successfully used language policy and planning as tools to manage its highly diverse population which has traditionally comprised descendants of immigrants from China, India, and the Malays. The ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity has been further increased by immigration but the proportion of its three main ethnic groups has been largely maintained over the years. Table 19.1 highlights the intercensal demographic changes from 1957 to 2010. Currently, people of Chinese origin form 74.1% of the total population; of Malay or Indonesian origin, 13.4%; those of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, or Sri Lankan origin, categorised as ‘Indians’ form 9.2%; and all the rest, including Eurasians, Europeans, Arabs, etc., form the ‘Others’ at 3.3% (Department of Statistics 2011). Of the total population, nearly one in three is a foreigner. In an effort to manage this diversity and in its commitment to multiracialism, the government has relied on the formative ‘racial’ categories of Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Others (CMIO). Members of these ‘races’ are deemed to share a common ‘ethnicity’ and identify – more or less – with a common language. The CMIO categories therefore form the foundation of all social policies such as housing, immigration, parliamentary representation, and, of particular relevance to the present chapter, education. The mother tongue policy of “linguistic pluralism” encourages bilingual proficiency in English and an officially assigned ethnic mother tongue for every school-going child: Mandarin for the Chinese, Malay for the Malays, and Tamil for the Indians. The three official mother tongues are considered equal so no community can claim an advantage over the other. The category of ‘Others’, comprising ethnicities that cannot be accommodated in the preceding three groups, has no officially assigned mother tongue. Furthermore, while the “mother tongue” was initially determined according to the father’s ethnicity, the government has had to acknowledge the challenge of determining ethnicity resulting from mixed marriages. Therefore, since 2011, citizens can opt for hyphenated identities such as ‘Chinese-Malay’ by which the child’s assigned language is Mandarin, or ‘Malay-Chinese’ that results in the assignation of Malay as the ethnic 272

Language education policy in Singapore Table 19.1 Ethnic composition of Singapore residents (%)

1957 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Chinese

Malay

Indian

Others

75.4 76.2 78.3 77.7 76.8 74.1

13.6 15.0 14.4 14.1 13.9 13.4

8.6 7.0 6.3 7.1 7.9 9.2

2.4 1.8 1.0 1.1 1.4 3.3

Sources: Chua 1964; Arumainathan 1973; Lau 1993; Department of Statistics 2001, 2011.

mother tongue. However, a hyphenated identity does not assign equal weight to the two parts; the first member is assumed to be more dominant and becomes the basis for deciding on a child’s mother tongue. In the examples just mentioned, a ‘Malay-Chinese’ is supposedly more Malay than Chinese, and would warrant having Malay as the assigned mother tongue. In this way, Singapore’s hyphenated identities are not especially dramatic departures from its policy of English–mother tongue bilingualism. The mother tongues and English are designated different functions: English, the ethnically neutral language, serves as the inter-ethnic lingua franca as well as the language of socio-economic mobility and global advancement. The ethnic mother tongues, necessary for intra-ethnic communication, are considered to be appropriate identity markers because they are assumed to be carriers of the ethnic culture that is deemed crucial as a buffer against the supposedly contaminating influence of the ‘Western’ culture associated with English. However, Malay has also been elevated as the national language in a nod to its current as well as historical position in the region before Singapore’s independence from the Federation of Malaysia. While in the past it served as the most ‘comprehensible’ language (by 67.3% of all Singaporeans in 1978; Kuo 1980: 48), its formal status today is largely ceremonial. English, on the other hand, is viewed as the “official working language.” This policy of English–mother tongue bilingualism has helped maintain Singapore’s cultural and linguistic pluralism without hindering the construction of an overarching Singaporean identity. It has also had to address changing social factors but adherence to the core ideas (homogeneous community identity and associated language) has led to problematic measures adopted by the government to reinforce and encourage the language policy.

2 Background 2.1  Pre-independence milestones (1965) The watershed moment in Singapore’s language policy parallel those of its education system and both play integral roles in government initiatives for economic and national development. The first of these is traceable to the recommendations of the All party committee on Chinese education, 1956. Formed at a crucial juncture (just before Singapore was granted internal selfgovernment by the British in 1959), the committee aimed to investigate the state of education and employment preparedness among the Chinese who were dissatisfied with the state of both. The increasing popularity of English medium schools as a result of the encouragement offered by the British and the lack of attention to vernacular education had led to heightened social instability among ethnic groups. As Silver (2002: 108) observes:“In the post-war/pre-unification 273

Ritu Jain and Lionel Wee

era, the British had required that all schools devote one-third of curricular time to English, exacerbating the Chinese communities’ suspicion that their language and culture were being pushed out.” Moreover, the greater availability of employment opportunities for those with knowledge of English had led to a greater demand for English medium education and a corresponding decline for the vernacular. The Committee’s report highlighted the gap between the English educated versus those educated in the vernacular and strongly recommended the equality of treatment for all schools regardless of medium. To address the challenges for provision of education in the multiple dialects and languages spoken among the various communities, the report also suggested that “Mandarin should be the only language to be taught for all Chinese pupils as the compulsory second language in English Schools, and Tamil for all Indian children (or Hindi, or whatever language the Indian community chooses), and Malay for all Malaysian races. In the case of the Eurasian, since English is the mother tongue, the choice of the vernacular should be left to the parents” (1956: 40–41). Making this case, the Committee recommended: That at least two of the following languages, English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil should be the media of instruction in their respective schools, and that language teaching should be of the best possible standards, so that the future educational system of Singapore will produce students equally conversant in two, if not three of those languages. (1956: 11) The report also underscored the importance of official and/or compulsory languages for without these, “the ideal of unifying the various races into one people cannot be realised, and the links of common understanding, outlook and identity of interest, cannot be speedily forged” (1956: 9). English was recommended as the official language since it was already “a common language amongst the various races” (1956: 9). Given the commercial, industrial, and political value of English, the report encouraged the use of English to foster community integration, enhance employment opportunities, and access commercial possibilities in a globalising world. In comparison, Malay was suggested as an additional compulsory language given its regional importance, status in the Federation of Malaysia, and its role for communicating with neighbouring nations. The report formed the foundation of the race–language–culture nexus that continues to inform the current national system of education. The adoption of its recommendations formed part of the policy platform of the People’s Action Party (PAP) that earned a clear mandate in the first general elections in 1959. Subsequently, plans for the merger of Singapore and Malaya were announced. Articulating its programme and policy (in areas such as education, employment, housing, etc.), in the document The tasks ahead: P.A.P’s five-year plan 1959—1964, the PAP announced that the “recommendations of the 1955 all party report on Chinese education will be vigorously implemented” (1959: 10). It reiterated its commitment to the proposed suggestions: “That based on the four main languages of Mandarin, Malay, Tamil and English, primary education should be started in the language of the home, followed by English: in the case of those pupils who started with English, a choice may be given for the second language but restricted to one of the other three languages.That in the secondary (middle school) or post-primary stage, a third language would be introduced and continued for not less than two years” (The tasks ahead, part 2 1959: 3–4). 274

Language education policy in Singapore

The government’s commitment to multiracialism translated into equality of status for the three main ethnic communities: the Chinese, the Malay, and the Indians and representation of their languages in official policy. English was adopted as the official language and served as a neutral language of inter-ethnic communication. Malay was suggested as the National (and official) Language for compatibility with the Malayan education policy in view of the impending merger with the Federation of Malaysia. The expectation was that it would serve as the lingua franca as well as help connect with those across the Straits of Johore. Measures to encourage its use included teacher training, adult education classes, establishment of a National Language and Culture Institute for the development of Malay, and the creation of scholarships, among others (de Souza 1980: 209–210). However, after a brief period of merger with the Federation of Malaya from 1963 to 1965, Singapore separated to become an independent nation. Nevertheless, the language policy remained – more or less – the same. The Republic of Singapore Independence Act of 1965 (Government Gazette Acts 1965), highlighted that: (1) Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English shall be the four official languages in Singapore. (2) The national language shall be the Malay language and shall be in the Roman script: Provided that – (a) no person shall be prohibited or prevented from using or from teaching or learning any other language; and (b) nothing in this section shall prejudice the right of the Government to preserve and sustain the use and study of the language of any other community in Singapore.

2.2  Post-independence (1965) The urgent need for nation building after Singapore’s departure from Malaysia in 1965 established a policy that could accommodate the sensitivities and competing interests of an ethnically diverse population as well as facilitate the creation of an over-arching national identity.The government underscored its commitment for equal treatment to all languages via the policy of multilingualism rooted in the recommendations of the report by the All party committee on Chinese education, 1956. Mandarin, Malay,Tamil, and English continued as the four official languages and were given an equal footing in domains such as government administration, education, and the media.While Malay continued in its status of National Language in consideration of its regional position, the focus on the language became much diluted. This paralleled an inverse attention to English, an official language, given the economic imperative of national survival and need to participate on a global stage. “English is often seen as a world language, providing access to economic development and social mobility while other languages are … treated mainly as repositories of ancient knowledge or cultural heritage” (Wee 2003: 211). The need to balance the drive towards English while also maintaining a grasp on the ethnic languages resulted in the ideological creation of language functions that the government has regularly underscored over the years. PuruShotam (2000: 67) suggests that not only did the link between mother tongue and race become “even more institutionalised” but also became inextricably associated with specific cultures. At the same time, the political leadership recognised the need for a medium of communication to integrate a linguistically diverse population. An assessment of the advantages associated with English over other ethnic languages as well as its ethnic/racial neutrality led to its elevated status in the education policy of the new nation. Post-1965, bilingual education – understood 275

Ritu Jain and Lionel Wee

as English + one ethnic language – became compulsory. Students in the vernacular medium schools were required to learn English as their L2 while those in the English medium, the language of their ethnicity (Mandarin/Malay/Tamil). Despite the focus on dual language education, a gradual shift from the vernacular to English as medium of instruction continued.This was due to parental perceptions of the value of English as well as government initiatives that gave prominence to English language education. The growth in total school enrolment (from 61.4% in 1965 to 88% in 1978) in English stream schools is testimony of the demand for English language education. The enhanced focus on English was justified given its widespread use in public and official spheres but policy assumptions that English would remain confined within the public domain (of inter-ethnic communication, work, and technological development) and the mother tongues within the private domain (of cultural heritage and intra-ethnic community festivals and activities) respectively were proven erroneous with the irrevocable large-scale shift to English.

3  Policy and the modern nation The bilingual education policy of the new nation in 1965 was intended as an instrument to preserve as well as promote the cultural pluralism and multilingual make up of its population. However, even though the official ethnic languages were referred to as the ‘mother tongue’ languages in the education policy in reality they were not so for a majority of students. Kuo (1980: 43), pointing out that the term mother tongue “differs from the linguistic definition” of the first language acquired at home, highlights that “for probably over 80% of school children, none of the four official languages is the language they speak at home.” The requirement to study English as well as one’s official ethnic language resulted in the burden of having to learn two ‘second languages.’ The linguistic diversity prevalent at the time of the formation of independent Singapore is evident in the 1957 census, the first to include questions on mother tongue and language use in all four languages. Table 19.2, illustrating the languages most frequently spoken in the home, indicates that in 1957, of the overall population, 11.5% identified Malay, less than 0.01% identified Mandarin, and 5.2 % considered Tamil as the mother tongue. Among all communities, 1.8% considered English as their mother tongue. Census data of 1957 (Chua 1964) also details that within the specific communities, the Malays were the most homogeneous with nearly 85% considering Malay as their mother tongue while the rest identified Javanese, Boyanese, etc. However, among the Chinese, only 0.1%

Table 19.2 Languages most frequently spoken at home in Singapore

1957 1980 1990 2000 2010

English

Mandarin

Chinese dialects

Tamil

Malay

1.8% 11.6% 20.8% 23.0% 32.3%

0.01% 10.2% 23.7% 35.0% 35.6%

74.4% 59.5% 38.2% 23.8% 14.3%

5.2% 3.1% 3.0% 3.2% 3.3%

11.5% 13.9% 13.6% 14.1% 12.2%

Sources: Chua (1964); Lau (1993); Census (1980, 1990); Singapore Department of Statistics (2001); Wong (2011). T   he 1970 census does not enumerate languages commonly spoken.

276

Language education policy in Singapore

considered Mandarin as the mother tongue while 98.6% identified with dialects such as Hokkien,Teochew, etc. Among the Indians and Ceylonese, 59.4% identified Tamil as the mother tongue while Malayalam, Punjabi, etc., formed the mother tongues of the other Indians. The lack of correspondence between languages commonly used and official mother tongue languages, combined with disenchantment with the vernacular medium in comparison with education in English, hastened the decline of the vernacular streams. In fact, PuruShotam (2000: 67) attributes the ultimate redundancy of Chinese – and by extension, vernacular – medium schools to the bilingual policy, asking somewhat rhetorically “Why send your child to Chinese stream schools when the timetable of an English medium school ensured exposure to Chinese for up to forty per cent of the time a child spent in school?” Overall education standards and proficiency in languages continued to drop in the 1970s, illustrating weaknesses in the implementation of the language policy. Bokhorst-Heng (1998: 201) points to government concerns about lack of language proficiency among students who were struggling with the learning of both the ‘mother tongue’ as well as English. Much of the blame was attributed to the extensive use of Chinese dialects such as Hokkien, Cantonese, and Teochew in domains outside education. About 10% of those preparing to enter university had failed to demonstrate adequate competence in the first language at the “O” level and 23% in the second language. In 1978, the then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew personally commissioned an Education Study Team chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, Goh Keng Swee, to review the situation. The Report on the Ministry of Education 1978 (known as the Goh Report) identified ‘existing problems in the education system’: •• •• ••

education wastage; low literacy; and ineffective bilingualism.

Tracing many of these problems to the bilingual policy, the report highlighted the ‘unnaturalness’ of the status quo: “It has not occurred to many Singaporeans how unnatural the present school system is. Most school children are taught in two languages—English and Mandarin. 85% of them do not speak either of these languages at home” (Education Study Team 1979: 1-1). Among the Chinese, the dialects were identified as the main obstacles to academic success for these students had to deal with three languages (the dialect, Mandarin, and English). Changes were thus introduced in 1979. The commitment to bilingual education was retained but, in an effort to increase efficiency, the system allowed for multiple education tracks (through bilingual or monolingual streams) for staggered levels of second language competence and ability. The multiple streams of education allowed for students to progress at their own pace, recognising that “not everyone is academically inclined. It does not force bilingualism, the PSLE or the GCE ‘O’ Level course on those who cannot cope with them. Instead, it tries to seek ways of giving half a loaf when a whole loaf would choke” (Education Study Team 1979: 6–4). The ‘mother tongue’ was preserved as the L2 subject2 and remained racially defined: Mandarin for those identified as Chinese, Malay for the Malay, and Tamil for the Indians.

3.1  University education An issue of particular concern was the perception that Chinese-educated graduates were more likely to be paid lower than their English-educated counterparts because of the greater prestige and value accorded to English. In turn, the resentment felt by Chinese-educated graduates 277

Ritu Jain and Lionel Wee

strengthened a sense of commitment to the Chinese medium Nanyang University, established in 1956 by the Hokkien Huan Kuan association. Nanyang University was merged in 1980 with the English medium University of Singapore to form the National University of Singapore, partly due to the government’s desire to promote English as the country’s main working language as well as to avoid entrenching an income-based division arising from Chinese-educated graduates facing poorer employment prospects. This move was controversial because the Chinese-educated community feared it would undermine Chinese education and culture. It was also resented by the English-educated students, who complained that their educational progress would be hampered by the poor English of their Chinese-stream counterparts, leading Lee to remark that Chinese speakers would never have made such a complaint because of their stronger sense of community (Hill & Lian 1995: 201). Further enhancing the status of the mother tongue/L2 in 1981, the government introduced a mandatory pass in both English and the L2 for admission into the National University of Singapore after 1985/1986 (Gopinanthan 1994: 77). However, the standards of language competence required for university admissions have been relaxed since 1989 following the poor second language performance of the English medium students in the school-leaving ‘A’ Level examinations. While a pass in the L2 is no longer mandatory for admission into university, students are strongly encouraged to demonstrate a minimum level of competence in the L2 before they are allowed to graduate.

3.2  Deculturalisation concerns The large-scale movement to education in English evoked other concerns that were possible to address through the language policy. The Education Study Team indicated that education in a foreign tongue ran “the risk of losing the traditional values of one’s own people and the acquisition of the more spurious fashions of the west …, raising the spectre of deculturalisation. One way of overcoming the dangers of deculturalisation is to teach the historical origins of their culture” (Education Study Team 1979: 1–5). Bokhorst-Heng (1998: 212–213) suggests that the government felt the need of a “cultural ballast to ground them and protect” Singaporeans in face of the threat of English. The mother tongue was that ballast and the education system the mechanism of its delivery. The government embarked on a series of initiatives such as an annual Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC). Launched in 1979 to promote Mandarin among the Chinese, the campaign aimed to replace the use of dialects with a standard language. Government machinery, such as the Ministry of Education, the media, community associations, and interest groups, was harnessed to promote a switch from dialects to Mandarin Chinese. Other measures included the provision of a range of educational materials and free Mandarin classes, as well as decrees forbidding dialects and promoting Mandarin. Civil servants in positions requiring interaction with the public and those employed in public and retail services were required to demonstrate proficiency in Mandarin and discouraged from using dialects. The rationale used was that such a shift would contribute to a reduction in the academic burden on students who would no longer be distracted by dialects. Chinese students enrolled in English medium schools would be at a reduced risk of losing the Chinese culture to a Western one. Among the larger community, Mandarin would serve to unify the community fragmented into various clan and dialect groups and form the common language – the absence of which would otherwise be filled by the contender, English.These campaigns, spearheaded by the Speak Mandarin Campaign Secretariat under the Ministry of Information and the Arts, continue to this day to encourage the use of Mandarin in both public and private domains. 278

Language education policy in Singapore

Nonetheless, enrolment in Chinese medium schools continued to fall and by 1983, they attracted less than 1% of the total enrolment at Primary one level. The Ministry of Education announced the adoption of a single national stream by which all schools would offer English as a first language (EL1) and the medium of instruction by 1987 and either Tamil (TL2), Malay (ML2), or Chinese (CL2) as a second language (Soon 1988). Since Malay and Tamil medium schools had already closed (in 1979 and 1982 respectively (Wong 2000)) due to lack of enrolment, the move only affected the remaining Chinese medium schools. Consequently, the government faced strong criticism from sections of the Chinese community who saw the move as threatening the stature and position of the Chinese languages. In an effort to reassure the Chinese and “to preserve the ethos of the Chinese medium schools and to promote the learning of Chinese Language and culture” (Ministry of Education Press Release February 11, 2008), the government reiterated its commitment to bilingualism but refused to give in to demands for dominance of Chinese in education. It did however invest in a new series of Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools from 1979 onwards to offer education in Chinese and English at first language level to exceptional students demonstrating advanced academic and language ability. Further elevating the status of Chinese education, the government announced the conversion of some primary schools to ‘seed schools’ in 1984 that would offer the Chinese language as L1. In 1986, the top scoring Malay and Tamil students were also allowed to opt for their languages at a higher level (Higher Mother Tongue Language) in secondary schools.These measures aimed to “give pupils more flexibility in the study of two languages and thus help to produce a greater number of effectively bilingual pupils in the future” (MOE website).

4  Issues and debates 4.1  Language shift The current linguistic landscape is testimony to successful planning and implementation over the years. In particular, language campaigns have been instrumental in minimising linguistic diversity among the Chinese and, to an extent, the Malay communities. Notwithstanding the success, language engineering has indirectly contributed to some of the issues and challenges facing language planning. The declining numbers of Tamil speakers among the Indians, the large-scale shift to English among all ethnic groups, and the emergence of a spoken vernacular English (variously referred to as Colloquial Singapore English or Singlish), are either direct or indirect consequences of language planning as the subsequent discussion on language campaigns illustrates. The education policy has successfully engineered relative linguistic homogeneity among the main ethnic groups (Table 19.3). However, among the three ethnic groups, only Malay can claim natural predominance given that it has served as a lingua franca over the years not only among the Malays but also among the general population (48% of the overall population were proficient in in the non-standard form of Bazaar Malay in 1957, according to Kuo 1980). Data indicate that where 97% of the Malays considered Malay as the principal language of the home in 1980, the numbers have declined to 83% in 2010. The decline in the use of Malay among the non-Malay communities may be attributed to the loss of status and function of the language but among the Malays is escalated by a shift to English given the increasingly prominent role the latter has been given by the language policy. This is evident in the overall ascendance of English from 1.8% in 1957 to 32.3% 279

Ritu Jain and Lionel Wee Table 19.3 Predominant household languages by ethnic groups 1980–2010 Ethnic group

Language

1980*

1990*

2000

2010

Chinese

English Mandarin Chinese dialects English Malay English Tamil Malay Other Indian languages

10.2 13.1 76.2 2.3 96.7 24.3 52.2 8.6 14.9

21.4 30.0 48.2 5.7 94.1 34.3 43.5 14.1 8.1

23.9 45.1 30.7 7.9 91.6 35.6 42.9 11.6 9.9

32.6 47.7 19.2 17.0 82.7 41.6 36.7 7.9 13.8

Malays Indians

Sources: *Lau (1993); Singapore Department of Statistics (2001); Wong (2011).

in 2010 (Table 19.2) as well as in its unrelenting gain across the three communities with 33% of the Chinese, 17% of the Malays, and 42% of the Indians (Table 19.3) preferring it as the main language of communication. Among the Chinese, the radical language shifts demonstrate the artificiality of the linguistic identity associated with the ethnic group as well as success of governmental language campaigns in engineering this. While less than 1% spoke Mandarin at the time of independence in 1965, census data indicate that 48% of the Chinese reported Mandarin as the predominant household language in 2010. Correspondingly, while Chinese dialects continue to be spoken in certain segments of society today, the 2010 census suggests a drop in dialect speakers to 19% among the Chinese in comparison with 97% in 1957 (Chua 1964). Among the Indians, the shift to English is the most marked with 42% using it predominantly at home in 2010. Tamil, the official language of the community, used by nearly 60% of the Indian population in 1957, is today the common household language only among 37% of the Indians. Other Indian languages such as Malayalam, Hindi, and Punjabi (as discussed above) count among the 13.8% other languages commonly used.

4.2  Campaigns and consequences However, in an expansion of its earlier argument for the mother tongue as a buffer against the erosion of ethnic identities and culture, the government began to highlight the economic value of learning Mandarin in light of the economic rise of China in the mid-1980s. This appeal to the utilitarian value of Mandarin education further encouraged the use of and enhanced the status of the language among both the Chinese and non-Chinese.To allay fears about the prominence given to Mandarin, and to underscore its commitment to multiracialism, the government has made an effort to promote the languages of the Malay and Indian communities as well. This latter move has met with limited success given that arguments about the economic value of learning Malay and Tamil are much harder to make (Wee 2003). Currently, the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) and the Language Councils Secretariat supports the various community language councils as well as overseeing the development and execution of the various language campaigns: the Promote Mandarin Council, the Tamil Language Council, the Malay Language Council, as well as the Speak Good English Movement. 280

Language education policy in Singapore

The Malay Language Council, constituted in 1981, promotes the use and appreciation of the Malay language. Nonetheless, despite initiatives such as allowing Malay to be an optional third language in the education system, the language is increasingly becoming confined to the Malay community as the younger non-Malays find little incentive in taking it up. Similarly, the Tamil Language Movement promoted by the Tamil Language Council (formed in 2001) aims to foster the use of Tamil among the Indians. Other than social initiatives such as the annual Tamil Language Festival, the government also invests in the teaching and learning of the language in schools. Across all communities, language standardisation has been considered imperative to ensure the promotion of the ‘acceptable’ form of the languages, and has influenced the choice of the variety among the various communities. In this regard, there are two major issues that the current language education policy faces. The first concerns the teaching of English and the second the notion of a single official mother tongue for an ethnic community. We first discuss the teaching of English.

4.3  English language teaching Not surprisingly, in the early days of Singapore’s history, British English was treated as the reference (Chew 2005: 4). This meant that mastery of English was understood exonormatively as the ability to approximate, if not reproduce, the speech and writing associated with the British English. Even up until the 1980s, the policy was that “the English taught in Singapore should be British Standard English with an RP accent” (Gupta 2010: 57). In the 1990s, however, the popularity of Singlish, the colloquial and nativised variety of English, alarmed the government, who felt that it was threatening the ability of Singaporeans to learn good/proper/standard English despite the fact that there is no evidence to suggest that acquisition of a non-standard variety in any way impedes the acquisition of Standard English (Siegel 1999). Moreover, as Kirkpatrick (2010: 33) points out, the adoption of a local variety of English is actually the result of the “successful adoption of English as the major language of the majority of Singaporeans.” English, especially in its colloquial form, now fulfils for many Singaporeans the identity function that is supposedly the province of the official mother tongues. Rubdy (2001: 347) therefore suggests that Singlish is likely to flourish, despite the official attempts at discouraging its use: … the willingness of the population to defend and stick to Singlish is remarkable, especially so in the light of the government’s stern rejection of this speech variety… and observes that there is considerable pride in Singlish, with many Singaporeans seeing it as ‘an icon of national identity.’ For many Singaporeans, Singlish is valuable as a national identity marker that can help foster a sense of unity across ethnic and class divides. Nevertheless, the government in 2000 decided to launch the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) in order to promote Standard English and discourage the use of Singlish. As Gupta (2010: 58) points out: … the SGEM was promoting a narrow concept of Standard English, which did not allow for anything local, or informal, rejecting even words that had been unproblematically accepted since the 1980s … Once again, Singaporeans are being told to look overseas for correction of their English, and are being given advice that is often based on the strictest possible concept of correctness. Even the notion that a Singaporean accent is wrong has been resurrected. 281

Ritu Jain and Lionel Wee

Thus, in addition to the misplaced concerns about the supposedly deleterious effects on Singlish on the learning of Standard English, the tendency towards exonormativity is also problematic in that as a global language, English is constantly changing and shifting so that ownership of the language no longer resides with its traditional native speakers (Widdowson 1994). Moreover, the educational focus of English language teaching needs to be on the ability to negotiate such changes and shifts in norms across different contexts and with regard to different communicative demands rather than steadfast adherence to an idealised norm.

4.4  Intra-ethnic heterogeneity: the Indians Concerning the notion of a single mother tongue, we can illustrate the issues involved by looking at the Indians in Singapore.The decline among users of Tamil can be attributed to two main causes: the diglossic nature of the Tamil language and the increasing linguistic heterogeneity of the Indian community resulting from large-scale immigration. Discussing the former, Schiffman (1998, 2003) highlights the extreme divergence between Literary Tamil (LT) used by the educated and Spoken Tamil (ST), a low variety that is not comprehensible to those who use the LT. Nonetheless, Schiffman (2003: 106) argues that guardians of Tamil education almost always insist on the literary, formal variety that bears little communicative value, and shun the popular, spoken variety as corrupted and ‘ungrammatical.’ Therefore, support for the institutional variety does not translate into language use among young learners who even otherwise see little value in the language in comparison with English. Given that many students of Tamil come from Telugu or Malayalam language backgrounds, the insistence on the LT in education and the media further deters informal use of the language. Discussing the implication of linguistic heterogeneity for the status of Tamil among the Indians, Jain and Wee (2015: 75) highlight: While Malay served as the common language in the past (Kuo 1980, 51), the immigration of educated and upwardly mobile Indians has led to a shift to English as the lingua franca. Among the newer diaspora, Tamil holds neither an instrumental value (that Mandarin does among the Chinese) nor serves an integrative function (served by Malay among the Malay people). Acknowledging that this diversity was contributing to the academic underperformance among the non-Tamil Indian students, and responding to community appeals, the government has since 1990, agreed to accept candidature in the Hindi, Punjabi, Gujerati, Urdu, and Bengali languages at second language level for the O-level examinations and since 1994 for the PSLE. The five languages have been made examinable at all terminal exams but the government stops short of offering any institutional or pedagogical support. Instruction is organised by the various community groups, who hold classes, employ teachers, design curriculum, and set assessments. The Board for the Teaching & Testing of South Asian Languages (BTTSAL) oversees the delivery of non-Tamil Indian languages instruction by these community groups and standardises all examinations other than those at the national levels. The popularity of these options is evident in the 8,913 students who were examined in the five languages (from years ones–11) in 2016 ( Jain & Wee 2018).

282

Language education policy in Singapore Table 19.4 Number of students annually examined in non-Tamil Indian languages Languages

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

Hindi Bengali Urdu Gujarati Punjabi

3581 629 311 154 1111

3880 691 311 144 1031

4432 759 322 142 958

5052 840 329 129 869

5875 925 318 120 836

6466 1011 325 108 758

Source: office of the BTTSAL.

5  Future of languages in Singapore An evaluation of the historic and current trends of the various languages suggests a continuation of the diverse trajectories.The linguistic homogeneity that has engineered Malay and Mandarin as the representative community languages for the Malays and the Chinese is expected to remain undisturbed so long as the policy maintains the status quo. Among the Chinese, a continual slide in the use of dialects and the dominance of Mandarin can be confidently predicted given the push factors such as the government’s continual campaigns as well as its incentives in education. Additionally, the economic position of China and the robust demand for Mandarin will continue to attract both the Chinese as well as those from other ethnicities (who may obtain dispensation to study Mandarin) to the language. Similarly, the position of Malay is expected to remain secure given its national and regional stature but as among the other communities, a shift to English is equally certain. Among the Indian community, the future of the languages is less easy to anticipate. While subsequent generations of Singapore-born Tamilians are expected to maintain Tamil, the influx of Indian immigrants from India and elsewhere is likely to continue to weaken its linguistic dominance. Among the other Indian languages accepted by the government, the stature of Hindi as an institutional language is bound to grow given the attraction of its national status in India to an increasing number of transmigrants with uncertain future plans. The institutional vitality of the other Indian languages will probably diminish given the trend illustrated by Table 19.4. Of these, Punjabi is most likely to endure given the history of community effort in maintaining the language in education, religion, and in the community. Bengali and Urdu, attractive to students from India as well as Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively, can be expected to thrive in small numbers. The language with the lowest enrolment, Gujarati, will in all likelihood dwindle further to become a place-holder in the education system. Given the demand for the English-educated in the workforce and the role of the language globally, the shift to English can safely be expected to escalate across the population. However, there is no sign that Singlish is decreasing in popularity. On the contrary, a nascent but burgeoning local film industry and other cultural activities provide domestic and international markets for cultural products where the use of Singlish and other local languages such as the various Chinese dialects are considered valuable markers of cultural authenticity (Wee 2013). The government therefore has to come to terms with the fact that Singlish is in all likelihood here to stay.

283

Ritu Jain and Lionel Wee

Finally, given the nation’s reliance on immigrants as well as its robust ‘non-resident’ population (population other than citizens and permanent residents) the proportion of local born Singaporeans is likely to reduce as that of immigrants increases. The acuity with which the government anticipates and accommodates the needs of the diverse population and the nimbleness of its responses to the shifting societal landscape will determine the success or limitation of its future plans.

Notes 1 Dept of Statistics, Singapore: http:​//www​.sing​stat.​gov.s​g/sta​tisti​cs/la​test-​data#​14 (last accessed December 13, 2015). 2 In the Singapore context, the L1 (English) refers to the first language at school while the mother tongue carries the status of the second school language.

References Arumainathan, P. (1973). Report on the census of population 1970, Singapore. Singapore: Department of Statistics. Bokhorst-Heng,W. (1998). Language and imagining the nation in Singapore. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Chew, P. (2005). Change and continuity: English language teaching in Singapore. Asian EFL Journal, 7(1). Available from: http:​//www​.asia​n-efl​-jour​nal.c​om/ma​rch_0​5_ pc.php Chew, S. K. (1956). Report of the all-party committee of the Singapore Legislative Assembly on Chinese education. Singapore. Chua, S. C. (1964). Report on the census of population 1957. Singapore. (Tables 39, 40, 41). Singapore: Department of Statistics. de Souza, D. (1980). The politics of language: Language planning in Singapore. In E. Afendras & E. Kuo (Eds.), Language and society in Singapore (pp. 203–232). Singapore: Singapore University Press. Education Study Team. (1979). Report on the Ministry of Education, 1978. Singapore: Ministry of Education. Gupta, A. F. (2010). Singapore Standard English revisited. In L. Lim, A. Pakir & L. Wee (Eds.), English in Singapore: Modernity and management (pp. 57–90). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Jain, R., & Wee, L. (2015). Multilingual education in Singapore: Beyond language communities? In A. Yiakoumetti (Ed.), Multilingualism and language in education: Sociolinguistic and pedagogical perspectives from Commonwealth countries (pp. 67–85). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jain, R., & Wee, L. (2018). Cartographic mismatches and language policy: The case of Hindi in Singapore. Language Policy, 17(1), 99–118. Khoo, C. K. (1981). Census of population 1980 Singapore. Languages spoken at home. Release no. 8. Singapore: Department of Statistics. Kirkpatrick, A. (2010). English as a lingua franca in ASEAN. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Kuo, E. (1980).The sociolinguistic situation in Singapore: Unity in diversity. In E. Afendras & E. Kuo (Eds.), Language and society in Singapore (pp. 39–62). Singapore: Singapore University Press. Lau, K. E. (1993). Singapore census of population 1990: literacy, languages spoken and education. Statistical Release 3. Singapore: Department of Statistics Ministry of Education. Language programmes in secondary school. Retrieved July 17, 2016 from https​://www. moe​.gov.​sg/ed​ucati​on/se​conda​ry/la​nguag​e-pro​gramm​es. People’s Action Party. (1959). The tasks ahead: PAP’s five-year plan, 1959–1964. Singapore: Petir. PuruShotam, N. (2000). Negotiating multiculturalism: Disciplining difference in Singapore. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Republic of Singapore Independence Act. (1965). Singapore Government Gazette. Acts Supplement. No. 2, December 28, 1965 (pp. 99–100). Rubdy, R. (2001). Creative destruction: Singapore’s Speak Good English Movement. World Englishes, 20, 341–355. Schiffman, H. F. (1998) Standardization or restandardization: The case for ‘Standard’ spoken Tamil. Language in Society, 27, 359–385.

284

Language education policy in Singapore Schiffman, H. (2002) Tongue-tied in Singapore: A language policy of Tamil? Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 2(2), 105–125. Siegel, J. (1999). Stigmatised and standardised varieties in the classroom: Interference or separation. TESOL Quarterly, 33(4), 701–728. Silver, R. E. (2002). Policies on English language education and economic development. In R. E. Silver, G. Hu & M. Iino (Eds.), English language education in China, Japan and Singapore (pp. 101–169). Singapore: National Institute of Education. Singapore Department of Statistics. (2001). Census of population, 2000—statistical release 2: Education, language and religion. Retrieved January 10, 2016 from http:​//www​.sing​stat.​gov.s​g/pub​licat​ions/​publi​catio​ns-an​ d-pap​ers/c​op200​0/cop​2000r​2 Soon, T. W. (1988). Singapore’s new education system: Education reform for national development. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Wee, L. (2013). The evolution of Singlish: Migration and commodification. Paper presented at the 14th Malaysia-Singapore Forum, University of Malaya, December 9–10, 2013. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Widdowson, H. (1994). The ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 28(2), 377–389. Wong, A. K. (2000). Report of the committee on compulsory education in Singapore. Singapore: Ministry of Education. Wong, W. K. (2011). Census of population 2010. Singapore: Department of Statistics.

Further reading Hill, M., & Kwen Fee, L. (1995). The politics of nation-building and citizenship in Singapore. London: Routledge. Lim, L. (2009). Beyond fear and loathing in SG: The real mother tongues and language policies in multilingual Singapore. AILA Review, 22, 52–71. Pakir, A. (2000). Singapore. In Wah Kum Ho & R. Wong (Eds.), Language policies and language education:The impact on East Asian countries in the next decade (pp. 259–284). Singapore: Times Academic Press. Saravanan, V. (1994). Language and social identity amongst Tamil-English bilinguals in Singapore. In R. Khoo, U. Kreher & R. Wong (Eds.), Languages in contact in a multilingual society (pp. 79–93). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Wee, L. (2014). Language politics and global city. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 35, 649–660. doi: 10.1080/01596306.2014.922740.

285

20 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN INDONESIA A struggle for unity in diversity Michelle Kohler

1 Background Indonesia is home to one of the most multilingual and diverse linguistic ecologies in the world with estimates that there are over 700 living languages throughout the archipelago (Lewis, Simons & Fennig, 2013). This complex linguistic profile, comprised mainly of languages of the Austronesian family, West Papuan and indigenous languages of Eastern Indonesia, has and is undergoing change that presents both possibilities and challenges for language education policy. In attempting to understand language education policy in Indonesia, it is crucial to take account of the historical, political and social context, and the ideologies at work in shaping the nation and its place in the region and the world. Since before the proclamation of the nation now known as ‘Indonesia,’ the islands of the archipelago have been home to vibrant communities who interact with each other and foreigners for trade and intermarriage. The earliest evidence of the use of Malay, written in the Brahmi script from India, is in Sumatra where from around 680AD it was adopted as the language of the law and military in the great south Sumatran Srivijayan Empire. Malay was used as the language of court and also for trade in the Malacca region where it became the common vernacular. Towards the end of the empire and with the arrival of Arabic traders around the 14th century, a modified form of Arabic script known as Jawi was adopted for trading purposes. Ultimately this was replaced with the Roman alphabet brought by Europeans.The arrival of the Dutch in the archipelago ushered in an era of colonial rule that was to last approximately 350 years and which laid the foundations for what was to become the national language, Bahasa Indonesia (literally, the language of Indonesia). Bahasa Indonesia is not the primary language of socialisation for the majority of Indonesians. In fact, it has been suggested that around one-third of the population do not use it as either a first or second language (Lamb & Coleman, 2008). Many Indonesians have complex linguistic repertoires, moving between a number of languages through code-switching and/or translanguaging (Garcia & Li Wei, 2015). Ustumi (2012) critiques the notion that there are only two types of languages, the national and regional languages. She argues that this is an ideological construct that reduces diverse languages to the single category of ‘other than Indonesian.’ Instead she suggests the terms ‘ethnic languages’ for those associated with particular ethnic groups, ‘regional varieties of Indonesian’ or ‘local colloquial varieties of Indonesian’ for those 286

Language education policy in Indonesia

that are not ethnically aligned, and ‘regional common language’ for a language shared across ethnic groups (Utsumi, 2012). This set of terms offers a more nuanced representation of the linguistic environment that can accommodate highly diverse and vibrant languages such as the 12 languages on the small island of Alor in East Nusa Tenggara (Shiohara, 2012) as well as major languages such as Javanese with an estimated 84.3 million speakers (Lewis et al., 2013) but which is under some threat from both Indonesian and English (Cohn & Ravindranath, 2014). For the purpose of this chapter, however, the umbrella term ‘local language’ will be used as this is most closely related to the terminology used in language education policies. The opening up of Indonesia economically, politically and culturally during the late 1990s led to a range of external influences that impacted significantly on the language ecology. The influx of film and television programmes, particularly from the US and UK (Sen & Hill, 2000), introduced English on a large scale, and its association with the international, modern world became popular particularly amongst business people and youth. Simultaneously, the notion that Indonesian was the sole, unifying language of the nation, was increasingly contested, particularly as laws enabled decentralisation.While local languages have generally remained in use in private spheres in rural areas, this has not been the case in public. Yet, with greater regional autonomy, ethnic diversity and local languages are featuring more prominently in contemporary media such as film and television (Goebel, 2008, 2015). In some cases, local languages are undergoing revitalisation with more frequent use in official arenas such as political campaigns and public signage (see for example, Goebel, Jukes & Morin, 2017, and Morin, 2016). This trend reflects an increased status and symbolic value associated with some local languages as a marker of ethnic identity and/or affiliation with a particular group. Globalisation has also brought technological change and the increasingly affluent population of Indonesia has invested massively, nationally and individually, in information and communication technologies. These changes have brought substantial challenges to the maintenance of the national language as terms, predominantly in English, related to technological products and practices are rapidly integrated into daily communication practices (Muziatun, 2016). Not only is English increasingly present but also the official, standardised form of Indonesian, Bahasa baku, is increasingly under threat from the everyday, mainly spoken, hybrid forms of language use especially among urban youth. Indeed, van der Putten argues that the increasing ‘urban’ form of Indonesian is a “serious competitor to the standard variety for dominance of nation-wide communication” (van der Putten, 2012: 263). The languages of Indonesia, their histories, ideologies and dynamic nature and users present a complex and vital challenge for language education policy. It is to this that the discussion now turns, beginning with a historical perspective.

2  Language education policies 2.1  From pre-colonial to modern times Language education policy in Indonesia dates back to pre-colonial times when the distinctive geography of the archipelago and its rich natural resources turned the islands into a hub of commercial and trade activity. For many centuries prior to the arrival of Europeans, monks and missionaries of the great Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms of Majapahit and Sriwijaya provided religious teachings in Sanskrit. The arrival of Arab traders, followed later by Islamic scholars and missionaries during the 14th and 15th centuries, led to pesantren (Islamic schools) where Arabic was used to study the Qur’an. A century later the arrival of Portuguese traders brought 287

Michelle Kohler

Christianity that was spread through churches, particularly in the outer islands. Jayakarta (modern day Jakarta) was a major trading base where various ethnic groups established ethnically based settlements and educational centres. One of the earliest known language education initiatives occurred around 1775 when the Chinese community founded Gie Oh schools with the initial aim of educating children through a number of dialects, not only their own but those of other immigrant communities (Kitamura, 2012). These community schools laid the foundation for a more organised Chinese Association (Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan, THHK), which founded a THHK school that offered primary and junior secondary curriculum in Mandarin. These schools proved highly popular until 1966 when a law was passed preventing foreign schools and eventually the schools closed (Tsuda, 2012). At least in pre-colonial times, there was some recognition and use of diverse languages within the community in the education that was available to some groups, but this was to change dramatically. In the initial period of colonisation, the principle interest of the Dutch in the archipelago, known as the Dutch East Indies after conquest, was a commercial one. The Dutch East India Company or VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie), focused on resource extraction, trade and taxation rather than on settlement and cultural imperialism.The occupiers had little concern for educating the masses, as it was not deemed commercially necessary, hence education largely remained the purview of local religious schools. Over time, the Dutch began to recognise that their trade and commerce would benefit from local knowledge and improved communication hence a small group of priyayi (nobles) was educated in European-style schooling that included learning Dutch, a requirement for tertiary education. As the VOC headed towards bankruptcy, a second phase of colonial rule began with the Dutch government taking control and enacting the Ethical Policy through which they established social institutions such as schools. Towards the end of the 19th century, education was offered more widely (albeit not widespread due to concerns that it might lead to anti-colonial sentiment) with Malay being the primary medium of instruction and Dutch being a subject (Kirkpatrick & Liddicoat, 2017). Despite centuries of occupation, Dutch never became a lingua franca or a medium of instruction in education even once it was more widely available and instead a very different language policy and education environment emerged. At the start of the 20th century, there was growing nationalism in the Dutch East Indies. In October 1928 at a nationalist youth congress meeting, the Sumpah Pemuda (youth pledge) was made that included a commitment to a national, unifying language, Bahasa Indonesia. The language was based on a form of Malay used in an ancient Islamic-based court culture.Through maritime trade routes and practices, this form of Malay had spread throughout the Malay Peninsula and across islands in South East Asia between the 13th and 16th centuries, becoming a common vernacular amongst locals. When the nationalists were considering which language should be a lingua franca to unify the people, this form of Malay was chosen, as it was not associated with any particular ethnic group or colonial rulers. The language was considered to be more in keeping with the movement’s values of equality and democracy than a local language such as Javanese that is overtly hierarchical (Bernard, 2003). Bahasa Indonesia gained even greater prominence and status during World War II when the Japanese invaded and occupied the country (1942–1945). The Japanese banned any use of Dutch and believed that having an ‘Asian’ language (Chinese and indigenous languages were also permitted) as the language of education would help create a sense of ‘Asian’ identity among the populace and thereby strengthen support for the occupation. The plan backfired and the locals used the language to hold nationalist meetings and prepare a campaign for independence. With the proclamation of independence in 1945, announced in Bahasa Indonesia, the language became the official language of the fledgling nation. Indonesian, therefore, has deep historical 288

Language education policy in Indonesia

and symbolic value for Indonesians as the language of national unity, modernity and independence from the colonial masters. Following independence, as nation building began in earnest, Indonesian played a crucial role as an integrative language being used for all government administration, business, media and as the official medium of instruction in all schools (with many schools continuing to use local languages also). In the subsequent decades, the language was a primary means of communicating decisions and propaganda from the central administration to the outer islands. The language was considered essential to the unity of Indonesia and therefore was to be standardised, modernised and ‘safe-guarded.’ Spelling reforms were undertaken in 1972 and in 1975, building on a number of previous bodies, an official centre (Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa or Pusat Bahasa) (the Centre for Development of the Language) was established. Non-standard forms, such as ‘prokem’ the street language used among the lower classes in Jakarta in the 1960s, and bahasa gaul, a cool, slang language used among middle class youth in the 1980s and 1990s to distinguish themselves from older generations and New Order ideology, were actively discouraged. Schools were the principal mechanism through which the standard form of the national language (Bahasa baku) could be promulgated, however it was not only Indonesian that was to feature in language education policies.

2.2  The place of specific languages in education 2.2.1 Indonesian As noted earlier, Indonesian was introduced as the primary medium of instruction in education during the 1940s and this remains the policy today. It is compulsory for all students, primary through to senior secondary, to study Indonesian as a subject and sit the annual, national examinations. It is also a requirement for entrance into university and the medium of instruction in the majority of higher education institutions. In some highly urbanised areas, although it is difficult to determine exact figures, Indonesian is replacing ‘local’ languages as the primary language of socialisation with many middle-class children coming to school with oracy and some literacy in the language. This is not typically the case, however, in remote areas where children develop oracy and literacy in Indonesian for the first time at school. This means that in some areas, while Indonesian is the official language of instruction at school, local languages may be used as a mediating resource. This is a dynamic situation however and while there are a small number of local languages gaining legitimacy in education (Moriyama, 2012) in some remote areas they are being displaced by more powerful and prestigious languages, most notably Indonesian (Utsumi, 2012).

2.2.2  Local languages Until the mid-20th century, local languages were part of the education landscape, with some languages used as a medium of instruction in the early years of schooling (Nababan 1991). This changed during the mid-1970s when the emphasis on Indonesian as the sole medium of instruction intensified and schools were required to only use the standardised form of Indonesian. In 1998, the Asian Monetary Crisis (Krismon) and the eventual fall of Suharto gave rise to a period of reform (Reformasi) and a move towards regionalisation. In 1999, the Habibie administration introduced the Undang-Undang Republik Indonesia No. 22/1999 tentang Pemerintahan Daerah (Regional Administration Law, No. 22/1999) (Republik Indonesia, 1999) that devolved various administrative and fiscal powers to local authorities. This law gave greater autonomy to 289

Michelle Kohler

regional governments and, for some, led to change in their language policies. One such case was in West Java where the local government introduced Law No. 5/2003 Maintenance of Regional language, literature and writing system. They claimed that Sundanese was essential for maintaining ‘diversity’ and protecting the identity of the Sundanese people (Moriyama, 2012). Previously Sundanese had largely been confined to private spaces in rural areas and although it had been prescribed as a local content subject in primary schools, it was not widely or consistently taught. The 2003 law promoted the use of the language in a range of public spheres including education. Furthermore, the new national curriculum released in 2003 included two decisions that impacted on local languages in education. Firstly, there was a directive that required all schools to include ‘local content subjects’ (muatan lokal) enabling regional education authorities to decide whether to choose a local language as the preferred ‘local content.’The second was that primary schools could use a local language as a medium of instruction in the first two years where necessary to enable comprehension. Under these changes, Sundanese in West Java became a required local content subject for all primary and junior secondary schools. This situation changed again only one year later with the introduction of a new, competitive-based curriculum. The 2004 national Kurikulum Berbasis Kompetency (Competency-based curriculum) made the study of local languages compulsory at junior secondary level. Languages such as Sundanese and Javanese (Quinn, 2012) became core subjects within the junior secondary curriculum. This was expanded further in 2006 with the introduction of yet another curriculum, Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (Education Unit Level Curriculum), that required local languages to be taught as a ‘local content subject’ at every level of schooling. Under this curriculum, a standardised form of Sundanese became a mandatory ‘local content subject’ from kindergarten to senior secondary in all public and Islamic schools throughout West Java, being taught for two 45-minute lessons per week from first grade in some areas (Moriyama, 2012). The curriculum changes were also accompanied by major efforts to develop suitable teaching and assessment materials for Sundanese in order to support its effective implementation. This local language has therefore gained substantially in legitimacy and has to some degree been integrated into mainstream schooling. Smaller local languages such as Buginese, with approximately five million speakers, have made some in-roads and are currently taught in approximately 11 of the 24 regencies in the province (Paki, 2018). Also in South Sulawesi, Makassarese, with approximately two million speakers, is taught as a medium of instruction in schools in Makassar city and offered as a local content subject in primary and secondary schools in surrounding areas where students have a range of first language backgrounds. In Bali, an initiative known as the ‘Balinese language day’ was recently announced in the Badung regency, requiring Balinese to be used in government offices and schools every Friday (“Canangkan ‘dina Mabasa Bali’ tiap Jumat,” 2016). Thus, a handful of local languages, typically those with substantial communities of speakers across provinces, have gained status in formal education in recent years. Most local languages, however, remain in a marginal position with many, particularly those with smaller communities, having little to no presence and with suggestions that the local content subject requirement has largely promoted English at the expense of local languages due to demand from the community, employers and governments (Lamb & Coleman, 2008).

2.2.3 English The teaching of English in Indonesian education started in the university sector with the establishment of an English language programme at Universitas Nasional Jakarta in 1949. The preference for English was largely an ideological one (Kirkpatrick, 2006) as initially English was not associated with former colonisers and later Suharto was strongly aligned with the West 290

Language education policy in Indonesia

and regarded English as necessary for strong economic ties. In fact, the support for English during Suharto’s Presidency was so strong that English departments grew from 15 to 106 (Candraningrum, 2008). Other languages such as Arabic, Chinese, French and Japanese were available in a small number of institutions, often with a special purposes focus, e.g. Arabic for Koranic studies and Islamic Law (Kirkpatrick & Liddicoat, 2017). During 2000, English gained greater prominence in the new curriculum for higher education as one of a number of ‘personality development’ subjects, along with others such as Indonesian, Philosophy and Sport (Republik Indonesia, 2000). English is considered essential for global interaction as part of the agenda to internationalise the higher education sector. In addition, a limited number of prestigious tertiary institutions offer studies in other foreign languages, mainly with a literature focus, such as Chinese, Japanese, French, German and Korean. In terms of schooling, English was only introduced in 1967, almost two decades after its inclusion at tertiary level, as prior to this the emphasis was on increasing literacy in the national language. English was initially offered in secondary schools as a foreign language along with Dutch, French and German. In 1989, English became the preferred foreign language to be taught when Law No. 2/1989 (Republik Indonesia, 1989) was introduced (Nababan 1991; Candraningrum 2008). An attempt was then made in Law No. 20/2003 (Republik Indonesia, 2003) to allow more choice (as English was no longer specified) and other languages such as Chinese and Arabic gained some traction in private schools, however by this time English had a firm foothold (Kirkpatrick & Liddicoat, 2017). In primary school education in Indonesia, English has been a relative latecomer, being introduced into the national curriculum in 1990. Its inclusion at primary level was in part an attempt to improve learning outcomes at the secondary level as performance on national examinations for English have long been regarded as poor (Dardjowidjojo, 1998, 2000; Mistar, 2005; Sadtono, 2007). It was permissible for English to be used for instruction from grade 4 in specific areas such as science and many primary schools took the opportunity to offer English in this way. The numbers of schools and programme duration increased with a decree by the Ministry of Education and Culture in 1993 that allowed English to be a ‘local content subject.’Within a few years, and despite limited resources and teachers, English was a preferred local content subject in the majority of schools, often replacing local languages in the process (Hadisantosa, 2010; Kasihani, 2000). With increasing pressure for schools to prepare students for the global workplace, Rintisan Sekolah Bertaraf Internasional (International standard schools) were introduced in 2003 (Haryanto, 2012; Republik Indonesia, 2003).These schools were required to use English as the sole medium of instruction and follow curricula and textbooks from countries such as the US, UK and Australia (Sugiharto, 2015). ‘International schools’ rapidly developed a reputation for privileging the wealthy (Coleman, 2011) and in 2013 the programme was deemed discriminatory by the Constitutional Court and stopped (although some private schools continue to brand themselves as ‘international standard’) (Siregar, 2016). The 2004 Kurikulum Berbasis Kompetensi (Competency-based curriculum) declared a dual purpose for English as the language for international interaction and a means for developing respect for cultural diversity.This curriculum had barely commenced when in 2006, Law No. 22 was passed mandating that English be taught as a local content subject, having two 35-minute classes per week in primary school, under the new Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (Education Unit Level Curriculum) (Departemen Pendidikan Nasional [Ministry of National Education], 2006). The new law clarified the place of English, however it did little to assist its implementation as it set out national standards but, being a ‘local content subject’, had no curriculum or teaching materials and instead, due to decentralisation, schools were expected to 291

Michelle Kohler

develop these locally. With many teachers having limited English language proficiency, qualifications and curriculum expertise, combined with the low priority on local content subjects as they do not articulate with high school subjects nor have national examinations, the status and quality of teaching English in primary schools has been, and remains, mixed (Hawanti, 2015; Sikki, Rahman, Hamra & Noni, 2013).

2.3  Current language education policy In the past few years there have been substantial changes in policy relating to the place of English in the higher education sector. Under the 2000 policy, English was a required ‘personality development subject’ in all undergraduate and diploma awards. More than a decade later under directive No.12/2012 (Republik Indonesia, 2012) English was no longer mandated. Within only a few years, this status changed again with an announcement in late 2015 by the Minister for Research, Technology and Higher Education to make English, in addition to Indonesian, a required medium of instruction for all universities (Dewi, 2017). The Minister declared that a national bilingual curriculum would be developed and phased in, commencing with state universities, from the start of 2016. It is unclear at the time of writing to what extent this policy has been realised in practice but it certainly indicates the strongest position yet for any Indonesian government on the place of English in tertiary education. In the schooling sector a significant change in the teaching of English occurred with the release of Kurikulum 2013. The new curriculum was designed to replace Kurikulum 2006 and focus more on character and values education, particularly in primary school. As part of the process to reduce content and curriculum crowding, the requirement for English as a ‘local content subject’ changed and it became an extra-curricular activity. After just one semester, the Minister of Education and Culture suspended implementation of the new curriculum and mainstream schools were advised to return to the previous curriculum (Wulandari, 2014).The new curriculum attracted much criticism including for the diminished status of English (Osman, 2012) and for confusion about its design of skills-based content with inquiry-based pedagogy (Hawanti, 2015). Several thousand schools (mainly former ‘international standard’ schools) continued to use the 2013 curriculum under the guise of it being a trial programme (Zein, 2017). In 2015, after some refinement, the curriculum was re-introduced for implementation by all schools. At the primary school level, Indonesian remains a core subject along with a local language, chosen at the discretion of the local school. English remains an extra-curricular activity, however schools with suitably qualified teachers are encouraged to offer it. In junior secondary, both Indonesian and English continue to be required subjects for all schools, along with further wajib (required) study of a foreign and a local language. In senior high school, Indonesian and English are required subjects, with optional study of Indonesian language and literature, English language and literature, or other foreign language and literature subjects. The most recent development, at the time of writing, is the Ministerial Decree No. 24/2016 that enables local languages to be used in primary schools as a medium of instruction for specific purposes such as providing explanations for select subject content (such as parts of the body) (Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia [Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture], 2016). Some suggest that this decision may be part of a move by the Minister towards developing a multilingual education policy framework for primary schools in Indonesia (Zein, 2017). However, there has been no sign of action in this regard, and it may be some time before or even if this occurs. To summarise, the current state of language education policy in Indonesia is one in which Indonesian dominates at all levels of education as both subject and medium of instruction. Local 292

Language education policy in Indonesia

languages feature at primary and junior secondary school principally through the local content requirement and these become optional in middle and upper levels. The position of English is somewhat conflicted, on the one hand it has special status under the National Education Act 2003 yet recent directives position it as ‘extra’ to the mainstream curriculum in primary schools but ‘integral’ in secondary schools. Some regard the position of English in primary school as contrary to increasing parental pressure for a greater focus on English and detrimental to long-term proficiency in the language (Zein, 2017). There are also concerns that wavering macro policy does little to help persistent problems at the micro level such as teachers’ lack of specialised knowledge, the need for quality training, curriculum crowding and test-oriented assessment that reduce effective English language provision. At the tertiary level, Indonesian is the dominant medium of instruction although the push towards internationalisation has led to an increase in courses taught in English and some expansion of the range of foreign languages including Japanese and Korean.The dual Indonesian–English language curriculum that requires interaction in English is yet to be widely implemented but the announcement at least reflects a desire for bilingualism, Indonesian and English.

3  The future of language education policy Since independence, language education policy in Indonesia could be characterised as two tiered, Indonesian and languages other than Indonesian. The place of Indonesian as the sole, national language and primary medium of instruction and a subject area in education has been unequivocal. The status of languages other than Indonesian however has varied. Policies related to English have ranged from a mainstream subject to a marginal ‘extra’ curricular activity, depending on level of schooling and political favour. Local languages have had the least robust provision, often being an unofficial medium of instruction in the early years, a ‘local content subject’ if chosen by the school and a choice subject in the senior years. Given the duality of language education policy in Indonesia in the past, it is reasonable to expect that this will continue into the future, however there are some forces exerting pressure for change. The transformation of language practices in the community, increased hybridity and prominent demonstrations of regional and ethnic identity are challenging the dominance of the national language. Furthermore, how Indonesia imagines itself is changing and its national identity is also becoming increasingly regionalised, particularly through involvement in bodies such as ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations). Indonesia holds ambitions to take a greater leadership role in the region (Heiduk, 2016) and as such it is likely that the government will aim to promote Indonesian as a strategically and regionally important language. The national language is, however, experiencing changes on the home front that may both undermine and strengthen its dominance, for different groups.The rapidly growing urban forms of Indonesian, particularly from the Jakarta centre with its local Betawi1 influence, are likely to continue to gain prestige and spread to outer communities. The non-standard forms represent a problem for standardisation and control of the language, as well as potentially undermining literacy levels. At the same time, Indonesian is increasingly a first language and this trend may be producing an increase in monolingualism amongst some groups (Lamb & Coleman, 2008). In terms of language education policy, the differing nature and needs of learner groups will require differentiation of programmes, curricula, teaching and assessment in order to maintain and improve literacy in the national language for all learners. Local languages too are experiencing change, with some gaining in prominence and status and others increasingly under threat. The vitality of local languages is affected by the size and 293

Michelle Kohler

location of the community of speakers, with large urban-based languages such as Javanese and Sundanese generally faring much better than smaller, rural-based languages such as Bantik. However, size and remoteness can be a saving grace for some languages (such as those of Sumbawa and Alor) as they have been somewhat protected from more dominant languages (Shiohara, 2012) and some, such as Papuan Malay, are increasingly present in official fora and gaining in prestige (Goebel et al., 2017). In education, the Constitution affirms the symbolic and cultural value of local languages and many local communities desire to maintain and strengthen their languages for these reasons. Internationally, there is increasing recognition of the importance of multilingual education, and while few countries in Asia, apart from the Philippines, are currently implementing mother tongue as medium of instruction policies, it is likely that such ideas will gain traction in Indonesia also in the longer term. There is a long way to go however as despite the current mandate to offer local languages in the curriculum, significant challenges remain in terms of the quality of curriculum, teaching, materials and assessment, and building the capacity among regional education authorities and teachers must be a priority for national and regional governments to improve the quality of the teaching and learning of local languages. It is difficult to predict the future of English language education, since there is such a vacillating relationship with English in Indonesian society in general. On the one hand, English is recognised as economically, politically and culturally powerful and necessary for global participation. On the other hand, it is viewed as a potential threat to Indonesian language, identity and values. English has high prestige, particularly amongst business and youth groups, and it features prominently in domains such as technology, science and popular culture, where English terms are often used even where the Indonesian equivalents exist. While it may appear as though English is over-running the national language, it is more nuanced than this and English is being used judiciously for specific purposes including for topics deemed too crude for expression in Indonesian and local languages (Muziatun, 2016). This conflicted view is evident in education, where English is a high priority such as in secondary and tertiary education, yet peripheral or ‘extra’ in primary education. Indonesia has never had a policy of wholesale English medium of instruction in primary education, instead favouring the national language.This lack of mandatory English in primary schools has attracted both criticism and praise. For some, primary school English is tokenistic and undermines students’ achievements in English in upper levels. For others it has enabled a concentrated focus on learning Indonesian, and provided space for local languages, thereby promoting regional and ethnic identities. Parental and community demand for English are likely to continue and exert pressure for English to remain at least in its current form, if not with an increased presence in future in all levels of education. For now at least, the pressing issue is one of quality and there is a need to professionalise English language teaching across the nation. Quality improvement will be essential if Indonesia plans to move towards a bilingual education policy, as hinted at through the recent announcement of a bilingual university curriculum. While this initiative is far from a reality, it could be an indication that bilingual education (most likely Indonesian and English) more broadly may be of interest in future.

4 Conclusion Early in the 21st century, Indonesia finds itself at a crossroads, both literally and figuratively, but then it has always been so. For centuries it has been uniquely situated as a meeting place of peoples, languages and cultures. It has witnessed great kingdoms, colonial rule, nationalism, independence, separatist movements and massive reform. These changes are evident in language education policy, transforming over centuries from niche, private schools in a few languages, 294

Language education policy in Indonesia

to the massification of Indonesian, internationalisation through English, and regionalisation with the official inclusion of local languages (albeit marginally). While the commitment to Indonesian has not wavered, foreign and local languages have had varied status, being unrecognised, prohibited, or mandated at various times and levels. The place of languages and changes in language education policies reflect broader ideologies at work in Indonesia, and an on-going dialogue within the nation as to its place in the region and world.Tensions between nationalism and internationalisation, between tradition and modernity, and between unity and diversity, are played out constantly including in language education policy. Indonesia has a colonial past, and it could be tempting to believe that the national language and/or English will colonise other languages. Colonialism in Indonesia was, however, never wholly invasive, replacing and eradicating the local culture. Instead, Indonesia is highly syncretic, adapting and transforming external influences to become its own. As Indonesia becomes increasingly affluent and influential in the region and the world, its language education policy will become increasingly nuanced, specialised and confident. If it can embrace its linguistic multiplicity and foster its national language, Indonesia may yet realise the ideology of unity in diversity embedded by the founders of the nation in the Pancasila, but that remains to be seen.

Note 1 A Malay-based dialect associated with the original peoples of Batavia (the colonial name for Jakarta).

References Bernard, J. (2003). Language policy and the promotion of national identity in Indonesia. In M. Brown & S. Ganguly (Eds.), Fighting words: Language policy and ethnic relations in Asia (pp. 263–290). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bilingual curriculum to be compulsory in universities starting from 2016. (2015). Jakarta Post. Retrieved from http:​//www​.thej​akart​apost​.com/​news/​2015/​11/30​/bili​ngual​-curr​iculu​m-be-​compu​lsory​-univ​ ersit​ies-s​tarti​ng-20​16.ht​ml Canangkan ‘dina Mabasa Bali’ tiap Jumat. (2016). Nusabali. Retrieved October 17, 2017 from http:​//www​ .nusa​bali.​com/b​erita​/2966​/badu​ng-ka​mpany​ekan-​dina-​mabas​a-bal​i Candraningrum, D. (2008). The challenge of teaching English in Indonesia’s Muhammadiyah universities (1958– 2005): Mainstreaming gender through postcolonial Muslim women writers. Münster: Unipress. Cohn, A., & Ravindranath, M. (2014). Local languages in Indonesia: Language maintenance or language shift? Linguistik Indonesia, 32(2 Agustus), 131–148. Coleman, H. (2011). Allocating resources for English:The case of Indonesia’s English medium international standard schools. In H. Coleman (Ed.), Dreams and realities: Developing countries and the English language (pp. 2–27). London, UK: British Council. Dardjowidjojo, S. (1998). Strategies for a successful national language policy: The Indonesian case. International Journal of The Sociology of Language, 130, 35–47. Dardjowidjojo, S. (2000). English teaching in Indonesia. The English Australia Journal, 18(1), 2–30. Departemen Pendidikan Nasional [Ministry of National Education]. (2006). Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan Nasional No. 23 Tahun 2006 Tentang Standar Kompetensi Lulusan Satuan Pendidikan Dasar dan Menengah [Regulations of the Ministry of National Education on Competency Standards for Graduates of Primary and Secondary Schools]. Retrieved from https://bsnp-indonesia.org/id/ wp-co​ntent​/uplo​ads/2​009/0​4/Per​ men_2​3_200​6.pdf​. Dewi, A. (2017). English as a medium of instruction in Indonesian higher education: A study of lecturers’ perceptions. In B. Fenton-Smith, P. Humphreys & I. Walkinshaw (Eds.), English medium instruction in higher education in Asia-Pacific: From policy to pedagogy (pp. 241–258). Cham: Springer. Garcia, O., & Li Wei (2015). The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (1st ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Goebel, Z. (2008). Enregistering, authorizing and denaturalizing identity in Indonesia. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 78(1), 46–61.

295

Michelle Kohler Goebel, Z. (2015). Language and superdiversity: Indonesians knowledging at home and abroad. New York: Oxford University Press. Goebel, Z., Jukes, A., & Morin, I. (2017). Linguistic enfranchisement. Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Oceania, 173, 2–3. doi: http:​//dx.​doi.o​rg.ez​proxy​.flin​ders.​edu.a​u/10.​1163/​ 22134​379-1​73010​06 Hadisantosa, N. (2010). Insights from Indonesia. In R. Johnstone (Ed.), Learning through English: Policies, challenges and prospects (pp. 24–46). London: British Council. Haryanto, E. (2012). Listening to students’ voice: A survey of implementation of English as a medium of instruction in an international standard school in Indonesia. Journal of Education and Practice, 3(15), 111–119. Hawanti, S. (2015). Implementing Indonesia’s English language teaching policy in primary schools: The role of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs. International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning, 9(2), 162–170. Heiduk, F. (2016). Indonesia in ASEAN: Regional leadership between ambition and ambiguity. SWP Research Paper. Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Kasihani, K. E. S. (2000). Pengembangan Kurikulum Bahasa di Indonesia’ [Language Curriculum Development in Indonesia]. Paper presented at the Konvensi Nasional Pendidikan Indonesia [Indonesian National Education Convention), Jakarta. Kirkpatrick, A. (2006). Which model of English: Native-speaker, nativized or lingua franca? In R. Rubdy & M. Sacareni (Eds.), English in the world: global rules, global roles (pp. 71–83). London, UK: Continuum. Kirkpatrick, A., & Liddicoat, A. J. (2017). Language education policy and practice in East and Southeast Asia. Language Teaching, 50(2), 155–188. doi: 10.1017/S0261444817000027 Kitamura, Y. (2012). Chinese in the linguistic landscape of Jakarta: Language use and signs of change. In K. Foulcher, M. Moriyama & M. Budiman (Eds.), Words in motion: Language and discourse in post-new order Indonesia (pp. 212–233). Singapore: National University of Singapore. Lamb, M., & Coleman, H. (2008). Literacy in English and the transformation of self and society in postSoeharto Indonesia. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 11(2), 189–205. doi: http://doi.org/10.2167/beb493.0 Lewis, P. M., Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (Eds.) (2013). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (17th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia [Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture]. (2016). Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan Dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia Nomor 24 Tahun 2016 Tentang Kompetensi Inti Dan Kompetensi Dasar Pelajaran Pada Kurikulum 2013 Pada Pendidikan Dasar Dan Pendidikan Menengah [Regulation of the Ministry of Education and Culture on Core and Basic Competencies for the 2013 Curriculum for Primary and Middle Secondary Schools]. Retrieved from http:​//sim​puh.k​emena​ g.go.​id/re​gulas​i/per​mendi​kbud_​24_16​.pdf.​ Mistar, J. (2005). Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in Indonesia. In G. Braine (Ed.), Teaching English to the world: History, curriculum, and practice (pp. 71–80). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Morin, I. (2016). Marginalizing and revaluing Papuan Malay:The impact of politics, policy and technology in Indonesia. In Z. Goebel, D. Cole & H. Manns (Eds.), Margins, hubs, and peripheries in a decentralizing Indonesia (Vol. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies, pp. 101–111). Moriyama, M. (2012). Regional languages and decentralisation in post-new order Indonesia: The case of Sundanese. In K. Foulcher, M. Moriyama & M. Budiman (Eds.), Words in motion: Language and discourse in post-new order Indonesia (pp. 82–100). Singapore: National University of Singapore. Muziatun. (2016). Lexical borrowing in Indonesian printed media. PhD thesis, University of South Australia,Adelaide. Nababan, P. W. J. (1991). Language in education: The case of Indonesia. International Review of Education, 137(1), 115–131. doi: 10.1007/BF00598171 Osman, S. (2012). Keeping English in Indonesian schools. Jakarta Globe. Retrieved from http:​//jak​artag​ lobe.​id/ar​chive​/keep​ing-e​nglis​h-in-​indon​esian​-scho​ols/ Paki, R. (2018). Email correspondence re data on the teaching of Buginese and Makassarese. Quinn, G. (2012). Emerging from dire straits: Post-new order developments in Javanese language and literature. In K. Foulcher, M. Moriyama & M. Budiman (Eds.), Words in motion: Language and discourse in post-new order Indonesia (pp. 65–81). Singapore: National University of Singapore. Republik Indonesia. (1989). Undang-Undang Republik Indonesia Nomor 2 Tahun 1989 tentang Sistem Pendidikan Nasional [Regulations of the Republic of Indonesia on the National Education System]. Jakarta. Retrieved from https​://lu​k.sta​ff.ug​m.ac.​id/at​ur/UU​2-198​9Sisd​iknas​.pdf.​

296

Language education policy in Indonesia Republik Indonesia. (1999). Undang-Undang Republik Indonesia No. 22/1999 tentang Pemerintahan Daerah [Regulations of the Republic of Indonesia on Regional Administration]. Jakarta. Retrieved from https​://ke​ menag​.go.i​d/fil​e/dok​umen/​UU229​9.pdf​. Republik Indonesia. (2000). Pedoman penyusunan kurikulum pendidikan tinggi dan penilaian hasil belajar mahasiswa No. 232/U/2000 [Guidelines for the organization of higher education curriculum and assessment of student learning outcomes]. Jakarta. Retrieved from http:​//luk​.staf​f.ugm​.ac.i​d/atu​r/Kep​men23​2-U2000PenyusunanKurikulum.pdf. Republik Indonesia. (2003). Undang-undang Republik Indonesia nomor 20 tahun 2003 tentang sistem pendidikan nasional. Indonesia [Regulations of the Republic of Indonesia on the national education system]. Jakarta. Retrieved from http:​//kem​enag.​go.id​/file​/doku​men/U​U2003​.pdf.​ Republik Indonesia. (2012). Undang-undang Republik Indonesia nomor 12 tahun 2012 tentang pendidikan tinggi [Regulations of the Republic of Indonesia on higher education]. Jakarta. Retrieved from http:​//118​.98.2​34.10​ 2/sit​es/de​fault​/file​s/UUP​T-12-​thn-2​012.p​df. Sadtono, E. (2007). A concise history of TEFL in Indonesia. In Y. H. Choi & B. Spolsky (Eds.), English education in Asia: History and policies (pp. 205–234). Busan: ASIA TEFL. Sen, K., & Hill, D. T. (2000). Media, culture and politics in Indonesia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shiohara, A. (2012). How universal is the concept of multilingualism?: Minority language speakers in Eastern Indonesia. In K. Foulcher, M. Moriyama & M. Budiman (Eds.), Words in motion: Language and discourse in post-new order Indonesia. Singapore: National University of Singapore. Sikki, E. A. A., Rahman, A., Hamra, A., & Noni, N. (2013). The competence of primary school English teachers in Indonesia. Journal of Education and Practice, 4(11), 139–145. Siregar, F. (2016). In pursuit of intercultural communicative competence: A case study of English language policy at a private university in Indonesia. Doctor of Philosophy,Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Sugiharto, S. (2015). Disentangling linguistic imperialism in English language education. In M. Bigelow & J. Ennser-Kananen (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 224–236). New York, NY: Routledge. Tsuda, K. (2012). Chinese Indonesian who study Mandarin: A quest for ‘Chineseness’? In K. Foulcher, M. Moriyama & M. Budiman (Eds.), Words in motion: Language and discourse in post-new order Indonesia (pp. 191–211). Singapore: National University of Singapore. Utsumi, A. (2012). Language use and attitudes to language in multilingual North Sulawesi: A sociolinguistic survey in the Bantik-speaking area. In K. Foulcher, M. Moriyama & M. Budiman (Eds.), Words in motion: Language and Discourse in post-new order Indonesia (pp. 127–152). Singapore: National University of Singapore. van der Putten, J. (2012). Going against the tide:The politics of language standardisation in Indonesia. In K. Foulcher, M. Moriyama & M. Budiman (Eds.), Words in motion: Language and discourse in post-new order Indonesia (pp. 257–279). Singapore: National University of Singapore. Wulandari, N. P. (December 5, 2014). Mendikbud Anies Baswedan hentikan kurikulum 2013 [Minister of Education and Culture, Anies Baswedan, stops the 2013 Curriculum]. Republika Online. Retrieved from http:​//www​.repu​blika​.co.i​d/ber​ita/p​endid​ikan/​eduac​tion/​14/12​/05/n​g41fe​-mend​ikbud​-hent​ ikan-​imple​menta​si-ku​r ikul​um-20​13 Zein, M. S. (2017). Elementary English education in Indonesia: Policy developments, current practices, and future prospects: How has Indonesia coped with the demand for teaching English in schools? English Today, 33(1), 53–59. doi: 10.1017/S0266078416000407

Further reading Foulcher, K., Moriyama M., & Budiman, M. (Eds.) (2012). Words in motion: Language and discourse in post-new order Indonesia. Singapore: National University of Singapore. (This compilation traces language developments including the impact of language education policy in post-new order Indonesia.) Goebel, Z. (2015). Language and superdiversity: Indonesians knowledging at home and abroad. New York: Oxford University Press. (Oxford studies in sociolinguistics.) (This book examines the relationship between ethnicity and linguistic diversity in social interaction in Indonesia since the Dutch colonial period.) Goebel, Z., Cole, D., & Manns, H. (2016). Margins, hubs and peripheries in a decentralizing Indonesia. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies, Special Issues 162. (This volume is comprised of multiple authors who explore diverse aspects and perspectives within the sociolinguistic context of post-reform Indonesia.) Sneddon, J. (2003). The Indonesian language: Its history and role in modern society. Sydney: University of South Wales Press. (This book provides a comprehensive account of the development of the national language from its Malay origins to recent developments through regionalisation.)

297

21 POSTCOLONIAL LANGUAGEIN-EDUCATION POLICY IN GLOBALISED TIMES The case of Timor-Leste Kerry Taylor-Leech

1 Introduction After a protracted struggle for independence, Timor-Leste became a sovereign nation in 2002. Today, after 14 years of independence, it is classified as a lower middle-income country.1 While this status represents an improvement on previous years, like many of its neighbours Timor-Leste faces a web of development challenges of the kind once famously described as ‘wicked’ by Rittel and Webber (1973). It is among several Southeast Asian countries that are recovering from conflict and intercommunal violence. Over 100,000 East Timorese died during the Indonesian occupation of their country and over 155,000 people were displaced in the 2006/2007 breakdown of law and order, which resulted in a major reshaping of the country’s leadership. Timor-Leste also aspires to become a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). All these considerations place education and human resource development high on the national agenda.

2  Historical background Timor-Leste’s independence in 2002 was a long time in the making. Declared a Portuguese colony in 1702, it was not until 1974 that decolonisation began – the process cut short by Indonesian invasion.Twenty-four years of occupation ended in 1999 when Indonesia agreed to a referendum on the question of independence. Following a majority vote for self-­determination, the Indonesians withdrew but their armed forces and militia gangs carried out punitive actions on a scale so extreme that international peacekeeping forces were dispatched to restore order. The country was administered by the UN during this emergency and in the transition to formal independence, and there have since been a number of UN missions in Timor-Leste. The Constitution of 2002 made the following provisions for language, which have formed the foundation of all post-independence language policy development: •• •• ••

co-official languages: Portuguese and Tetun;2 national languages: Tetun and the endogenous languages; working languages: Indonesian and English. 298

Postcolonial language-in-education policy Table 21.1 Timeline Period

Dates

Arrival of Portuguese missionaries and merchants Portuguese colonial territory Indonesian occupation Emergency and transition to formal independence Early independence Education Act and curriculum reform

c.1511 1702–1974 1975–1999 1999–2004 2004–2006/2007 2008 to date

This chapter covers language education policy (LEP) formulation between 1999 and 2016 in basic and secondary education, with brief reference to recurrent and higher education. Table 21.1 provides a timeline showing the key phases discussed in this chapter.

3  The language situation in 2010 While census language counts provide valuable statistical information, they are never fully accurate, being dependent on how languages and dialects are classified and how respondents evaluate their own competence as well as how they regard the languages in their repertoires. Moreover, counts do not reflect the fluidity, mobility and variability of language use in everyday life. Nevertheless, the 2004 and 2010 censuses provide useful information about multilingualism in Timor-Leste. While the country is not as multilingual as some of its Southeast Asian neighbours, the distribution of languages presents logistical challenges.The use of Tetun-Dili has increased since 2004 but it is mainly spoken as a second language and is dominant only in Dili and Ermera districts. Other languages associated with specific ethnic groups have clearer geographical distributions; for example, Lautém is strongly Fataluku-speaking and the eastern sub-districts in Baucau and Viqueque are predominantly Makasae-speaking. Oecusse is Baikenu-speaking but its residents have had greater exposure to Indonesian due to its location. In addition, some languages are used in areas as small as a single sub-district (Census Highlights 2011: 6). Figure 21.1 shows a simplified map of the 13 districts (sub-districts are not shown).

Figure 21.1 The 13 districts of Timor-Leste. Source: CartoGIS, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. http://asiapacific.anu. edu.au/mapsonline/base-maps/timor-leste-districts. Available under the Creative Commons AttributionShareAlike License.

299

Kerry Taylor-Leech

Williams van Klinken and Williams (2015) compiled a tally of first languages (L1s) spoken in each suco.3 In a population of 1,066, 409,4 the most widely spoken languages are Tetun-Dili, Mambae, Makasae, Tetun-Terik,5 Baikenu, Kemak and Bunak. Tables 21.2 and 21.3 present key information about the endogenous languages spoken in Timor-Leste. The main exogenous languages are Portuguese, Indonesian, English and increasingly, varieties of Chinese. The 2010 Census used the term ‘literacy’ as a measure of competence (defined as Table 21.2 Languages of Papuan origin spoken as L1 according to the 2010 census Language Number of speakers Percentage of population Areas and districts where spoken Bunak 55,837 Fataluku 37,799 Makalero 7,802 Makasai 101,854 Sa’ni 4,763

5.3 3.6 0.7 9.7 0.4

South-western interior and Indonesia Far eastern tip of Timor-Leste – Lautém Southeast coast Eastern Timor-Leste – between Baucau and Viqueque Eastern Timor-Leste – between Lautém and Baucau

Sources: adapted from Census Highlights 2011; Williams van Klinken and Williams 2015. Table 21.3 Languages of Austronesian origin spoken as L1 according to the 2010 census Language

Number of Percentage of Areas and districts where spoken speakers population

The Ataúran varieties (Adabe, 8,400 Ataúran, Dadu’a Rahesuk, Raklungu, Resuk)* Baikenu, also known as 62,201 Vaikenu/Atoni Bekais 3,887 Galoli, also known as Galolen 13,066 Habun 2,741 Idalaka (Idaté, Isní, Lolein, Lakalei)† 7,187 Kairui-Midiki 15,579 Kemak 61,969 Makuva, also known as Lóvaia 56 Mambae 131,361 Nanaek 297 Naueti 15,045 Tetun-Terik, also known as 63,519 Classical Tetum Tetun-Dili, also known as 385,269 Tetun-Praça Tokodede Waima’a

39,483 18,467

0.7

Ataúro Island

5.9

Oecussi

0.4 1.2 0.3 0.67 1.4 5.9 0.0 12.5 0.0 1.4 6.0 36.6

3.7 1.8

Far western border – Bobonaro North coast – Manatuto Central Timor-Leste South east of Dili Central Timor-Leste The far west near the West Timor border The far west near the West Timor border Dili, Aileu, Ainaro, Ermera and Liquiça Metinaro sub-district in Dili South-eastern Timor-Leste South coast – Manufahi and Western Viqueque – and far western Covalima North-western Timor-Leste, the south coast and its hinterland – Dili, Aileu, Ainaro, Ermera, Bobonaro, western Covalima In and around Dili, Liquiça Eastern Timor-Leste – Western Baucau

Sources: Adapted from Census Highlights 2011; Williams van Klinken and Williams 2015. Very little is known about the languages of Ataúro Island. Even the Austronesian classification is unclear. The dialectal varieties are combined here. † Hull (2000) used this cover term to include Idaté, Isní, Lolein and Lakalei. *

300

Postcolonial language-in-education policy Table 21.4 Percentages of the population over age 15 literate in in the constitutional languages Year

Tetun

Indonesian

Portuguese

English

2010 2004

56.1 46

45.3 43

25.2 13

14.6 5

Sources: Population and Housing Census of Timor-Leste 2010. (https://www.unicef.org/timorleste/2012_ CECSUS-English_Publication_FINAL_English_Volume_4.pdf (accessed December 5, 2016): xiv; Census Atlas 2006: 69.) Table 21.5 Percentages of the population between age 15 and 24 literate in in the constitutional languages Year

Tetun

Indonesian

Portuguese

English

2010 2004

77.8 68.1

55.6 66.8

39.3 17.2

22.3 10.0

Source: Census Highlights 2011: ii.

the ability to speak, read and write the language concerned). As Table 21.4 shows, adult literacy rates in the constitutional languages have increased since the 2004 census. As Table 21.5 indicates, youth literacy in Portuguese, Tetun and English has also increased. One can reasonably assume that these increases are the result of these languages being taught at school and the availability of Portuguese language courses, particularly for teachers, as discussed later. As Table 21.5 also shows, literacy in Indonesian has declined slightly but remains high among young people.

4  Colonialism, education and language ideology The case of Timor-Leste presents a rich opportunity to study the discourses that shape LEP in an aid-dependent polity in a globalised world order. In an analysis of ideologies of Portuguese in Mozambique, Stroud (1999) asserts that the nation-state is not just a politico-economic system but is also a cultural project. Language, Stroud argues, is a semiotic site where battles over definitions of social reality and cultural authenticity can be fought (1999: 343). The relationship between language, education and national development in former colonies is an issue of critical concern. Education has long been the primary means by which colonialism has consolidated its control and maintained an order of dependency and elitism. Education is also a discursive site in which ideologies are enacted, and language plays a fundamental part in this process. Examining LEP through a language ideological lens helps show how colonial and post-colonial discourses interact in policymaking processes. Two sets of colonial ideologies have played a role in shaping East Timorese language policy and its present-day discourses cannot be understood without first understanding them.Various scholars have written about the social cleavages that have resulted from these two forms of colonial control and their impact on the language attitudes of different generations (e.g. Kingsbury 2010; Leach 2012; Taylor-Leech 2009).

4.1  Ideologies of Portuguese under late colonialism Portuguese colonial discourse rested on its self-appointed mission to bring Catholicism to the natives of its far-flung empire. Estado Novo (1926–1974) ideology fine-tuned the image of a 301

Kerry Taylor-Leech

benevolent administration uniting its peoples under the same flag, sharing the same faith and speaking the same language (Mata 2007: 2). But this shared identity was no guarantee of equality. Only the so-called mestiços (people of mixed race) and assimilados (literate natives who worked for the colonial administration) enjoyed full citizenship rights, alongside Portuguese citizens (of Portuguese origin). In accordance with the civilising mission, education was provided under the remit of the Church. Portuguese was the language of the colonial administration and military, education and worship and consequently, assimilated East Timorese were required to use Portuguese, a process that created an elite group that was to form the basis of the nationalist movement for independence. The descendants of East Timorese assimilado families still wield considerable political influence today. These discourses blended conveniently with the notion of lusotropicalism, which enjoyed popularity in the 1950s/1960s. Originating with Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre (1947, 1961), lusotropicalism was developed into a full-blown doctrine by the Portuguese Estado Novo regime. At its core lay the notion of a Christian brotherhood uniting all Portugal’s territories. Lusotropicalist discourse provided ideological legitimacy for Portuguese colonialism and it is considered to be a central reason why Portugal was so slow to relinquish its colonies (e.g. Almeida 2001; Oliveira 2014). Although largely discredited by the 1970s, lusotropicalism still resonates in the contemporary discourse of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP), which promotes the vision of lusophonia – a transnational community based on shared language and colonial history (Signorini 2014). Founded in 1996, the CPLP exists to maintain links between Portugal and its former colonies. In addition to cooperation among its member-states, it promotes and disseminates the Portuguese language.6 Timor-Leste became its eighth member in 2002, thereby affirming its lusophone affiliations. While Portuguese assimilationist discourses have had a profound impact on East Timorese perceptions of their identity, it is also important to appreciate that Portuguese in Timor-Leste is not simply associated with the former colonial order. It is also associated with decolonisation, selfdetermination and the liberation struggle. Operating on armed, political and diplomatic fronts, the nationalist leaders used Portuguese for international and clandestine communication and later in preparing for independence (Cabral and Martin-Jones 2008). Shortly before the 1999 referendum, the Council of East Timorese Resistance (CNRT) met to plan for independence, resolving to adopt Portuguese as the official and Tetun as the national language (Walsh 1999), thus in the eyes of the CNRT, restoring the linguistic order of 1974/1975.The durability of this discourse is evident in a series of government-sponsored celebrations held in 2015 across the country marking 500 years since the Portuguese arrival in Timor-Leste and the friendship between the two countries. Timed to coincide with independence celebrations, the events commemorated “500 years of interaction between the two civilisations … and the affirmation of Timorese identity.”7

4.2  Ideologies of Indonesian under occupation With integration into Indonesia, a different set of ideologies came into play. Since the Indonesians’ own struggle for independence, Bahasa Indonesia has been invested with symbolic and instrumental value in unifying the 550 languages of the archipelago (Arka 2013: 91). Education was the main means of bringing unity about through the provision of universal primary schooling in the Indonesian language, although policy allowed the transitional use of home languages in the first three years of schooling (Lowenburg 2000). The hegemonic discourses of Pancasila (five principles8) dominated in its new province just as they did in the rest of Indonesia. Integrationist narratives presenting the nation as one happy f­ amily 302

Postcolonial language-in-education policy

were promoted right through to the fall of Suharto in 1998. Indonesianising the East Timorese was important for both integration and social control. Portuguese was denigrated as a colonial language and its public use was disallowed, as was the case with Chinese (Hajek 2000: 406). Indonesian language and state ideology were also promoted through compulsory membership of the scouting organisation, Gerakan Pramuka, and youth martial arts groups were also encouraged. By these means, modern Indonesian spread rapidly, especially after the public use of Portuguese was forbidden. Many young East Timorese pursued higher study in Indonesia during the occupation and a great many do so today. Consequently, a large number of East Timorese under the age of 40 are able to communicate in Indonesian.

4.3  Ideologies of Tetun solidarity and resistance Ideologies of Tetun are rooted in the East Timorese dual colonial experience. Tetun has functioned as a lingua franca in Timor-Leste since the early 19th century (Thomaz 1981). It was popularised by the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin), who mobilised it as the language of the maubere (common people). The adoption of Tetun as a liturgical language invested it with symbolic value and gave it a strong association with Catholicism. As church leaders began to speak out against human rights abuses and more East Timorese drew closer to Catholicism, the Church became an important agent in the cultivation and spread of Tetun (Cabral 2013: 88). Among the student groups studying abroad, especially those who joined the clandestine resistance, Tetun was also a primary means of communication. As Cabral and Martin-Jones (2008) explain, Tetun and Portuguese became important literacy resources during the resistance years; Tetun was used for communications on the internal and Portuguese on the external front. Fretilin also used Tetun in its popular education programme behind the lines, until bombing forced many non-combatants to accept dispersal into resettlement villages, where Tetun functioned as a contact language (Cabral 2013: 87). During the occupation, Tetun played an essential role in sustaining a sense of collective identity and its use became a form of solidarity and everyday resistance.

5  Wicked problems and post-independence language-in-education policy Two interrelated wicked problems, particularly in postcolonial educational settings, are poor attendance and early dropout. Absenteeism is a recipe for school failure and a precursor to dropping out. In 2011, net primary enrolment for Years 1–6 reached 93% (NESP 2011: 38). Superficially, this rate looks positive but many children repeat and are consequently overage for their year level, leading to classroom overcrowding. Failure to progress increases the risk of early dropout. Data suggest that at least 26% of East Timorese schoolchildren drop out of school by Year 6 (NESP 2011: 38). The reasons are complex and multiple but include distance from school, poor access to clean water and sanitation, low family income and food shortages, clashes between farming cycles and the school year, crowded classes, over-age enrolment and low parental understanding of the importance of regular attendance. In the later years, high teenage pregnancy rates and early marriage play a part and language has also been found to be a contributing factor (USAID 2014). Failure to complete primary school not only limits children’s future opportunities but also represents a significant drain on resources. A national school-feeding programme introduced in 2006 has improved attendance9 but takes substantial time out of a short school day. However, policymaking is about more than addressing wicked development problems. It is also a discursive space, where language ideologies are often at their most visible (Blommaert 1999). 303

Kerry Taylor-Leech

The following sections trace the trajectory of LEP development since independence, highlighting the tension between ideological aspirations and practical realities in developing a workable bilingual curriculum in a low resource environment. One can discern three LEP phases: the aftermath of the 1999 emergency and the transitional period; the early years of independence from 2004–2006/2007; and the period from 2008 to date. These years have seen the arrival in Timor-Leste of globalised discourses emanating from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), the UN Millennium Project,10 and the Sustainable Development Goals.11

5.1  1999–2004: emergency and transition The first priority post-1999 was getting schools reopened and children back to school.There was little room for policy or curriculum development and until 2002 most aspects of the Indonesian curriculum were retained, with the exception of the languages of instruction (LOI). Mindful of the CNRT pre-independence plan, the Ministry of Education (henceforth, ‘Ministry’) immediately commenced phasing in Portuguese. However, most teachers appointed to the depleted teaching force were under-qualified, inexperienced and lacked both confidence and competence in Portuguese (MECYS 2004), relying largely on Indonesian materials and intuitively using L1s to help make things clearer to the children (Quinn 2015).

5.2  2004–2006/2007: gaps between rhetoric and reality Taking a transitional approach, the Education Policy Framework for 2004–2008 specified that Tetun was to be taught as a subject for five periods a week in Years 1–3, after which it was reduced to three. Portuguese took precedence from Years 4–6, increasing from three to six periods a week by Year 6.While not actually specifying the LOI, the framework stipulated that Tetun could only be used as an oral aide in certain subject areas (MECYS 2004: 11). With the emphasis on Portuguese, the absence of guidelines on how to use Tetun as a classroom language was additionally problematic in view of the introduction of an official orthography in 2004 (Cabral 2013). As Cabral (p. 91) notes, Tetun had not until then been widely written and few teachers had experience of writing it, let alone using the orthography. In addition, there was a proliferation of donor projects, some even operating without the Ministry’s knowledge (NESP 2011: 53). Overall, despite significant development assistance, there was poor co-ordination between donors and little clarity regarding language use in a curriculum that was widely considered to be culturally inappropriate (Shah 2011: 32).

5.3  2008 to date: the Education Act and the restructuring of the education system Following the crisis of 2006/2007, the new government embarked on an ambitious programme of social reform and nation building. The 2008 Education Act guarantees universal access to nine years’ free basic education (Years 1–9) divided into three cycles (see Table 21.6) and extends preschool provision, hitherto not within the Ministry remit (MOE 2008). In addition, the Act galvanised efforts to develop a culturally relevant and socially meaningful school curriculum.

5.3.1  Languages in basic education The Education Act formalises Tetun and Portuguese as teaching languages throughout education. The National Education Strategic Plan for 2011–2030 states that by Year 9, children will 304

Postcolonial language-in-education policy

excel in both official languages and study English as first foreign language (NESP 2011: 19), introduced in Years 5, 6, or 7 according to school capacity (RCDEB 2010: 20–21). Teachers’ classroom language use should shift from a 70/30 ratio of Tetun to Portuguese in Year 1 to 50/50 in Year 2 and a 70/30 ratio of Portuguese to Tetun in Year 3. From Year 4, Portuguese is the only LOI while Tetun is used for oral instruction only (see Table 21.6).The core subjects in a 30-period week (over a 36-week year) cover Tetun, Portuguese, Mathematics, Natural and Social Science, Art and Culture, Health and Hygiene, and Religion. Although students are expected to transition early from Tetun to Portuguese – and in this respect it is essentially an early-exit system – the reformed curriculum represents a serious attempt to develop a workable transitional approach to bilingual schooling. Unlike earlier curriculum projects, it is being developed largely by East Timorese designers in partnership with international advisors and with the involvement of teachers themselves. Currently operating in the first cycle of basic education (Years 1–4), the curriculum content is supported by high quality, locally designed and produced materials and resources, including visuals, big books, graded readers and anthologies, as well as bilingual classroom dictionaries; in addition, there is a teachers’ manual, a week-by-week teaching schedule and detailed daily lesson plans, hitherto not regarded as a Ministry-level responsibility.

5.3.2  Languages in secondary education Secondary education (Years 10–12) has also seen major reform. In co-operation with Portuguese partners,12 the Ministry initiated the “Speak Portuguese – Curricular restructuring of General Secondary Education Project”13 2010–2013. The brief was to design a curriculum that would promote abstract thinking, reflect East Timorese history and culture, and encourage active citizenship.14 The curriculum, approved in 2011, comprises eight subjects: Tetun, Portuguese, English, Indonesian, Citizenship and Social Development, Multimedia Technologies, Religion and Moral Education, and Physical Education and Sport.15 The curriculum is crowded, with all four constitutional languages being taught, taking up 11 of 20 periods a week and with opportunities for language development through the study of literature and culture. Portuguese development assistance has also funded mandatory, intensive and ongoing Portuguese language and pedagogical training for teachers (Almeida, Martinho and Cabrita 2014; Capelo and Cabrita 2015). Table 21.6 presents a summary overview of curriculum planning for languages in basic and secondary education since 2008.

5.3.3  Teachers and development partnerships Often criticised for their lacks – of Portuguese competence, of education, of professionalism, of pedagogical skills – there is little said in praise of East Timorese teachers’ efforts or dedication. Teachers have had to adapt to major shifts in language policymaking and to contend with unclear and often unworkable directives.They have been required to undertake language and pedagogical training on top of demanding, low-paid jobs in physical conditions which most western teachers would consider intolerable, and which often require long-distance travel to school. Sector plans focus on developing teachers’ Portuguese competence rather than exploiting their plurilingual resources and translanguaging skills.A teacher competency framework introduced in 2011 measures competencies in Portuguese and Tetum, technical knowledge, teaching skills and ‘professionalism’ (NESP 2011: 40).The Education Act sets a Bacharelato (a three-year degree) as the minimum qualification to teachYears 1–9 and a Licenciatura (a four-year degree) forYears 10–12. Many teachers take the Bacharelato evening course run by the National Institute for Training of Teachers and Education Professionals,16 which also runs intensive complementary training course in all districts.17 305

Year Seven

Year Eight

3 5

3 5 2

3 5 2

3 5 3

3 5 3

Oral instruction only 100% and the only written language (except for Tetun and English)

Year Six

Basic education third cycle

3 5 3

Year Nine

3 4 2 2

Portuguese is LOI. Tetun is auxiliary

Years Ten–11–12

Secondary education

Sources: MOE 2008; Pacheco, Morgado, Flores and Castro 2009. (http://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/handle/1822/10402 (accessed November 29, 2016).)

4 4

5 3

Tetun Portuguese English Indonesian

5 3

Periods per week (45–50 minutes)

30% 70%

Subject

50% 50%

70% 30%

Year Four

Year Five

Year Three

Year One

Year Two

Basic education second cycle

Basic education first cycle

Tetun Portuguese

LOI

Table 21.6 Overview of language provision in basic and secondary education since 2008

Postcolonial language-in-education policy

Monitoring and evaluation feature heavily in Ministry policy discourse, reflecting the global donors’ emphasis on building capacity and efficient management systems (see, e.g. TLSDP 2011; UNESCO 2009). Monitoring and Evaluation feature heavily in the the National Education Sector Plan, where the term appears at least 44 times (NESP 2011). While effective management systems are undoubtedly important and necessary, the emphasis on monitoring, evaluation and measuring outcomes reflects the neoliberal discourse that permeates much global development aid. The Project for the Reintroduction of the Portuguese language (PRLP) is a significant component of bilateral Portuguese–East Timorese co-operation. The PRLP is also supported by Brazilian bilateral aid. Among its priorities are the teaching of Portuguese in public administration, maintaining a Portuguese language centre at the National University of Timor Lorosa’e (UNTL), and strengthening Portuguese in radio and television.18 The PRLP funds a Portuguese-immersion school in Dili and 13 Portuguese-medium schools in each district to act as models of teaching, management and community relationships.19 Known as CAFE20 Schools, they are staffed by Portuguese native-speaker teachers, partnered with East Timorese teachers. The schools were established to provide Portuguese-medium education for children in the districts but an inevitable, if unintended, consequence of the CAFE project is that it contributes to a two-tier system of schooling. The quality of classrooms, playgrounds and resources in CAFE Schools make sharp contrast with conditions in most public schools.

5.3.4  Discourses of inclusivity and mother tongue-based multilingual education The post-2008 educational development discourses of the Ministry were explicitly aligned with the Millennium Development Goals, since superseded by the Sustainable Development Goals which have far broader ideals. Language in education is linked with social inclusion, preserving cultural heritage and active, informed citizenship. In addition, curriculum reform is grounded in the discourse of child-centred education, culturally relevant curricula, the teaching of literacy and numeracy in the L1 and a longer school day. These discourses have given rise to some new and progressive policymaking in Timor-Leste – but it has not been without controversy. Both the National Strategic Plan (TLSDP 2011) and the Education Strategic Plan for 2011– 2030 (NESP 2011) state that local languages will be introduced as languages of teaching and learning in the first years of school, on the assumption that they will improve children’s literacy in the official languages, reduce dropout and improve educational outcomes overall.These statements reflect similar claims in research and development literature that mother tongue-based schooling is a bridge from home to school and learning the official languages (e.g. Kosonen and Young 2009). In much of the rights-based discourse of global development partners, mother tongue-based schooling is advocated as a way of remediating social equality, promoting social inclusion and fostering gender parity.The problem is that in multilingual post-colonial settings, these discourses often conflict with the nation-building agenda. In Timor-Leste, MTB-MLE discourses “jostle for place with the original, more long-standing discourse of building national identity through Tetun and Portuguese bilingualism” (Cabral 2013: 96). In 2010 the Ministry requested its advisory body, the National Education Commission, to prepare policy guidelines for effectively operationalising the constitutional language provisions in basic education. The outcome was the MTB-MLE policy and implementation plan for Timor-Leste (NEC 2010a, 2010b). One should note that to date these documents do not have legal force and have only been implemented in a pilot. The MTB-MLE policy proposes using students’ L1s for initial instruction, with the gradual oral introduction of Tetun (L2) and 307

Kerry Taylor-Leech

Portuguese (L3) and the later addition of Indonesian (L4) and English (L5) (NEC 2010a). The proposals depart from earlier policy in that L1s are used as LOI from pre-primary to at least the end of Year 3. Teachers use Tetun orally in Year 1, then bilingually with Portuguese and the designated L1, and taught as a subject from Years 2 and 3 onwards. Portuguese is taught as a subject from Year 4 alongside Tetun (and L1 if possible). English is introduced in Year 7 and Indonesian is an elective in Year 10. In 2013 a mother tongue pilot was launched in 12 schools in Manatuto, Lautém and Oecusse districts. The pilot receives support from the Australian Government and a network of mostly English-speaking NGOs responsible for advocacy, monitoring and evaluation of the pilot. This fact is a political issue in itself. One concern that has been voiced about the pilot is that it is supported by actors with a pro-Anglophone agenda. Now in its third year, although it has not escaped controversy and is not well understood in many quarters, the pilot is producing creditable results. The pilot endline assessment21 shows that EMBLI has dramatically improved the academic performance of children attending these schools, particularly in rural areas where educational results tend to be the weakest. It has also demonstrated that it can accelerate children’s school readiness and that it is a highly cost-effective educational model.

5.3.5  Recurrent and higher education Adult literacy rates in Timor-Leste are very low, especially among the older, rural population. According to the 2010 Census, 307,178 East Timorese had never attended school. Recurrent or non-formal education as the adult literacy teaching domain has also been a site for language ideological debate, but has nevertheless achieved spectacular successes. The Sim Eu Posso (Portuguese)/ Lo’os ha’u bele (Tetun) – (Yes I can) literacy campaigns run with Cuban assistance trained some 12,000 adults in basic literacy using Tetun and Portuguese materials (NESP 2011: 47), a historic achievement in the region. Initial literacy and distance learning programmes, run with Brazilian assistance, used Portuguese but these were much less successful than the later programmes that used Tetun. A variety of programmes of varying duration and content have been on offer from various multilateral aid organisations, and international and local NGOs. Although all programmes are offered in Tetun and Portuguese, almost everywhere the Tetun versions are used (Boon 2011). In higher education LEP is less clear-cut. Officially, the LOIs are Tetun and Portuguese but in the 14 registered higher education institutions, lecturers reportedly use a variety of languages depending on the disciplines they teach. The first year in most cases is taught in Portuguese and Tetun and some universities teach in Indonesian at higher levels. At UNTL, Medicine, delivered with Cuban development assistance, is taught in Spanish with an intensive preparatory Spanish course. All universities offer Portuguese courses and some offer Tetun courses, although current provision for teaching both languages seems to be minimal. The Lifau Project supported by the University of Aveiro aims to promote the teaching of Portuguese at UNTL (Lucas, Cabrita and Ferreira 2015: 733).Textbooks and reading materials in libraries are often donated and therefore written in a range of languages. Table 21.7 provides a summary of the number of education institutions, students and teachers in the education system in 2010.

5.3.6 English No discussion of LEP in Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific can avoid considering the role of English. In the case of Timor-Leste, as Macalister writes, English “has been accommodated in 308

Table 21.7 Number of education institutions (public and private), students and teachers in 2010 Pre- Primary Primary Primary Primary Secondary Secondary Secondary Secondary Higher Higher schools (basic teachers students student– schools teachers students student– education education education) teacher teacher institutes students schools ratio ratio 142

1,318

9, 987

839,459 30:1

94

2,071

41,106

20:1

14

17,000 (2007/ 2008)

Source: NESP 2011.

a way that matches its accidental arrival in the linguistic ecology” (2016: 337). As Macalister observes, English did not feature in language planning before the arrival of the UN in 1999. Today however, the situation is different.There is clearly a market for English and the bid to join ASEAN may create increased pressure for English to play a bigger role in the school curriculum than it currently does. For the time being however, Timor-Leste has escaped the rush seen in the region to introduce English in schools as early as possible. English is offered at higher education institutions and all university students study English in their first and second year. There is an English language centre at UNTL, funded mainly by aid from Australia and New Zealand. Pre-service training of secondary English teachers is provided by the Department of English at UNTL and there is a smaller English language centre servicing the needs of teaching staff at the Dili Institute of Technology. In addition, there are private providers of English, leads being Lorosa’e English Language Institute and the Malaysian Science of Life Systems (SOLS) schools, which exist in all districts and provide non-formal education to large numbers of students at low cost. The Civil Service also provides in-service English language training for its employees. The Australian Northern Territory government recently partnered with three East Timorese primary schools to introduce English in Year 5 and is also recruiting school leavers to its English Language Centre22 near Dili. There is also an Englishmedium international school in Dili, running its own separate curriculum. As for teachers, a relatively small number receive scholarships to take English courses mainly in Australia and New Zealand but otherwise, there is not much English language training available for teachers. Provision for English currently seems to be unplanned, piecemeal, run mostly by private providers, staffed by volunteers and biased towards the capital.

6  Predictions for the future As a new nation with fresh opportunity to develop language policy, Timor-Leste has so far avoided the Southeast Asian trend of introducing English into the curriculum as early as possible. It will be interesting to see whether this approach is successful, as the experience has in many cases involved enormous and generally wasteful expenditure of resources (Baldauf, Kaplan, Kamwangamalu and Bryant 2011: 319). In view of the rapid spread of Tetun in the urban areas and with the introduction of the new curriculum, it may well turn out that MTB-MLE is most practically applied in districts where children are not exposed to Tetun in their home or surrounding environment. The acid test will come in assessing whether the multilingual approach of the pilot is more successful than the early-exit transitional approach of the reformed curriculum. If it becomes clear that children are acquiring literacy skills in their L1 and successfully transferring them to the official

Kerry Taylor-Leech

languages, fears of social division may be allayed and MTB-MLE may gain better traction with the public. Of greater concern is the trend towards a two-tier system of public schools and fee-paying church and private schools. Along with the Portuguese and English immersion schools, this development stands to reinforce elitism and exacerbate educational inequities. It has often been suggested that generational change may lead to greater emphasis on English as the Portuguese-speaking leadership retires from public life (see e.g. Macalister 2016). However, while the diffusion of Portuguese has been slow, it has been steady and although the continued spread of English is inevitable, it is unlikely to threaten the status and prestige of Portuguese or slow the exponential growth of Tetun. It is certainly true that many East Timorese are choosing to study English and private providers of English are doing good business. However, given the symbolic power of the co-official languages, English it is unlikely to dislodge them any time soon.

7 Conclusion Since 2008, the Ministry has taken strong action to improve teaching quality and achieve education for all. While the conditions in which most East Timorese children are expected to learn would be considered low by western standards, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic. The development challenges and socio-economic problems may be wicked but there is no doubt that there have been significant steps forward. While Timor-Leste remains heavily aid-­ dependent and development partners largely dictate funding conditions and outcomes, schools and student enrolment have increased, more teachers have been employed and trained, and pupil–teacher ratios have dropped significantly (see Table 21.7). A well-resourced, culturally meaningful national basic education curriculum designed primarily by East Timorese developers assisted by international advisors is on the way to full implementation. A culturally relevant secondary education curriculum has been designed to promote higher-order thinking and develop learners’ academic, scientific and technical skills. Donors are supportive and teachers are engaging with the process. However, in January 2018 in a recent and unexpected development, one day before the dissolution of parliament pending an early election, the Council of Ministers met and approved proposed revisions to the decree laws that formalise the reformed curriculum. The changes included increased minimum hours for pre-school and the designation of Portuguese as the predominant language of the curriculum, with Tetun again taking an ‘auxiliary’ status.23 However, the subsequent coalition government promulgated the reformed curriculum, preventing the proposal from going ahead. It remains to be seen whether the reformed curriculum gives children in the state system a better chance of expanding their economic, social and personal horizons. It also remains to be seen whether MTB-MLE will get the opportunity to become a long-term, sustainable proposition and win wider support. The wicked development problems will not disappear and educational attainment will not improve overnight, but things have come a long way in the first 16 years of independence.

Notes 1 http://data.worldbank.org/country/timor-leste (accessed December 2, 2016). 2 Tetun has several varieties, including Tetun-Dili,Tetun-Terik and Tetun-Belu.Tetun-Dili is also known as Tetun-Praça or Town-Tetun. At independence Tetun-Dili was selected to be a co-official language, and is known in its standardised, written form as Official Tetun. 3 A suco is a large community often incorporating groups of families, clans and sometimes smaller, outlying villages.

310

Postcolonial language-in-education policy 4 There are slight variations in different census documents. 5 Tetun-Terik (also known as Classical Tetun) is an older, less modernised variety of Tetun often used for ritual functions. A third variety, Tetun-Belu, is spoken on both sides of the border with West Timor. 6 http://www.cplp.org/id-2604.aspx (accessed October 14, 2016). 7 http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=13165&lang=en (accessed October 23, 2016). 8 The five principles are: (i) belief in one God, (ii) humanism, (iii) national unity, (iv) Indonesian-style democracy and consensus, and (v) social justice (Song 2010). 9 https://www.wfp.org/countries/timor-leste (accessed November 29, 2016). 10 http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/ (accessed December 2, 2016). 11 http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/ (accessed December 10, 2016). 12 The Instituto Português de Apoio as Desenvolvimento (Portuguese Institute for Development Support) and the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, with technical advice from the University of Aveiro in Portugal (Lucas et al. 2015). 13 The two other components of secondary education are Social Sciences and Humanities, and Sciences and Technology. 14 https://www.ua.pt/esgtimor/PageText.aspx?id=16546 (accessed November 29, 2016). 15 http://www.pficp-esg-estv.com/ (accessed December 16, 2016). 16 http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=6537&n=1&lang=en 17 http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=9734&lang=en&lang=en 18 http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/images/cooperacao/av_au_relataval2010d.pdf (accessed January 7, 2017). 19 http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=11051&lang=en (accessed January 6, 2017). 20 Centros de Aprendizagem e Formação Escolar/ Centres of Learning and School Training. 21 http://timor-leste.gov.tl/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Eng-Executive-Summary-for-EMBLIEndline-Assessment-V4.pdf (accessed April 10, 2018). 22 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-19/nt-financing-english-language-classes-in-easttimor/7523760 (accessed November 14, 2016). 23 http://www.laohamutuk.org/educ/2018/NGOPR8Feb2018en.pdf (accessed April 10, 2018).

References Almeida, M.V. de. (2001). Epilogue of empire: East Timor and the Portuguese postcolonial catharsis. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 8(4), 583–605. Almeida, P.A., Martinho, M. and Cabrita, I. (2014). Evaluating the impact of restructuring secondary education in East Timor. Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, 141, 665–669. Arka, I. W. (2013). Language management and minority language maintenance in (eastern) Indonesia: Strategic issues. Language Documentation and Conservation, 7, 4–105. Baldauf Jr, R., Kaplan, R., Kamwangamalu, N. and Bryant, P. (2011). Success or failure of primary second/ foreign language programmes in Asia:What do the data tell us? Current Issues in Language Planning, 12(2), 309–323. Boon, D. (2011). Adult literacy teaching and learning in multilingual Timor-Leste. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 41(2), 261–276. Blommaert, J. (1999). The debate is open. In J. Blommaert (Ed.), Language ideological debates (pp. 1–38). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Cabral, E. (2013).The development of language policy in a global age. In J. Shoba and F. Chimbutane (Eds.), Bilingual education and language policy in the global south (pp. 83–103). New York: Routledge. Cabral, E. and Martin-Jones, M. (2008). Writing the resistance: Literacy in East Timor 1975–1999. The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 11(2), 149–169. Capelo, A. and Cabrita, I. (2015). School organization and the mobilization of teachers and students in the use of a new general secondary education curriculum in East Timor. New Approaches in Educational Research, 4(2), 133–140. Census Atlas. (2006).Timor-Leste census of population and housing (2004). Retrieved April 11, 2008 from: http://dne.mopf.gov.tl/latestrelease/publications/ATLAS/ATLAS%English.pdf. Census Highlights. (2011). Highlights of the (2010 census main results in Timor-Leste. Retrieved December 3, 2012 from: http://dne.mof.gov.tl/published/2010and2011Publications/CensusSummaryEnglish/ EnglishCensusSummary2011.pdf.

311

Kerry Taylor-Leech Freyre, G. (1947). The masters and the slaves. London:Wendenfield and Nicholson. (Original work published 1933). Freyre, G. (1961). O Luso e o Trópico. Lisbon: Comissão Executiva do Quinto Centenário da Morte do Infante D.Henrique. Hajek, J. (2000). Language planning and the sociolinguistic environment in East Timor: Colonial practice and changing language ecologies. Current Issues in Language Planning, 1(3), 400–413. Hull, G. (2000). Current language issues in East Timor. Text of a public lecture given at the University of Adelaide, March 29, 2000. Kingsbury, D. (2010). National identity in Timor-Leste: Challenges and opportunities. South East Asia Research, 18(1), 133–159. Kosonen, K. and Young, C. (Eds.) (2009). Mother tongue as a bridge language of instruction: Policies and experiences in Southeast Asia. Bangkok: SEAMEO. Leach, M. (2012). Longitudinal change in East Timorese tertiary student attitudes to national identity and nation building, 2002–2010. Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 168(2–3), 219–252. Lucas, M., Cabrita, L. and Ferreira, A. (2015). Pathways to change: Improving the quality of education in Timor-Leste. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 186, 732–738. Lowenburg, P. (2000). Writing and literacy in Indonesia. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, 30(1), 135–148. Macalister, J. (2016). English language education policy in Timor-Leste. In R. Kirkpatrick (Ed.), English language education policy in Asia (pp. 33–343). Dordrecht: Springer. Mata, M. (2007). Interracial marriage in the last Portuguese colonial empire. E-journal of Portuguese History, 5(1), 1–23. MECYS. (2004). Primary curriculum implementation plan: Timor-Leste 2004–2009. Ministry of Education, Culture Youth and Sport, Dili: RDTL. NESP. (2011). National Education Strategic Plan (2011–2030), Dili, RDTL: Government of Timor-Leste (English version). MOE [Ministry of Education]. (2008). Education System Framework Law 14/2008. Dili: RDTL. Government of Timor-Leste (English version). NEC [National Education Commission]. Ministry of Education. (2010a). Mother tongue-based multilingual education for Timor-Leste: National policy. Dili: RDTL. NEC [National Education Commission]. Ministry of Education. (2010b). Mother tongue-based multilingual education for Timor-Leste: Implementation plan. Dili: RDTL. Oliveira, G. de. (2014). Language policy and globalisation: The Portuguese language in the twenty-first century. In L. Moita Lopes (Ed.), Global Portuguese: Linguistic ideologies in late modernity (pp. 27–46). New York: Routledge. Quinn, M. (2015). Language in schooling in Timor-Leste. In C.Volker and F. Anderson (Eds.), Education in languages of lesser power: Asia-Pacific perspectives (pp. 111–130). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. RCDEB [Reforma Curricular De Ensino Básico: Princípios orientadores e plano de desenvolvimento [Basic Education Curriculum: Principal orientations and development plan]. (2010). Insituto de Educação, Universidade do Minho, e Escola de Educação, Insituto Politécnico do Porto: Portugal. Rittel, H. and Webber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4, 155–169. Shah, R. (2011). It takes two (or more) to tango: Partnerships within the education sector in Timor-Leste. International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 10(2), 71–85. Signorini, I. (2014). Portuguese language globalism. In L. Moita Lopes (Ed.), Global Portuguese: Linguistic ideologies in late modernity (pp. 47–65). New York: Routledge. Song, S. (2010). A discourse on the Pancasila state and its contemporary appeal in Indonesia. Asia yeon’gu [ Journal of Asia Studies] Korean Association of Asian Studies, 13(3), 1–40. Stroud, C. (1999). Portuguese as ideology and politics in Mozambique: Semiotic (re)constructions of a postcolony. In J. Blommaert (Ed.), Language ideological debates (pp. 343–380). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Taylor-Leech, K. (2009). The language situation in Timor-Leste. Current Issues in Language Planning, 10(1), 1–68. Thomaz, L. (1981). The formation of Tetum-Praça, vehicular language of East Timor (Vol. 13). Paris: Association Archipel. TLSDP. (2011). [Timor-Leste Strategic Development Plan] 2011–2030. Government of Timor-Leste. Dili, RDTL. USAID. (2014). School dropout prevention program. Timor-Leste situation analysis: Factors that affect dropout. Washington: Author.

312

Postcolonial language-in-education policy UNESCO. (2009). Timor-Leste: UNESCO country programming document 2009–2013. Jakarta: Author. Walsh, P. (1999). From opposition to proposition: The National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) in transition. Retrieved February 21, 2006 from: http://www.pcug.org.au/~wildwood/CNRTPat.htm. Williams van-Klinken, C. and Williams, R. (2015). Mapping the mother tongue in Timor-Leste:Who spoke what where in 2010? Retrieved November 1, 2016 from: http://www.tetundit.tl/TimorLang.html.

Further reading Almeida, M. V. D. (2001). Epilogue of empire: East Timor and the Portuguese post-colonial catharsis. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 8(4), 583–605. (Almeida shows how perceived commonalities between the East Timorese and Portuguese are grounded in colonial ideology and are today being reconstructed in the discourse of Lusophonia.) Cabral, E. and Martin-Jones M. (2008). Writing the resistance: Literacy in East Timor. 1975–1999. The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 11(2), 149–169. (The article describes the role of literacy practices in different languages in the East Timorese struggle against the Indonesian occupation.) da Costa Cabral, I. (2018). As línguas têm de estar no seu devido lugar [Languages have to be in their proper place: Language ideologies, languagised worlds of schooling and multilingual classroom practices in Timor-Leste]. Current Issues in Language Planning, 20(1), 33–49. (This paper presents an overview of language in education policy through the eyes of educators involved in its implementation since independence.) Leach, M. (2012). Longitudinal change in East Timorese tertiary student attitudes to national identity and nation building, 2002–2010. Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Oceania (Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde), 168(2–3), 219–252. (Leach discusses East Timorese university students’ attitudes to national identity, examining a range of nation-building fault-lines in post-independence Timor-Leste.)

313

22 LANGUAGE POLICY AND PRACTICE IN BRUNEI DARUSSALAM Noor Azam Haji-Othman, James McLellan, and Gary M. Jones

1  Introduction: the linguistic environment and the language diversity of Negara Brunei Darussalam 1.1  Background: the linguistic ecology of Brunei Negara Brunei Darussalam (‘the Nation of Brunei the Abode of Peace’, henceforth Brunei) is a small Malay Islamic Sultanate on the north-western coast of the island of Borneo, bordered on three sides by the Malaysian state of Sarawak and on the other by the South China Sea. Brunei became a British Protectorate in 1888, but only received its first British Resident in 1906.This was the start of Brunei’s adoption of a modern form of government to replace a “feudal system” (Haji-Othman 2005). Oil was first discovered in 1929, but production was delayed until much later.There was no formal education system in place until after World War II, during which Brunei was under Japanese occupation from late 1941 to mid-1945.The development of the education system fortunately coincided with the country’s huge oil revenues from the 1950s. This tremendous wealth sparked the development of widespread education in Brunei, firstly through separate language-streams schools in the 1960s to 1980s, and the bilingual education system from 1985 onwards. Though small in land area and population, arguably marginal, and anachronistic, being the only remaining absolute monarchy in Asia, Brunei is worthy of a chapter of its own in this volume. This claim rests on the following points: •• ••

••

The high degree of language diversity in relation to its size. The path taken in terms of the nation’s language-in-education policy since the resumption of full independence in 1984, following 96 years as a protectorate of the UK. This path is distinct and divergent from that taken by neighbouring polities in Southeast Asia and in the Malay world (Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines). The considerable volume of previous research into Language Policy and Planning (LPP) in Brunei, both by Bruneian insider and by foreign outsider researchers.

These factors are considered in greater depth in this chapter.

314

Language policy in Brunei Darussalam

As an overarching theoretical framework,Tollefson’s (1991) Historical-Structural Approach is adopted; the Ecology of Language framework of Haugen (1972), previously applied to Brunei by Martin (1995), is used to analyse the languages which have official or unofficial roles in the educational domain in Brunei.

1.2  Brunei’s language diversity Prior to the 1980s there was little or no linguistic or sociolinguistic research that focused on the languages of Brunei. Nothofer’s (1991) The languages of Brunei Darussalam, based on fieldwork conducted in 1987, is the first study to draw attention to the diversity, and to investigate through lexicostatistical methods the relations and subgrouping of the indigenous languages. The (1959) Constitution of Brunei recognises seven ethnic groups as indigenous, termed “puak jati” (indigenous groups): Brunei Malay, Kedayan, Tutong, Belait, Dusun, Bisaya, and Murut (this group is also known by the exonym Lun Bawang). Nothofer identifies a Malay subgroup centring on Brunei Malay and also including the Kampong Ayer variety used in the traditional Water Village, and Kedayan, which are both 94% cognate with Brunei Malay. Kedayan is the language of the community who traditionally farmed the land and supplied rice and other food produce. Tutong and the near-extinct Belait form another subgroup, as do Dusun and Bisaya. Lun Bawang, whose speakers mainly reside in the easternmost Temburong District, is grouped together with exo-Bruneian languages Kelabit and Sa’ban, whose speakers inhabit areas of the Sarawak interior to the south of Brunei. All these languages show much lower percentages of shared cognates with both Brunei and Standard Malay: linguistically, as demonstrated by Nothofer’s (1991: 158) lexicostatistical analysis, they are distinct languages. Politically, however, the communities who use these minority indigenous languages may readily accept the official government position (e.g. in the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka’s [2011] Daftar Leksikal 7 Dialek Brunei Darussalam) that the languages are all dialects of Malay. Having this status should bind the government to take measures to ensure their maintenance, since “Melayu” (Malay) is one of the three core elements of the Brunei national ideology of Melayu Islam Beraja (Malay Islamic Monarchy). This does not apply to other Borneo-indigenous languages with communities of users resident in Brunei: Iban, with around 20,000 speakers in the Temburong, Tutong, and Belait Districts, and Penan, with just 40–50 speakers in the village of Sukang in the Belait District. Whilst many Iban and some Penan have Bruneian citizenship, they do not have “puak jati di Brunei” status, but “puak jati di Borneo.”The informal variety, Brunei Malay, is the lingua franca in Brunei, used supra-regionally, whilst Kampong Ayer Malay and Kedayan Malay are use in intragroup communication among the speakers. Martin (1992: 109) notes that Brunei Malay is the language of the dominant group, the puak Brunei, and it functions as the lingua franca for the vast majority of Bruneians… There is some variation in the language along the coast, with the form of Brunei Malay around the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, being the closest to the variety of the puak Brunei. In the educational domain, none of the “puak jati,” nor the other Borneo languages, have any official role or status. The Malay that is prescribed as one medium of education, and a compulsory subject of study, is standard Malay (‘Bahasa Melayu’), the formal variety used in government and official media, but not normally used in the family and friendship domains. 315

Noor Azam Haji-Othman et al.

2  Outline of earlier language-in-education policies 2.1  Pre-school, primary, and secondary education Early government mainstream primary schools in Brunei used Malay as the medium of instruction throughout the 1950s to the 1980s, with only a handful of mission primary schools and government secondary schools teaching in English-medium streams. A decision was made, when Brunei regained full independence from the UK in 1984, to adopt a bilingual Malay and English language-in-education system (Dwibahasa, ‘two-language’). Hence in 1985, as a clear departure from the language-in-education policies of neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia, the Dwibahasa policy was introduced, which employed two languages (Malay and English) in formal instruction. In this system, all primary and secondary schools adopted a national curriculum prescribed by the Ministry of Education. From pre-school level to Primary year three, the medium of instruction for all subjects was Malay, except for English language, which was taught as a subject. From Primary year four (Upper Primary) onwards a separation approach was adopted. The pupils were expected to use more English, whilst Malay was used for teaching the Malay language subject, Islamic Religious Knowledge, Physical Education, Arts and Crafts, Civics, and Malay Islamic Monarchy (MIB). English was used for teaching Science, Mathematics, Geography, and the English language subject. History was switched to Malay-medium in 1995, having previously been an English-medium subject. Observations by Braighlinn (1992), Martin (1999), Jones (2016), and Haji-Othman (2005, 2016) have suggested in general that the mainstream primary school system was in fact English-dominant.

2.2  Critical review of earlier language-in-education policies The Dwibahasa, bilingual Malay and English language-in-education system, as noted above, used a separation approach, with some subjects taught through Malay and others (generally the more academic subjects) through English, and thus Brunei diverged from the policies of Malaysia and Indonesia. According to the Centre for British Teachers (CfBT) Report (Sammons et al. 2014: 16), the aims of the Dwibahasa bilingual education policy were [to ensure] the sovereignty of the Malay language, while at the same time recognising the importance of the English language. By means of the Education System of Negara Brunei Darussalam a high degree of proficiency in both languages should be achieved. As explained by Deterding and Sharbawi (2013: 13–21), Gunn (1997: 151–178), and by Jones (2012, 2016), the history of language-in-education policy and planning in Brunei, viewed through a historical-structural lens, can be viewed as a gradual imposition of central control over what were initially four separate strands which evolved since the early 20th century: Malay schools, English schools, Chinese schools, and Arabic schools. These strands had developed through laissez-faire attitudes, with little or no central government intervention, up to the mid20th century. Teaching was conducted in the respective languages, Malay, English, and Chinese (Mandarin). In the Arabic schools, Arabic language was taught as a subject, with other subjects taught through the medium of Malay or English. Two reports (1962 and 1972) commissioned by and presented to the Ministry of Education, recommended that Brunei follow the Malaysian (and Indonesian) model and implement Malay as the main medium of education in the national education system ( Jones 2012: 181–183). But political circumstances dictated that neither of these were acted upon: the first was because of 316

Language policy in Brunei Darussalam

the outbreak of the Brunei Revolt in late 1962, caused by disagreement between parties in Brunei about whether Brunei should join the Federation of Malaysia, followed by the 1963– 1965 Confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia; the second was a consequence of strained diplomatic relations between Brunei and Malaysia in the early 1970s, which resulted in the recall of Bruneians studying in Malaysia, including pre- and in-service schoolteachers. The switch to predominant English-medium at Primary year four level under Dwibahasa, described in the section above, was found to be divisive, privileging those students who had a sound grasp of English from their home and family background. Those who came into government schools with little or no English were unable to achieve the required level of English proficiency (CALP – “cognitive academic language proficiency” in Cummins’ (1984) terminology; Jones 1996: 282–286) to enable them to study Mathematics, Science, Geography, etc., through the medium of English. This led to high dropout rates at Upper Primary and Lower Secondary levels. The Dwibahasa system was criticised for being rather ‘liberal’ with the definition of ‘bilingual’ by placing greater emphasis on the English language than on Malay. English was the prescribed language to teach ‘core’ subjects such as Mathematics, Science, and Geography at secondary level, but ‘softer’ subjects such as Art and Physical Education were taught in Malay. This imbalance was criticised as a reflection of how Malay language was deemed to be ‘less important’ compared to English.

3  Outline of current language-in-education policies 3.1  Pre-school, primary, and secondary education The current system, Sistem Pendidikan Negara Abad ke-21 (SPN-21, Education System for the 21st Century) replaced Dwibahasa in 2009. SPN-21 comprises eight key learning areas: languages; mathematics; sciences; humanities and social sciences; arts and culture; technology; Islamic religious knowledge and Malay Islamic Monarchy; health and physical education. In essence these were also included in the earlier Dwibahasa system. However, in SPN-21, information and communication technologies (ICT) and entrepreneurship are now included across the curriculum, as well as co-curricular and community outreach activities. The SPN-21 curriculum is supposed to ensure the smooth transition and continuity from pre-school to the primary and secondary levels in a developmentally appropriate setting, thus addressing the basis of some of the criticisms of Dwibahasa – principally the high school dropout rate due to failure to adjust linguistically to English-medium teaching. Under SPN-21, primary school students study the following subjects in Malay: Malay language, Islamic religious knowledge, Malay Islamic Monarchy, and physical education (Ministry of Education 2009). Other subjects including English language, mathematics, science, social studies, ICT, music, and drama are all taught in English. As a whole, throughout the six years of primary school, both English and Malay are used for instruction, but with slightly more use of English in the latter six subjects compared to the four subjects taught in Malay. At secondary level, in years seven and eight, students take the following Malay-medium subjects: Malay language, Islamic religious knowledge, Malay Islamic Monarchy, and physical education. English-medium subjects comprise: mathematics, science, social studies, business, and technology (including design and technology, home economics, and agriculture); ICT, commerce, and music and art (in Malay/ English). In upper secondary (years nine, ten, and 11), students must take Malay language, Malay Islamic Monarchy, physical education, and co-curriculum activities in Malay, in addition to the English-medium subjects, which are: English language, mathematics, sciences (physics, biology, chemistry, or combined science). 317

Noor Azam Haji-Othman et al.

Elective subjects taught in Malay include Malay literature and Islamic religious knowledge. Other electives that are taught in English include English literature, additional mathematics, geography, history, economics, principles of accounts, art and craft, music, design and technology, computer studies/ICT, and food and nutrition. There are also modern languages including Arabic, French, and Mandarin, which are offered as optional subjects in years seven to 11 (Ministry of Education 2013: 66, 68). Arabic language is of greater significance in Brunei compared to other ‘foreign’ languages due to its association with Islam, the official religion of the country. Salahuddin and Siti Sara (2017), and Haji-Othman (2016) report that the teaching of Arabic in religious schools developed rapidly since the mid-1950s to fit Bruneian needs. In 1966 the Hassanal Bolkiah Arabic Boys’ Secondary School opened to accommodate students who wished to further their studies in Islamic knowledge, followed by the Raja Isteri Pengiran Anak Damit Arabic Girls’ Secondary School in 1967, and the Seri Begawan Teachers’ College in 1972. In 1990 the Ma’had Islam Brunei (Brunei Islamic College) was set up. It must be borne in mind that despite its religious importance in Brunei, Arabic language has only been taught as a language subject rather than used as a medium of instruction in religious schools. Full Arabic-medium instruction is only found in the specialised Arabic schools, where the students are specially selected (Haji-Othman 2016).

3.2  Tertiary education The national university, Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), was established in 1985 as a bilingual institution, with some programmes in English and others in Malay, and some such as History in a mixture of English and Malay. Although a few programmes, such as Malay Language and Malay Literature, continue to be taught in Malay-medium, the majority of programmes are now English-medium. UBD created the Faculty of Islamic Studies (FIS) in 1993 to offer a bachelor’s degree in Arabic. In 2003 this became the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Institute of Islamic Studies (SOAS-IIS). In 2007, Brunei’s second university, Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali (UNISSA) was created by absorbing most of UBD’s SOAS-IIS. Originally, programmes in Islamic Studies were mainly in Malay, with Arabic offered as a subject, and sometimes courses were taught in Arabic. There is also a tertiary institution dedicated to training Islamic teachers, Kolej Universiti Perguruan Ugama Seri Begawan (KUPU-SB), where Arabic is also taught, and from which about 230 students obtain a degree or diploma each year. As Islamic secondary education was deemed to be a great success, the Islamic Studies Institute (ISI) began operations in 1989 to take in tertiary level students. The Language Centre of UBD offers modules (courses) at beginners’ level and beyond in a range of Asian and European languages: aside from compulsory Academic English modules, these comprise Malay, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, French, German, and Borneo languages (currently Dusun and Iban). The modules are optional for students but they are credit-bearing. Japanese and Korean are currently the most popular. There has recently been considerable expansion and development in technical and vocational education. This is driven by concerns over the employability of school leavers, by the need to replace foreign skilled workers with skilled and qualified Bruneians, and by a desire on the part of educational planners to supplant traditional notions of the superiority of socalled academic over technical and vocational subjects and qualifications. Universiti Teknologi Brunei (formerly Institut Teknologi Brunei) offers English-medium degree-level programmes in fields such as Computer Science and Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Other post-secondary and tertiary-level technical and vocational providers are under the collective Institute of 318

Language policy in Brunei Darussalam

Brunei Technical Education (IBTE) and use both English and Malay as mediums of education (Haji-Othman, McLellan & Deterding 2016: 14).

3.3  Critical review of current language-in-education policies The Sistem Pendidikan Negara Abad Ke-21 (SPN-21) was designed to supplant the Dwibahasa system. The curriculum, while applauded for placing greater emphasis on student participation and creativity, including offering international languages, has also been criticised for paying as little attention to Malay as did the Dwibahasa policy. Hence it is felt that the issue of imbalance has not yet been effectively addressed by educational language planners (Deterding & Sharbawi 2013: 15–18; McLellan 2018). Haji-Othman (2016), however, demonstrates that the apparent imbalance is somewhat mitigated by the predominant use of Malay in the Islamic religious schools (termed “Ugama schools”) which all Bruneian Muslim students (c. 70–75% of all school students) are obliged to attend for at least seven years, as well as attending the mainstream government schools. Students between the ages of seven and 14 attend formal instruction in the Ugama schools in the afternoons for six years to obtain a Religious education certificate, having spent the morning at government schools. It is nonetheless evident that SPN-21 is not too different from Dwibahasa, and that under SPN-21 students have more subjects taught in English-medium compared to those taught in Malay. If students so desire, they can avoid all the Malay-medium electives altogether, thus completing an English-dominant secondary education. Haji-Othman (2016: 263) argues that “without clear differences, save a few new subjects, new methods of assessment and new approaches in teaching, SPN-21 is unlikely to escape accusations of being a cosmetic change only.” And much like its predecessor, SPN-21 has been criticised for being English-heavy and being a “valorization of English” (Haji-Othman 2012: 175–190). In moving from Dwibahasa to SPN-21, Brunei has moved in the same direction as those nations who subscribe to the ‘earlier is better’ argument for second-language acquisition in formal education, and has aligned itself with the belief that learning content through the second language, English, promotes successful acquisition of the language used as a medium of ­education. The chart in Figure 22.1, from Sammons et al. (2014: 8), depicts the direction of language education and language-in-education policies in Brunei since the start of the Centre for British Teachers’ (CfBT) engagement with Brunei’s Ministry of Education in 1985. The report concludes that over time the bilingual policy moved “from a more uncertain period of 1990s critical TESL pressures to … sustained commitment to promoting both English and Malay.” This paralleled the general education system shift from a “more teacher-centred focus” in the 1980s to “more student-centred learning and strong outcomes focus” in more recent times. Sammons et al. (2014: 12) also note that “one significant course of action appears unchanged: the Bruneian government’s longstanding and firm commitment to its bilingual education policy since its launch in 1985.” The report cites two key “societal factors” applicable to Brunei: •• ••

political will for this form of education, extending over 15 years and accommodating changes of government [and] a widely held view that English as a global language is important for the international citizenship of the young people of [Brunei].

The bilingual and multilingual competence of Bruneians is also evident from their engagement with ICTs and especially with social media. Brunei is ranked 53rd out of 176 countries included 319

Figure 22.1 Six evolutionary stages of CfBT engagement with Brunei’s MOE (Sammons et al. 2014: 8).

Language policy in Brunei Darussalam

in the ‘Measuring the Information Society Report 2017,’ which also cites Brunei as having a high level of ICT access in the Southeast Asian region, with 75 out of 100 people using the internet, and 116 in every 100 inhabitants having active mobile subscription (Rajak 2018). Government policy on ICTs and social media has developed, from initial fear of negative outside influences, to encouragement to engage with and use social media, e.g. for creative innovation and entrepreneurial purposes, but with continual warnings about the potential negative influences from outside that may tempt younger digital-native Bruneians away from adherence to Bruneian values enshrined in the MIB ideology. But judging by the way these warnings have waned over the years, to just occasional reminders about cyber-crimes, it would seem that the government has now fully embraced the digital development and recognises the need for an ICT-savvy population.

3.3.1  ‘Earlier is better’ for L2 vs mother tongue initial education In the Philippines, language-in-education policy has moved towards a greater role for learners’ home language or mother tongue, as exemplified by the national policy of mother tongue-based multilingual education. This reflects the belief that initial oracy, literacy, and numeracy are best achieved through the pupils’ home language. Elsewhere in Asia, as discussed in other chapters in this volume, the ‘earlier is better’ view of second-language development tends to be dominant among language-in-education policymakers. Although Brunei’s education system makes no official provision for the use of any of the indigenous languages, Brunei Malay is extensively used unofficially at pre-school and primary levels by teachers and pupils, as it is the shared language of the majority.This contravenes Ministry of Education policy, which prescribes Standard Malay as the medium of instruction for some subjects, and as the target language in Malay language lessons. It must be stressed, however, that there are as yet no influential voices calling for initial education to be conducted in Brunei Malay, nor in any of the indigenous languages.

3.3.2  Classroom codemixing/translanguaging The very high frequency of classroom codemixing or translanguaging between Brunei and Standard Malay, and between both Malay varieties and English, has been observed and analysed by researchers since the early 1990s, notably by Peter Martin (1997, 1999, 2003). Codemixing is discouraged by the Ministry of Education, but teachers, especially at the primary and lower secondary levels, report that they feel obliged to use it as a strategy to convey meaning in content subjects such as mathematics and science. Through processes of language spread, Brunei Malay has become the default lingua franca of Bruneians of all ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, and Noor Azam (2012: 188) suggests that it be redefined as “pan-Bruneian Malay” to reflect this expansion from being just the first language of Brunei Malay ethnic group. As acknowledged by Kirkpatrick (2012: 334), “in one sense, the dwibahasa policy could be described as being a great success, as many of Brunei’s younger generation are speaking Malay as their first language so a Bruneian could now be defined as a Malay-English bilingual.” The success of the Dwibahasa and the current SPN-21 policies has resulted in English now serving as a secondary lingua franca among more highly educated Bruneians, whose default language choice in both informal and formal interaction is codemixed Brunei Malay and English (McLellan 2005; Noor Azam, McLellan & Deterding 2016). This serves as a partial explanation for the propensity for translanguaging by Brunei teachers and students. Brunei-based researchers (e.g. Noor Azam & McLellan 2014) have also noted an increase in the number of younger Bruneians claiming English as their L1, and admitting to greater proficiency in English than in any variety of Malay. 321

Noor Azam Haji-Othman et al.

4  Conclusions and predictions for the future In the 2017 Global Competitiveness Index Brunei jumped 12 places from the preceding year and was ranked 46th out of 137 economies, with primary education enrolment rate (22nd place), quality of primary schools (24th), and quality education system (33rd) listed under the category of development.This improvement is predicted to continue into the foreseeable future. The CfBT Report (2014: 115) states that Brunei’s consistent focus on promoting bilingual education has proved a strength, encouraging stability and consistency in the priority accorded to promoting competence in both English and Standard Malay. This has supported recognition of Brunei’s contribution to and ability to offer leadership from the lessons learned in the teaching and learning of English in the ASEAN region. As noted by Haji-Othman (2005), the use of minority indigenous languages is not officially discouraged, although there is evidence through interviews with senior government officers that those who champion their maintenance may be perceived as going against moves towards national unity centred on the continued use of Malay (of any variety). According to Sammons et al. (2014: 13), the indigenous languages of Brunei evidently do not receive as much attention as Malay and English in language and education planning, “resulting in the demise of some minority languages that are rich in history and cultural heritage, with some in fact already extinct.” At Brunei’s premier university, UBD, as noted above, credit-bearing courses in Iban, Dusun, and other Brunei indigenous languages are offered at tertiary level at the Language Centre. Research into students’ attitudes and feedback has shown that this initiative may be changing Bruneians’ perceptions of these languages: they are no longer seen as threatened minority dialects, but part of Brunei’s rich linguistic and sociocultural heritage and in need of preservation (Haji-Othman 2014; Noorashid & McLellan 2018). The dominance of the Brunei Malay ethnic group, and of their language, may well be a factor contributing to the relatively low level of resistance to the spread of English and its continued use as a medium of education under SPN-21.This forms a sharp contrast with the situation in Peninsular Malaysia, where ethnic Malays barely form a majority demographically, and where language-in-education has become politicised through several recent policy shifts towards more English-medium, followed by reversion to Malay-medium, and to the current dual-language policy. Bruneians do not generally perceive English, particularly in its ‘global’ manifestations, as constituting any form of threat to the maintenance of Brunei Malay language and culture. More threatened, as noted in sociolinguistic studies since the 1990s (e.g. Martin 1996: 33), is Standard Malay, which many Bruneians perceive as a foreign language (in fact associated with Malaysia) to which they hold little affective attachment. The domains of Standard Malay are limited to print and broadcast media, formal education (but see discussion above), and official correspondence in the government service. It is evident, then, that “English has a significant position in Brunei’s language ecology” (Martin 2002: 182). But it would be wrong to claim that English has directly caused or contributed to the reduced role of Brunei’s minority languages in the linguistic ecosystem. A more nuanced application of Haugen’s theories of the ecology of language would view English as an additional overlay to an already complex multilingual ecology. Addressing the three major questions posed by Kirkpatrick and Liddicoat (2017: 133), with reference to Brunei, we suggest that there is a risk of reduced multilingualism caused by the decline and loss of the minority indigenous languages. The Brunei case fits the pattern of 322

Language policy in Brunei Darussalam

“national language plus English,” if “national language” is taken to mean Malay, without making any distinction between the official Standard Malay and the vernacular Brunei Malay. There is also a risk of Malay monolingualism among those who do not progress through the Malay– English bilingual education system. Whilst there are at present very few, if any, monolinguals in Brunei, it is possible that the maintenance and spread of English among the Brunei elite will lead to eventual English monolingualism in that sector of society. This potential trend has been described by Haji-Othman (2007: 68–69) as “the English by-pass.” We feel it fitting to conclude by citing Jones’ (2016: 517) reflections on one of the main issues in language-in-education policy and practice in Brunei: Both Standard Malay and English are new languages for Bruneian pupils: the case for using Malay from year one is strong, and there is really no good reason to burden the pupils with English as well at this stage. The Ministry of Education in Brunei has to take into account the expectations of parents that their children will learn English, but this does not equate with having to introduce it so early. Literacy and numeracy in the first language (despite Standard Malay not being the first language) should be the goal before introducing the next language.

References Braighlinn, G. M. (pseud., 1992). Ideological innovation under monarchy: Aspects of legitimation activity in contemporary Brunei. Amsterdam:VU University Press. Deterding, D., & Sharbawi, S. H. (2013). Brunei English: A new variety in a multilingual society. Dordrecht: Springer. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Brunei Darussalam. (2011). Daftar Leksikal 7 Dialek Brunei Darussalam. Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Gunn, G. C. (1997). Language, power, & ideology in Brunei Darussalam. Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies. Haji-Othman, N. A. (2005). Changes to the linguistic diversity in Negara Brunei Darussalam. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Leicester. Haji-Othman, N. A. (2007). English and the bilingual Bruneian. In K. Dunsworth (Ed.), English in South East Asia: Challenges and changes (pp. 59–70). Perth, WA: Curtin University of Technology. Haji-Othman, N. A. (2012). Is it always English? ‘Duelling aunties’ in Brunei Darussalam. In V. Rapatahana & P. Bunce (Eds.), English language as hydra: Its impact on non-English language cultures (pp. 175–190). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Haji-Othman, N. A. (2016). Bilingual education revisited:The role of Ugama schools in the spread of bilingualism. In N. A. Haji-Othman, J. McLellan & D. Deterding (Eds.), The use and status of language in Brunei Darussalam: A kingdom of unexpected linguistic diversity (pp. 253–265). Singapore: Springer. Haji-Othman, N. A., & McLellan, J. (2014). English in Brunei. World Englishes, 33(4), 486–497. Haji-Othman, N. A., McLellan, J., & Deterding, D. (Eds.) (2016). The use and status of language in Brunei Darussalam: A kingdom of unexpected linguistic diversity. Singapore: Springer. Haugen, E. (1972). The ecology of language. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Jones, G. M. (1996). The bilingual education policy in Brunei Darussalam. In P. W. Martin, A. C. K. Ożóg & G. R. Poedjosoedarmo (Eds.), Language use and language change in Brunei Darussalam (pp. 123–132). Athens, OH: Center for International Studies, Ohio University. Jones, G. M. (2012). Language planning in its historical context in Brunei Darussalam. In E.-L. Low & A. Hashim (Eds.), English in Southeast Asia: Features, policy and language in use (pp. 175–188). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Jones, G. M. (2016). Policy and practice in the use of English in Brunei primary school classes. World Englishes, 35(4), 509–518. Jones, G. M., Martin, P. W., & Ożóg, A. C. K. (1993). Multilingualism and bilingual education in Brunei Darussalam. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 14(1&2), 39–58. Kirkpatrick, A. (2012). English in ASEAN: Implications for regional multilingualism. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 33(4), 331–344.

323

Noor Azam Haji-Othman et al. Kirkpatrick, A. (2015). Redesigning the linguistic ecology of Southeast Asia: English and/or local languages? Paper presented at the 18th English in Southeast Asia Conference, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, 16–17 November. Kirkpatrick, A., & Liddicoat, A. J. (2017). Language education policy and practice in East and Southeast Asia. Language Teaching, 50(2), 155–188. Martin, P. W. (1992). An overview of linguistic research in Brunei Darussalam. In Dato Seri Laila, Jasa Awang Haji Abu Bakar bin Haji Apong (Ed.), Sumbangsih UBD: Esei-esei mengenai Brunei Darussalam (pp. 106–117). Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam: Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Martin, P.W. (1995).Whither the indigenous languages of Brunei Darussalam? Oceanic Linguistics, 34(1), 27–43. Martin, P. W. (1996). Brunei Malay and Bahasa Melayu: A sociolinguistic perspective. In P. W. Martin, C. Ożóg & G. Poedjosoedarmo (Eds.), Language use & language change in Brunei Darussalam (pp. 268–279). Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies. Martin, P. W. (1997). Accomplishing lessons bilingually in three primary classrooms in Negara Brunei Darussalam: Insights into the ‘Dwibahasa’ programme. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Lancaster. Martin, P. W. (1999). Bilingual unpacking of monolingual texts in two primary classrooms in Brunei Darussalam. Language and Education, 13(1), 38–58. Martin, P. W. (2002). One language, one race, one nation? The changing language ecology of Brunei Darussalam. In M. David (Ed.), Methodological and analytical issues in language maintenance and language shift studies (pp. 175–193). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Martin, P. W. (2003). Bilingual encounters in the classroom. In J-M Dewaele, A. Housen & L. Wei (Eds.), Bilingualism: Beyond basic principles (pp. 67–87). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Martin, P. W., & Poedjosoedarmo, G. (1996). Introduction: an overview of the language situation in Brunei Darussalam. In P. W. Martin, A. C. K. Ożóg & G. Poedjosoedarmo (Eds.), Language use & language change in Brunei Darussalam (pp. 1–23). Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies. Martin, P. W., Ożóg, A. C. K. & Poedjosoedarmo, G. (Eds.) (1996). Language use & language change in Brunei Darussalam. Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies. McLellan, J. (2005). Malay-English language alternation in two Brunei Darussalam online discussion forums. Unpublished PhD thesis, Curtin University of Technology. McLellan, J. (2010). Mixed codes or varieties of English? In A. Kirkpatrick (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of world Englishes (pp. 425–441). London: Routledge. McLellan, J. (2018, to appear). Towards dehegemonizing the English language: Perspectives of a ‘centre’ researcher working in the ‘periphery’. Langkit (MSU-IIT) Journal of Arts and Social Sciences. McLellan, J., & Haji-Othman, N. A. (2012). Features of the Brunei Darussalam variety of English. In E.-L. Low & A. Hashim (Eds.), Englishes in South East Asia: Features, policy and language in use, (pp. 75–90). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ministry of Education, Negara Brunei Darussalam. (2013). SPN-21: The national education system for the 21st century. Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam: Ministry of Education. Retrieved from http:// www.moe.gov.bn/spn21dl/SPN21 ENG (2013) COMPLETE.pdf Noorashid, M. N., & McLellan, J. (2018). Teaching and learning an ethnic minority language at university level: The case of Dusun in Brunei. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 18(1), 217–233. Nothofer, B. (1991). The languages of Brunei Darussalam. In H. Steinhauer (Ed.), Papers in Austronesian Linguistics (pp. 151–176). Pacific Linguistics A-81). Canberra: Australian National University. Ożóg, A. C. K. (1996). The unplanned use of English: The case of Brunei Darussalam. In P. W. Martin, A. C. K. Ożóg & G. Poedjosoedarmo (Eds.), Language use & language change in Brunei Darussalam (pp. 156–172). Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies. Rajak, W. (May 14, 2018). Brunei ranked 53rd in the ICT development index. The Bruneian. Retrieved from http://www.thebruneian.news/brunei-ranked-53rd-in-the-ict-development-index/ Sammons, P., Davis, S., Bakkum, L., Hessel, G., & Walter, C. (2014). Bilingual education in Brunei:The evolution of the Brunei approach to bilingual education and the role of CfBT in promoting educational change. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED546822.pdf Shamsuddin, S. M., & Ahmad, S. S. B. H. (2017). Contemporary issues of teaching Arabic in Southeast Asian countries. Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science, 5(6), 42–51. Tollefson, J. (1991). Planning language, planning inequality. New York: Longman. Wood, A., Henry, A., Abdullah, M. A. S. M. H., & Clynes, A. (2011). English in Brunei: “She speaks excellent English” – “No he doesn’t”. In L. J. Zhang, R. Rubdy & L. Alsagoff (Eds.), Asian Englishes: Changing perspectives in a globalized world (pp. 52–66). Singapore: Pearson.

324

Language policy in Brunei Darussalam

Suggestions for further reading Barnard, R., & Hasim, Z. (Eds.) (2018). English medium instruction programmes: Perspectives from South East Asian universities. London: Routledge, Taylor and Francis. (This volume focuses critically on the issues and controversies surrounding the rapid spread of English-medium Instruction (EMI) in tertiary-level institutions across Asia. It contains a foreword by Robert Phillipson, and case study chapters from Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia.) Haji-Othman, N. A., McLellan, J., & Deterding, D. (Eds.) (2016). The use and status of language in Brunei Darussalam: A kingdom of unexpected linguistic diversity. Singapore: Springer. (This edited volume consists of 17 chapters, mostly by Bruneian scholars, covering major linguistic and sociolinguistic issues pertaining to Brunei, including Language Policy and Planning in Education.) Jones, G. M. (2016). Policy and practice in the use of English in Brunei primary school classes. World Englishes, 35(4), 509–518. (In this article Jones analyses interview data from Bruneian teachers and Ministry of Education officials, revealing their views on the previous and present (SPN-21) languagein-education policy in Brunei.)

325

PART IV

South Asia

23 LANGUAGE POLICY IN EDUCATION IN INDIA Ajit K. Mohanty

1 Background Linguistically India is among the most diverse countries in the world. The recently concluded People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) (Devy 2014) has identified at least 780 languages (see www.peopleslinguisticsurvey.org for a list of all volumes of PLSI). The 2001 Census of India listed over 6,600 mother tongues (MT) declarations by the people which were rationalised to 3,592 MTs. Out of these, 1,635 with more than 10,000 speakers each were listed and the remaining 1,957 were clubbed under a single “other” MT category. Further, the 1,635 listed MTs were grouped under 122 languages. This process of rationalisation of MT declarations and grouping them into languages has resulted in variation in the number of languages identified in successive decadal census surveys in India. This shows, on one hand, the fluidity of linguistic boundaries in Indian multilingualism leading to fluctuations in people’s declarations and the arbitrariness of the grouping of MTs or languages into broader categories. For example, as many as 38 MTs, including Bhojpuri, are grouped under Hindi; yet Bhojpuri is considered a language in Nepal and Mauritius. Similarly, in 2001, Maithili was counted as one of the MTs under Hindi. Now Maithili is recognised as one of the 22 state level official languages in the Constitution of India (http://www.india.gov.in/govt/constitution_of_india.php), the VIIIth Schedule of which is a schedule of all the official languages for communication between the states as well as the states and the Union of India. In addition, Article 343(1) of the Constitution recognises Hindi (in Devanagari script) as the official language of the Union. English is not an “official” language of India; it is usually referred to as an associate or additional official language. Article 343(2) of the Constitution provides for English “to be used for all the official purposes of the Union” (in addition to Hindi) initially for a period of 15 years from the commencement of the Constitution (i.e. until January 25, 1965). Later, a Constitutional amendment lifted this time limitation, allowing continued use of English as additional official language of India for an indefinite period. Assignment of constitutional status to some languages – Hindi as the official language of the Union of India, English as an associate official language at the national level, and the 22 state majority or regionally dominant languages (including Hindi) at the level of the states – is discriminatory against the other languages including the indigenous, tribal, and minority (ITM) languages. Languages in India constitute a hierarchical and pyramidal power structure of broadly 329

Ajit K. Mohanty

three layers with a “double divide” (Mohanty 2010, 2013; Mohanty & Panda 2015, 2016). English occupies the most powerful position in the hierarchy. Hindi and other major regional languages, listed in the VIIIth Schedule as official languages and branded as ‘vernaculars’ during the British rule, are in the middle layer of the hierarchy. The majority of languages, the ITM languages in particular, are in the lowest rung of the power hierarchy.This hierarchical system of power relationship between languages in India is characterised by a double divide, one between English and the major regional languages (English–Vernacular divide) and the other between the major regional languages and ITM languages (Vernacular–Other divide). Historically, India has been a multilingual area with grassroots level of multilingualism and with recurrent patterns of dominance of some languages and the marginalisation of others. The hierarchical organisation of languages has also been typically characterised by a double divide. In different periods of history, a language like Sanskrit, Persian, or English has achieved a status of power and dominance with the patronage of the rulers – the Hindu kings, the Persian invaders and Moguls, or the British, respectively. This has led to the rise of the privileged elites who actively learned, cultivated, and propagated the dominant language as the language of power with greater control over resources. The languages of the masses, the majority languages in the middle rung of the three-tiered hierarchy of languages, were subordinate to the most dominant language of power. The languages of the masses had some presence in education and literacy instruction, but high levels of competence in the dominant language always remained the most prestigious and targeted as the end-point of quality education. The minority, lowcaste, indigenous, or folk varieties or the ITM languages had no presence in education and other scholarly and social activities. Located in the lowest rung of the sociolinguistic hierarchy, the ITM languages had marginal use in limited domains of social communication particularly within the disadvantaged communities. It is, therefore, not surprising that the ITM languages remained excluded from formal education. The users of the ITM languages were subjected to a vicious circle of language disadvantage (Mohanty & Panda 2015) and these languages were progressively impoverished; most of them did not develop any writing system or orthography. There are writing systems that have been developed sporadically by some groups or persons for their own tribal languages and, in most cases, these are not authenticated nor used. A prominent Santali leader, the late Pandit Raghunath Murmu, developed the Ol Chiki system for writing Santali language and it is now officially used and taught in Santali schools in the state of Odisha. However, the Santali people in other states – Bihar and Bengal – use Devanagari and Bengali scripts, respectively, to write the language.

2  Language education in pre-independence India Education in pre-colonial India was broadly multilingual in a nominal and informal sense (Mohanty 2008a). Early education of children from the majority communities (speaking the major Indian languages, i.e. vernaculars) was in the mother tongues. As the pupils moved into the higher levels of scholarship, learning involved more powerful language(s) of dominance, such as Sanskrit or Persian, as the language of teaching of religious texts and philosophical treatises. Thus, education of children in formal or informal systems involved learning of the mother tongue and other languages at different levels. Formal education was rare among the tribal communities and, hence, tribal mother tongues (which were not the vernaculars) had no presence in the common system of education.The distinction between language as a medium of teaching and as a school subject started during the British rule when English was introduced in schools as a language of teaching in private English medium (EM) schools and as a school subject in other schools where teaching was in Indian languages. Promotion of English in formal e­ ducation 330

Language policy in education in India

entailed a distinction between Sanskrit as a classical language and other major Indian languages, those labelled as vernaculars and used by the masses. School education during the period of British rule usually involved use of one language (vernacular) as medium of instruction (MoI) and other languages, such as English and Sanskrit (classical language), as school subjects, except in the private English medium schools, and in special and exclusive programmes of education in Sanskrit or Persian/Urdu. Higher education in British India was in English; the vernaculars (sometimes also labelled as Modern Indian Languages) and classical languages were taught as language subjects. The hierarchical distinction between English and Indian languages (including the vernaculars and the classical languages) was institutionalised in education in British India. Formal education in English was clearly associated with instrumental benefits in British administration and English replaced Sanskrit as it became the colonial language of power and prestige. The dominance of English over the Indian languages was contested during the freedom movement. The discourse of rejection of the British rule necessarily involved rejection of the dominance of English. Gandhi was a champion of MT education for all (Mohanty 1998). But, ironically, all the major national leaders of freedom movement, including Gandhi and Nehru, had education in English and some of the most prominent were educated in England. By the time of independence from the British rule, the Indian leaders were considerably influenced by English (and the western liberal ideas that came with it) and, in many ways, this facilitated the continued dominance of English in education and governance in post-colonial India, despite the legacy of a long period of fighting for freedom, which thrived on rejection of the ‘foreign.’

3  Current languages-in-education policy and practice in India Broadly, the pattern of education during the British rule continues in the post-colonial India with a growing prominence of English at all levels of education. At the same time, Hindi is sought to be developed and widely used to become a common language across India as per the mandate of the Constitution of India (Articles 344 and 351). The dominance of English is politically resisted in the Hindi speaking states in the northern regions of India, whereas the southern states have shown their preference for English, rejecting the prospects of imposition of Hindi in the non-Hindi speaking areas. The “Hindi Virodh” (Oppose Hindi) movements in the non-Hindi areas have sought to resist the initiatives of the government for the promotion of Hindi. The “Angrezi Hatao” (ban English) movements in other parts of India have sought to resist the dominance of English over the regional majority languages often projected as MTs. The anti-English movements are usually projected as movements for the promotion of MTs as these are seen as being adversely affected by the dominance of English. However, these political movements hardly ever project the ITM languages as MTs and as deserving the same consideration or status as the ‘majority’ mother tongues. Education in India reflects the sociolinguistic double divide through the exclusion of ITM languages from formal education. Only three to five of the tribal languages are used as MoI in regular school programmes for primary education (Grades 1 to 5) and, except Bodo and Santali, which are the tribal languages recognised after 2003 as official languages listed in the VIIIth Schedule of the Constitution, no other tribal language has any presence in higher education. The Anthropological Survey of India has listed 159 distinct tribal languages (Singh 2002) in the country and these languages remain neglected in education, governance, and other domains of socio-economic activities. Almost 99% of the tribal MT children in India are forced into submersion education starting from primary grades in a dominant language with a subtractive effect on their mother tongue competence. This results in large scale push-out (in the sense that the 331

Ajit K. Mohanty

schools impose language and teaching conditions which push the pupils out) and educational failure among the tribal children (Mohanty 2008b; Mohanty & Skutnabb-Kangas 2013). The number of languages used as languages of teaching or medium of instruction (MoI) and as school subjects in India has been declining sharply (Panda & Mohanty 2014). The number of languages taught as language subjects in schools also declined from 81 in 1970 to 41 in 1998. Languages used as MoI in primary grades declined from 43 in 1990 to 33 in 1998. The number of languages used in education has declined further in recent years, despite the Constitutional provisions for education in MT; Article 350A of the Constitution of India mandates “instruction in the mother tongue in primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups” (i.e. tribal languages).This provision has not been implemented in educational practices in the country.

3.1  The three-language formula: changing positions on languages in education In 1956, the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) attempted to deal with inequalities among the Indian languages and divergent practices in schools across the country and proposed a set of unifying principles for languages in school education (Meganathan 2011). This was called the three-language formula (TLF), which was incorporated into the Annual Report of the Ministry of Education (MOE) in the year 1957 (MOE 1957).The TLF 1957 recommended the teaching of three languages in school education with different combinations in Hindi and non-Hindi speaking areas. As the first language of teaching, the TLF 1957 recommended use of the regional language or mother tongue or a selected composite course of a combination of MT, regional language, and classical language like Sanskrit. There were two alternative recommendations for selection of the second and the third languages. Alternative one suggested teaching Hindi or English as the second language and teaching a Modern Indian or European language (not covered as the first or the second language) as the third language. The other alternative for choice of the second and third languages suggested teaching English or a modern European language as the second language and teaching Hindi (in non-Hindi speaking areas) or another modern Indian language (in Hindi speaking areas) as the third language. This formula did not distinguish between the regional language and the MT making it convenient for the states to impose the state majority languages as the first language and MoI on tribal and other linguistic minority children whose MT was not the state majority language. Further, recommendation of Hindi as the second language was not acceptable to the non-Hindi states (particularly the South Indian states). In addition, this formula was viewed as too complicated to be practicable. A simplified version was approved in the Conference of Chief Ministers of the States held in 1961.This 1961 TLF recommended use of three languages in school education (GOI 1962: 67): 1 The regional language or the MT when the latter is different from the regional language; 2 Hindi or any other Indian language in the Hindi speaking areas; and 3 English or any other modern European language. The simplified TLF did recognise that the MT may be different from the regional languages. However, the two were not explicitly suggested as mutually exclusive options. This confusion made it possible for the states to impose the regional majority language of the state on ITM children. A majority of the state population had the regional language as their MT and the state governments found it convenient to accept the ‘regional language’ as the MT of all children including those from ITM communities. This version of the TLF suggested that 332

Language policy in education in India

the children in Hindi speaking areas would have Hindi as the first language (non-Hindi MT children in these areas were also taught Hindi as it was the regional majority language) and an Indian language other than Hindi as the second language. The children in non-Hindi speaking areas would have the state majority language as the first language (children with other MTs were also taught the state majority language) and Hindi as the second language. The third language for all children would be English (or a modern European language, which was never taught in any school). In practice, in the Hindi-speaking areas, Hindi became the first language, Sanskrit the second language, and English the third language for all children. In the non-Hindi speaking areas, the state majority language became the first language, Hindi the second language, and English the third language. Hindi as the compulsory second language for the non-Hindi areas was resisted since none of the non-Hindi state languages was taught as a second language in the Hindi-speaking areas, as was envisaged in the revised TLF. Adding to the anomaly, the earlier form as well as the modified form of the TLF was applicable only to public or government schools. The private schools were free to choose their MoI as well as other languages as school subjects. The TLF has been modified from time to time in response to the anomalies and confusions raised by the earlier versions. The gap between the modifications was sometimes too short to make any impact on actual practices in school education in the country. All these changes to the TLF were directed at finding some compromise between the role of English as a language in demand and the projection of Hindi as a national level language in face of opposition from nonHindi states. In the process, the issue of MT as the language of teaching for all children including those from ITM communities has been neglected. A modification to the TLF in 1967 sought to make teaching of Hindi optional and it also recommended the use of tribal languages as MoI in the early school years. But, this recommendation, like several others during the recent years, remained unimplemented (Mohanty & Panda 2015). There were also several subsequent modifications to the TLF which failed to have any real impact on the choice of languages in schools in India. The school practices continued to be divergent while “English became the most common second language subject in all the states, followed by either Hindi or Sanskrit as the third language subject” (Mohanty 2006: 274). Hindi as well as the state majority languages were relegated to secondary roles in the school curricula and ITM languages remained neglected. The TLF was not a comprehensive language-in-education policy; it was only a balancing formula which raised more problems and issues than it solved. Lack of a clear language policy in education, the dual system of private and public schools, and the growing presence and popularity of private English medium schools reinforced the hegemonic role of English in school and higher education in India (see Mohanty 2017, for further discussion).

3.2  Languages in education beyond the three-language-formula: monolingual school practices in multilingual social reality The rhetoric of language policy in education in India remains fractured between a political desire to promote the mother tongues and indigenous identities of the masses in a multilingual society and, at the same time, to cater to the growing popular craze for English. In most of the 29 states in India, English is taught in Grade 1 in government schools.The National Knowledge Commission (NKC) (2009) of India also recommended teaching English from the first year in primary education in order to ‘democratise’ English among the masses. “Such proposals of early introduction of teaching of English in schools belie unfamiliarity with the principles of teaching languages in a multilingual framework and the well-established pedagogic grounds” (Panda & Mohanty 2014: 111). 333

Ajit K. Mohanty

The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) was revised in 2005 (NCERT 2005). The NCF 2005 recommended multilingual education with the home language(s) as “the medium of learning in schools” (NCERT 2005: 37). It reiterated the Constitutional commitments for education in MTs and cited research evidence showing cognitive, social, and scholastic advantages of bi-/multilingualism. However, NCF 2005, along with the position papers on the same, was selfcontradictory in several ways.While it recommended the home language as the MoI, it accepted the continuation of the English medium school system. Further, NCF 2005 (Section 3.13, Chapter 3) treated English as the second language for all children in complete disregard to the multilingual reality of the country (Mohanty & Panda 2015).The confusion was further evident in the National Focus Group – Position Papers (NCERT 2006) which followed the NCF 2005. In discussing the teaching of Indian languages and English (Volume I: Curricular Areas, NCERT 2006), it accepted the practice of using Hindi and English as MoI from Grade 1 in some government schools such as the Kendriya Vidyalaya or Central Schools. These are Government of India (usually referred to as the Central Government) schools located in different parts of India.These schools were started to provide uniform schooling to the children of all Central Government employees as they are posted in different parts of the country and transferred from one place to another during their service. The children in these schools have different MTs. But they are taught in English (used as MoI to teach Mathematics and Sciences) and Hindi (used as MoI to teach Social Sciences) although the MTs of most of the children in these schools are not Hindi or English. The contradictions were further evident in the explicit support in the Position Papers (NCERT 2006) for the principle of cross-linguistic transfer (Cummins 1984, 2009) and the delayed introduction of English only after the development of a strong MT foundation; and the simultaneous, but contradictory, proposition to continue the practice of teaching English from Grade 1, as in private English medium schools (and also in the Government schools in most of the states). As Panda and Mohanty (2014: 112) pointed out, the NCF 2005 “failed to project a clear vision in respect of the role of home language(s) vis-á-vis other dominant languages including English.” According to them, “English turned out to be the Achilles’ heel for NCF 2005.” The NCF 2005 was followed by a major national initiative in 2009 in form of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE). The RTE Act guaranteed free education for all six- to 14-year-old children as a right. However, it could not reinforce the principle of MT based multilingual education purportedly advanced through NCF 2005. The provision, in Article 29(2) (f) of RTE, that the “medium of instruction shall, as far as practicable, be in child’s mother tongue” (emphasis added) is with a caveat and it fails to guarantee education in MT. The proposal for a uniform school system in India doing away with the dual system of private schools for the privileged class and public schools for the less privileged was mooted earlier and reiterated in several education policy documents and recommendations of education commissions. This proposal was debated prior to the RTE Act. But, in spite of expectations, the RTE 2009 could not ensure a common school system which could have replaced the existing dual system of private English medium schools, mostly for the privileged class, and the public vernacular medium schools for the disadvantaged (see Mohanty 2017, for a discussion on the social stratification associated with the English medium private schools and the vernacular medium government schools). There is a sharp decline in the number of languages as MoI in higher levels of education in India. As pointed out above, there are 33 languages as MoI in primary level education. This number further declines in secondary and high school levels (Grades 5 to 12) and university and technical education is almost exclusively in English. Only 30 out of more than 617 universities or institutions of higher, technical, or post-graduate level education provide instruction in or allow students to use a language other than English. The number of non-English languages 334

Language policy in education in India

p­ resent in the curricula of undergraduate institutions is slightly higher. The almost exclusive presence of English in higher and technical education in India has a ‘wash back’ effect (Heugh 2009) which boosts the popular demand for early education in English. It seems, English is increasingly projected as central to education in India; other languages in multilingual India have a role, but only as long as they complement the position of English as the targeted endpoint. A comprehensive language-in-education policy has not been attempted in India.The constitutional provisions for languages in education have not been transformed into policy provisions nor put into action. Numerous ad hoc recommendations such as the TLF in its various forms, the recommendations of NKC and various National Education Commissions, the NCF, the RTE Act, and many other temporary measures and government proclamations have only added to the confusion over the place of Indian languages and English in education. It is, therefore, not surprising that, with its global appeal and power, English has gradually replaced Hindi as the most widely used language in schools. Besides being the MoI in all private English medium schools (which now have a share of over 40% of the total student population) and in government schools in some of the states, English is taught as a compulsory subject in Grade 1 in almost all the states and Union Territories (UTs). The linguistic hierarchy in India – the most privileged position of English, the relatively advantaged status of the regional majority languages or the ‘vernaculars,’ and the disadvantaged status of ITM languages – is clearly related to how the schools are organised in Indian society (Mohanty 2017). “The challenge of the double divide is most formidable for the ITM children in schools who need to negotiate simultaneously the English-Vernacular and the Vernacular-Other language divide. They struggle not only to learn the vernacular language of the school with no or little proficiency in the same but also to learn an alien language like English twice removed from their social reality and early experience” (Mohanty 2010a: 147). The hegemonic role of English in Indian education has forced a monolingual orientation to education in a country where multilingualism is the social reality. All the efforts and policy pronouncements in respect of the positioning of languages in education have presupposed a need to impose a uniform framework in a formidably complex sociolinguistic reality. For example, the assumption that all the children in India need three languages is a denial of the diversity of multilingual contexts. The problem with the TLF was that while the Hindi MT children may manage with school education in Hindi and English, the majority language children from the non-Hindi areas need education in their MT, English, and Hindi and the three languages may not meet the requirements of tribal MT children who need education in MT, the regional majority language, Hindi, and English. In view of such diversity of needs for languages in education, any formula for a fixed number of languages in formal education is grossly misplaced. It is not surprising that the fixed quota solution of uniformity proposed by the TLF has not worked; it sought to impose a Procrustean rule of forced choices in the language education policy in a diverse multilingual society.

3.3  Mother tongue-based multilingual education in India: experiments in language policy and practice Shohamy (2010) distinguished between declared and de facto language policies in education as “policies that are manifested in policy documents in the form of laws or other official statements” (p. 182) and what is actually implemented.The former are ideological statements showing some intentions which are often not followed up with meaningful implementation. Language education policy in India seems to have been trapped in this duality and the wide gaps between the declared and de facto policies have serious consequences, particularly for the tribal minorities. 335

Ajit K. Mohanty

The declared policies and pronouncements have been egalitarian and apparently promoting all languages and minority MTs. The actual school practices, on the other hand, have reproduced the sociolinguistic hierarchy among languages, thereby seriously disadvantaging the ITM language communities. The ideology of promoting and protecting the rights of communities to maintain, learn, and develop their languages in line with the constitutional commitments as well as various policy recommendations, along with the political processes associated with linguistic identity of the ITM groups, led to some attempts in India to develop special programmes for children whose MT was not the school language. The earliest attempt was by the Central Institute of Indian Languages of the Government of India which implemented the bilingual transfer programmes (see Mohanty 1989, for details and a critical analysis) for early education in tribal MTs in Grade 1, progressively switching over to the dominant state majority language by the end of Grade 2 in a transitional model of bilingual education. The programme was dropped after a few years as it was not successful. The focus on early transition from the MT to the dominant school language failed to provide necessary developmental opportunities for children’s MT and it became quite evident that the dominant language, rather than the MT, was the actual target in schools. The strength of the children in their MT was never put to any use and, further, by the time they reached Grade 2, they could not develop grade appropriate competence in the dominant ­language. Some experimental programmes of mother tongue based multilingual education (MLE) started in two states in India, namely, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, in the years 2004 and 2006, respectively. The programmes begin from Grade 1 with the development of proficiency in MT used as MoI for acquisition of literacy and primary level education. The programmes are based on the basic psycholinguistic principles of bi-/multilingual education (Cummins 1984, 2009, etc). The MLE programme in Andhra Pradesh (see Mohanty, Mishra, Reddy & Ramesh 2009, for details of the early Phase of MLE in these states) started in eight tribal languages in 240 schools. Odisha started the MLE programme in ten tribal languages in 195 schools. The tribal languages in these programmes are written in the script of the major state language (Telugu or Odia) since they do not have any indigenous writing system. The tribal MTs are used as the respective first languages (L1) of early literacy and as MoI for primary education in these MLE programmes. The state majority language – Telugu in Andhra Pradesh and Odia in Odisha – is introduced as a second language subject for development of oral communication skills in Grade 2 and for reading and writing skills from Grade 3 onwards.The teachers in these programmes are from the respective tribal language communities with competence in the tribal mother tongue as well as the state majority language (and English).These programmes follow the normal school curriculum of the respective state and make special efforts to bring in children’s cultural experience and indigenous cultural knowledge systems in developing the textbooks and curricular materials. English is taught as a school subject from Grade 3 in Odisha and Grade 1 in Andhra Pradesh programmes. The Odisha MLE programme is now extended to 21 tribal languages in 1,485 schools with over 140,000 students in Grades 1 to 5.The Andhra Pradesh programme was extended to over 3,000 schools by 2013.The pilot programme in Andhra Pradesh has now been stopped apparently because the subsequent government of the state was not willing to fund the project. Several evaluations of these MLE programmes (NCERT 2011; Panda, Mohanty, Nag, & Biswabandan 2011), however, show positive effects on classroom achievement, school attendance and participation, and teacher and community attitudes. Table 23.1 gives the MoI and curricular details for the MLE programmes in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. A special intervention programme called MLE Plus (MLE+) was planned and implemented by the present author and a co-researcher for a period of five years from 2007 along with the 336

Language policy in education in India Table 23.1 MoI and language subjects in MLE programmes in India Curriculum

State

Grade I

Grade II

Grade III

Grade IV

Medium of Andhra Tribal MT Tribal MT Tribal MT: 50% Tribal MT: 25% Instruction Pradesh Telugu: 50% Telugu: 75% Odisha Tribal MT Tribal MT Tribal MT Tribal MT: EVS/Science Odia: Math Language 1 Andhra Tribal MT Tribal MT Tribal MT Tribal MT Pradesh Odisha Tribal MT Tribal MT Tribal MT Tribal MT Language 2 Andhra X Telugu Telugu Telugu Pradesh Odisha X Odia Odia Odia Language 3 Andhra English English English English Pradesh Odisha X X English English

Grade V Telugu: 100% Tribal MT: EVS/Science Odia: Math Tribal MT Tribal MT Telugu Odia English English

Notes: 1.  Math, Environmental Studies/Science are taught as Subjects in the Primary Grades (I to V). 2.  Oral competence in Languages Two and Three are developed before teaching of reading and writing.

government MLE programme in Odisha (see Panda & Mohanty 2011, 2014 for details) in eight schools in two tribal languages – Saora and Kui. The MLE+ intervention followed a cultural psychological approach and used everyday cultural practices in the respective tribal community to develop classroom activities and plan pedagogic interventions in the classrooms. The MLE+ programme sought to promote literacy engagement through several community-based activities and a ‘synergistic reading programme’ with the children, their parents, and the community members sharing group reading, storytelling, and cooperative deliberations for promotion of oral and literacy activities and skills. Several internal and external evaluations of MLE+ show significant gains in children’s classroom achievement and participation and also indicated positive attitudes of teachers, parents, and community members towards the MT-based education of children (Panda & Mohanty 2011). Besides these experimental MLE programmes, other states in India, such as Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, and Assam, with large populations of tribal communities, have various supplementary programmes in MT with materials and activities such as storybooks, rhymes and songs, number games, and other specially designed activities to support and augment children’s learning in the dominant school language. The programmes seek to use the children’s mother tongue to facilitate the learning of and in the dominant language. These initiatives in the use of MT-based materials and activities in different states show a growing awareness in India of the critical role of MT in promoting quality learning among the ITM children. The MLE programmes and other MT-based initiatives for quality education of ITM children are not mainstream programmes, however. They are treated as innovative pilot projects in tribal education. However, in a positive development in education in minority MTs, the Government of Odisha (India) has announced a policy of MT-based MLE for tribal children in the state (Department of School & Mass Education 2014). The policy follows from the success of the experimental MLE programme in the state and is based on the recommendations of the report MLE Policy and Implementation Guidelines for Odisha (Mohanty et al. 2014) which provides the rationale, 337

Ajit K. Mohanty

theoretical bases, and curricular plan and other details for the MLE programme for tribal MT children in Odisha. The Odisha MLE policy is the first such language in education policy in India. In another positive step for early education in MT, the National Early Childhood Care and Education Policy (Ministry of Women & Child Development 2013) mandates use of MT along with other languages in all programmes of early childhood education for the zero- to six-year-old children in India.

4 Conclusion India does not have a comprehensive language education policy. Starting from the constitutional provisions in respect of languages, there are numerous reports, recommendations, and suggestions in the form of language formula, government directives, curricular frameworks, laws, commission proposals, educational policies, and various other documents and judicial pronouncements regarding languages and language rights.There are also several views and attitudes expressed through significant political initiatives, declarations, and movements and civil society activism. All of these can be taken as aspects of India’s language education policy. Language education policy is not just a set of written documents and directives in respect of the role and positioning of languages in education and curricula at different levels. As Spolsky (2004) suggested, actual practices, beliefs about languages in education, community attitudes, and political processes can be taken as constituting integral aspects of language education policy. However, as I have shown, the available mass of constitutional, legal, quasi-legal provisions and pronouncements of intensions and directives in respect of languages in education fail to project a unified picture and are fraught with ambiguities and contradictions.The de facto policies and practices in language education are divergent and the declared policies inconsistent. The multilingual sociolinguistic realities of India and the complexities of a diverse society have not been adequately reflected in actual practices in languages in education.At one level, the national policy and provisions have sought to protect the minority linguistic rights and interests and, at another level, they have been discriminatory against the ITM languages. The politics of language identity has led to egalitarian constitutional and policy proclamations for education in MTs, but the recommendations of several National Education Commissions, National Policies on Education, and Curricular Framework for education in the MTs have gone unimplemented. English, as such, has never been explicitly projected as the language of choice and significance in India’s education and polity, but, amid all the confusions and contradictions and the conflict between the pro- and anti-Hindi forces, it has assumed a position of dominance by default. The global significance of English and the growing demand for the language in India and the rest of the world have added to the significance and dominance of English in education in India. The major Indian languages are threatened but not yet endangered in their position in education despite being progressively reduced to a secondary role. The ITM languages are cumulatively neglected and ignored in education. There are some attempts to restore these languages through recent initiatives in MT-based MLE and some distinct policy pronouncements. But, the prospects of a large-scale restoration of MTs in education in India seem to be bleak. The burden of the sociolinguistic double divide has progressively led to homogenisation of linguistic diversity in education and to monolingual educational practices in a multilingual society. As a result, maintenance of ITM languages is seriously affected. UNESCO’s (2009) Atlas of world’s languages in danger lists 197 languages for India in the endangered category, the highest in the world. Over 80% of these endangered languages of India (Mohanty & Skutnabb-Kangas 2013) are tribal languages. Use of languages in education is critical for maintenance of linguistic diversity in the world (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000). Clearly, the ITM languages are threatened by their neglect in the language policy in education in India. 338

Language policy in education in India

References Cummins, J. (1984). Bilingualism and special education: Issues in assessment and pedagogy. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (2009). Fundamental psychological and sociological principles underlying educational success for linguistic minority students. In A. Mohanty, M. Panda, R. Phillipson, & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.), Multilingual education for social justice: Globalising the local. (pp. 21–35). New Delhi: Orient Longman. Department of School & Mass Education (Government of Odisha). (2014). Notification (MLE for Tribal Population). The Odisha Gazette, No. 1058 (3 July 2014). Cuttack: Government of Odisha. Devy, G. (Ed.) (2014). The being of bhasa: General introduction to the people’s linguistic survey of India, Volume 1 – Part II (in English). New Delhi: Orient Blackswan. GOI (Government of India). (1962). Annual report 1961–1962. New Delhi: Ministry of Education. Heugh, K. (2009). Literacy and bi/multilingual education in Africa: Recovering collective memory and knowledge. In A. K. Mohanty, M. Panda, R. Phillipson & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.), Multilingual education for social justice: Globalising the local (pp. 95–113). New Delhi: Orient Longman. Meganathan, R. (2011). Language policy in education and the role of English in India: From library language to language of empowerment. In H. Coleman (Ed.), Dreams and realities: Developing countries and the English language (pp. 57–85). London: British Council. Ministry of Women & Child Development. (2013). National early childhood care and education (ECCE) policy. New Delhi: Government of India. MOE (Ministry of Education). (1957). Annual report. New Delhi: Government of India. Mohanty, A. K. (1989). Psychological consequences of mother tongue maintenance and the language of literacy for linguistic minorities in India. Psychology and Developing Societies, 2(1), 31–51. Mohanty, A. K. (1998). Mother tongue education: The Gandhian view and a psycholinguistic analysis. In N. Hazary, S. C. Hazary & A. Mishra (Eds.), Eternal Gandhi (pp. 161–168). New Delhi: APH Publishing. Mohanty, A. K. (2006). Multilingualism of the unequals and predicaments of education in India: Mother tongue or other tongue? In O. García, T. Skutnabb-Kangas, & M. E. Torres-Guzmán (Eds.), Imagining multilingual schools: Language in education and glocalization (pp. 262–283). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Mohanty, A. K. (2008). Multilingual education in India. In J. Cummins & N. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education (2nd ed.Vol. 5: Bilingual education, pp. 165–174). New York: Springer. Mohanty, A. K. (2008). Perpetuating inequality: Language disadvantage and capability deprivation of tribal mother tongue speakers in India. In W. Harbert (Ed.), Language and poverty (pp. 102–124). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Mohanty, A. K. (2010). Languages, inequality and marginalization: Implications of the double divide in Indian multilingualism. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 205, 131–154. Mohanty, A. K. (2013). Multilingual education in India: Overcoming the language barrier and the burden of the double divide. In P. Siemund, I. Gogolin, M. E. Schulz, & J. Davydova (Eds.), Multilingualism and language diversity in urban areas: Acquisition, identities, space, education (pp. 305–326). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mohanty, A. K. (2017). Multilingualism, education, English and development: Whose development? In H. Coleman (Ed.), Multilingualisms and development (pp. 261–280). New Delhi: British Council. Mohanty, A. K. (Chair), Acharya, B. M., Dash, U. N., Kundu, M. N., Mishra, M. K., Mohanty, M. M., Panda, M., & Pradhan, A. (2014). MLE policy and implementation guidelines for Odisha. Bhubaneswar, India: Odisha Primary Education Programme Authority. Mohanty, A. K., Mishra, M. K., Reddy, N. U., & Ramesh, G. (2009). Overcoming the language barrier for tribal children: MLE in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, India. In A. K. Mohanty, M. Panda, R. Phillipson, & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.), Multilingual education for social justice: Globalising the local (pp. 278–291). New Delhi: Orient Longman. Mohanty, A. K., & Panda, M. (2015). Language-in-education policy and practice in India: Experiments on multilingual education for Tribal children. In A. Yiakoumetti (Ed.), Multilingualism and language in education: Sociolinguistic and pedagogical perspectives from commonwealth countries (pp. 49–66) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mohanty, A. K., & Panda, M. (2016). Hierarchy, discrimination and language disadvantage in Indian multilingualism. In S. Pattanayak, C. Pattanayak & J. M. Bayer (Eds.), Multilingualism and multiculturalsim: Perceptions, practices and policy (pp. 61–90). New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.

339

Ajit K. Mohanty Mohanty, A. K., & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2013). MLE as an economic equaliser in India and Nepal: Mother tongue based multilingual education fights poverty through capability development and identity support. In K. Henrard (Ed.), The interrelation between the right to identity of minorities and their socio-economic participation (pp. 159–187). Leiden, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff. National Knowledge Commission. (2009). National knowledge commission report to the nation 2006 – 2009. New Delhi: Government of India. NCERT. (2005). National curriculum framework 2005. New Delhi: National Council of Educational Research and Training. NCERT. (2006). Position paper on the teaching of Indian languages. New Delhi: National Council of Educational Research and Training. NCERT. (2011). Programme evaluation report: Multilingual education, Orissa. National Council of Educational Research and Training, New Delhi. Panda, M., & Mohanty, A. K. (2011). From mother tongue to other tongue: Multilingual education of tribal children in India. New Delhi: ZHCES-BvLF Project Report, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Panda, M., & Mohanty, A. K. (2014). Language policy and education: Towards multilingual education. In R. C. Tripathi & Y. Sinha (Eds.), Psychology, development and social policy in India (pp. 103–129). New Delhi: Springer. Panda, M., Mohanty, A. K., Nag, S., & Biswabandan, B. (2011). Does MLE work in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha? A longitudinal study. Swara, 1(6–7), 2–23. Singh, K. S. (2002). People of India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. UNESCO. (2009). Atlas of world’s languages in danger. Paris: UNESCO. http://www.unesco.org/culture/ en/endangeredlanguages.

Further reading Mohanty, A. K. (2019). The multilingual reality: Living with languages. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Mohanty, A. K., & Panda, M. (2015). Language-in-education policy and practice in India: Experiments on multilingual education for Tribal children. In A. Yiakoumetti (Ed.), Multilingualism and language in education: Sociolinguistic and pedagogical perspectives from commonwealth countries (pp. 49–66) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mohanty, A. K. (2013). Multilingual education in India: Overcoming the language barrier and the burden of the double divide. In P. Siemund, I. Gogolin, M. E. Schulz & J. Davydova (Eds.), Multilingualism and language diversity in urban areas: Acquisition, identities, space, education (pp. 305–326). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Panda, M., & Mohanty, A. K. (2014). Language policy and education: Towards multilingual education. In R. C. Tripathi & Y. Sinha (Eds.), Psychology, development and social policy in India (pp. 103–129). New Delhi: Springer.

340

24 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY AND INEQUALITIES OF MULTILINGUALISM IN NEPAL Ideologies, histories and updates Prem Phyak and Laxmi Prasad Ojha

1 Introduction Language education policy is a major contested issue in multilingual contexts (e.g., Mohanty, 2006; McCarty, 2011). As a multi-layered sociocultural and political space, creation and implementation of language education policy is influenced by histories, ideologies and power of multiple social groups (e.g., Davis & Phyak, 2017; Johnson, 2013; McCarty, Collins & Hopson, 2011). In this chapter, we critically analyze historical trajectories of Nepal’s language education policies, with a focus on space, status and ideologies of different languages. Our interpretative perspectives are informed by the historical-structural approach (Tollefson, 1991, 2013) which provides critical insights into understanding how language hierarchies are constructed and shaped by the history of structural inequalities. More specifically, this approach helps us unravel language ideologies that create and reproduce inequalities of languages in a multilingual context, which Tupas (2015) calls ‘inequalities of multilingualism.’ We begin our discussion with an overview of Nepal’s multilingual context, followed by critical analyses of past, present and the future of language education policies.

2  Linguistic diversity The 2011 census reports 123 languages spoken as ‘mother tongue’ by 125 ethnic groups in Nepal (CBS, 2012). This number is a significant increase from the previously recorded 92 languages in the 2001 census. These languages are genetically affiliated to four language families: Indo-European (Indo-Aryan), Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman), Austro-Asiatic and Dravidian. The Indo-Aryan family is the largest language group in Nepal in terms of the number of speakers. Among these languages, “most Indo-Aryan languages have literate traditions and share a well-developed writing system” (Giri, 2009, p. 34). Nepali, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Tharu, Urdu and Avadhi are some major languages in this family.The Sino-Tibetan family has the largest number of languages. The majority of languages spoken by the minority ethnic and indigenous people belong to the Sino-Tibetan family. Some major languages in this family include Rai, Limbu, 341

Prem Phyak and Laxmi Prasad Ojha Table 24.1 Ten major languages of Nepal (CBS, 2012) Languages

Number of speakers as mother tongue

Percentage

Nepali Maithali Bhojpuri Tharu Tamang Newar Bajika Magar Doteli Urdu

11,826,953 3,092,530 1,584,958 1,529,875 1,353,311 846,557 793,416 788,530 787,827 691,546

44.6 11.7 5.98 5.77 5.11 3.2 2.99 2.98 2.97 2.61

Tamang, Newari, Gurung, Thakali and Magar (CBS, 2012). Santhali, Munda and Kharia are three languages from the Austro-Asiatic family (Yadava, 2001). Jhangar and Kisan are two major languages in the Dravidian language family (CBS, 2012). As illustrated in the above table, 44.6% of the total population speaks Nepali as their ‘mother tongue,’ followed by Maithili (11.7%). Similarly, Bhojpuri, Tharu and Tamang languages are spoken by 5.98, 5.77 and 5.11% of total population, respectively. Other languages such as Newar (3.2%), Bajika (2.99%), Magar (2.98%), Doteli (2.97%) and Urdu (2.61%) are also spoken in different parts of the country.The other languages with more than 1% speakers are Avadhi (1.89%), Limbu (1.29%), Gurung (1.22%) and Baitadeli (1.02%). Despite having such a large number of languages, only 19 languages have more than 100,000 speakers. The languages spoken by minority ethnic and indigenous groups are not given space in the public sphere. Due to the country’s long monolingual language policy, the people who speak languages other than Nepali as ‘mother tongues’ are facing an increasing pressure of language shift. In order to preserve and promote minoritized languages, indigenous communities are continually organizing campaigns to ensure their rights to use their mother tongues in education and other public spheres (Lawoti & Hangen, 2013).

3  Understanding language ideologies in Nepal’s multilingualism The discourse of language policy and multilingualism has been a critical socio-political issue in Nepal.The 2015 Constitution redefines Nepal’s identity as a ‘multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural’ country. In addressing the linguistic rights of ethnic and indigenous minoritized people, the constitution has also removed the previous discriminatory distinction between Nepali as ‘the language of the nation’ and other local languages as ‘national languages’ (Phyak, 2011; Weinberg, 2013). The constitution also guarantees the right of communities to protect, preserve and promote minoritized languages and states that citizens will not be discriminated based on their linguistic, ethnic, political and religious backgrounds. Yet, this rhetoric of multilingualism has seldom been experienced by the people in education, government offices and other public spheres (see Yadava, 2007). Tumbahang (2009) is critical about the government’s lack of support and plans for creating space for minoritized languages in education and other domains. For him, the current inequalities of multilingualism are deeply rooted in the long history of the nation-state’s linguistic suppression. While reviewing the history of structural marginalization of minoritized languages, 342

Language education policy in Nepal

Tumbahang (2009), citing Yakkha Rai (1994, pp. 274–275), describes what Krishnachandra Aryal and Vaidyanath Joshi (Sedhai) of Gorkha Agency1 in 1917 commented about the language situation, as follows: Till now, the ‘Gorkha Bhasa’ has not been able to acquire universality, and the wild languages like Newar, Bhote, Magar, Gurung, Limbu, Sunuwar, Danuwar, Tharu also have not been able to leave their native places. As long as the one ‘Gorkha Bhasa’ cannot kick out all other wild languages in the country, it is just wishful thinking to say that ‘Gorkha Bhasa’ can develop and that ‘Gorkha Bhasa’ is capable of calling itself the primary language. After the Gorkha King Prithvi Narayan Shah conquered the Kathmandu valley and other surrounding kingdoms in the 18th century, ‘Gorkha Bhasa,’ the Shah rulers’ language, was imposed as an official language of the state apparatuses. This imposition compelled the citizens to speak ‘Gorkha Bhasa’ (Gorkha language), the standard and legitimate official language of the country. The government established Gorkha Bhasa Prakashani Samitee (Gorkha Language Publication Committee) in 1913 to strengthen the use of Nepali in mass media and education. The state later gave a new nomenclature ‘Nepali’ to the Gorkha language, “with an intent to transform it into the national and official language” (Yadava, 2007, p. 10). The state officially declared Nepali as an official language in 1948 and the language of the nation in the 1959 constitution (Yadava, 2007, p. 10). One critical process that contributed to the building of language hierarchies and structural oppression of languages is what Irvine and Gal (2000) call ‘erasure;’ an ideological process in which languages and/or language practices that do not fit in the dominant language ideology are considered deviant and purposely deleted. In Nepal’s case, the erasure of linguistic diversity for the promotion of Nepali is shaped largely by the ideology of linguistic nationalism (Anderson, 1991). Onta’s (1996) historical analysis shows that the imposition of Nepali as a national language reproduces the 18th and 19th century European nation-state ideology. As Anderson (1991) argues, the standardization and promotion of one language as a national language supports the ideology of nation-state as an ‘imagined community’ of homogenous people. Awasthi (2008, p. 23) further contends that the construction of Nepali as a national language and its imposition in education is not an ‘indigenous construct’ of Nepal, but an ‘importation of western ideals.’ However, linguistic nationalism is not the only ideology which has contributed to strengthen inequalities of multilingualism in Nepal. Neoliberalism, another dominant ideology, is equally influential in shaping the current hierarchy of languages in broader sociolinguistic contexts (Davis & Phyak, 2017; Sharma & Phyak, 2017). Neoliberal ideology embraces the commodification of goods (including language), deregulated market and privatization as key principles of national policy (Harvey, 2005; Holborow 2015). The expansion of English in public spaces, particularly in cities and tourist places, the mass media, foreign-aid agencies and non-governmental organizations, since the 1990s, is supported by the nation-state’s neoliberal ideology, particularly after the emergence of private and missionary schools. Attended mostly by the children from middle- to high-class families, these schools take English as their major selling point (Caddell, 2006). In private schools, English is taught as a subject and used as a medium of instruction from kindergarten. As private schools are established throughout the nation-state, the number of students in public schools is decreasing. In this scenario, public schools face a challenge to compete with private schools. Currently, there is a growing trend of adopting English as medium of instruction policy in public schools to compete with private schools (we will further discuss this issue later). 343

Prem Phyak and Laxmi Prasad Ojha

These social changes together have created a hierarchy of languages and naturalized the inequalities of multilingualism in that Nepali and English still receive more space and privilege than other languages in education policies and plans. In the remainder of the chapter, we further discuss how language education policies have provided (or denied) space for minoritized languages, with a focus on the reproduction of language ideologies.

4  One-nation-one-language ideology in education Until the early 1950s, education was not accessible to the general public. The formal education before 1950 was provided in English medium; the rulers wanted their children to be proficient in the English language in order to make connection with the outside world. Public education was limited to the rulers’ family members and relatives in the beginning and expanded to the elites towards the end of the Rana regime in the mid-20th century. The general public did not have access to formal education run by the government. Religious schools have been an important part of education in Nepal, having a longer history than the history of formal education.Traditional religious schools such as Gurukuls (Hindu religious schools), Madrasas (Muslim religious schools) and Gumbas (Buddhist religious schools) have contributed tremendously to teaching languages in Nepal. In these schools, students are taught Sanskrit (in Gurukuls),Tibetan (in Gumba) and Urdu and Arabic (in Madrasas). Currently, there are altogether 895 registered religious schools in the country (Ministry of Education, 2015), which account for more than 2% of the total schools in the country. After the democratic system was introduced in 1951, the government formed a high-level commission, namely the ‘Nepal National Education Planning Commission’ (NNEPC) to recommend the policies for educational reforms in the country. Language was one of the critical issues for the commission. Among many other suggestions, the commission recommended the use of Nepali as the sole medium of instruction. Reproducing the one-nation-one-language ideology, the commission suggested that the use of languages other than Nepali, including nonstandard dialects, should be avoided from the classroom and playground. For example, in one of the recommendations, the Commission’s report states: It should be emphasized that if Nepali is to become the true national language, then we must insist that its use be enforced in the primary school… Otherwise, Nepali, though learned, may remain a “foreign” language rather than the child’s basic, thinking language. Local dialects and tongues, other than standard Nepali, should be banished from the school and playground as early as possible in the life of the child. (NNEPC, 1956, p. 96) The commission enforced the use of Nepali in primary schools with an aim to develop it as a ‘true national language’ and force other languages to the verge of extinction. This kind of monolingual imposition contributes to what Skutnabb-Kangas (2008) terms as ‘linguistic genocide.’ This intention was clearly manifested in the NNEPC report. The study of non-Nepali local tongues would mitigate against the effective development of Nepali, for the student would make greater use of it than Nepali – at home and in the community – and thus Nepali would remain a “foreign” language. If the younger generation is taught to use Nepali as the basic language, then other languages will gradually disappear, and greater national strength and unity will result. (NNEPC, 1956, p. 97) 344

Language education policy in Nepal

The commission not only made it compulsory for all to use Nepali in school, but also aimed to gradually prevent the use of any languages other than Nepali in the public sphere, including day to day communication, ultimately aiming to “transform Nepal into a monolingual nation-state” (Awasthi, 2011, p. 77). The Nepali language as the medium of instruction policy was continued up to post-secondary education with some flexibility to allow the use of other languages as well. In this regard, the report stated: The medium of instruction in the University should be Nepali for oral and written use, but reading competency in English and Hindi will be essential, not only in the immediate future but for years to come, if we are to keep abreast of world ­developments. (NNEPC, 1956, p. 144) Interestingly, the commission that banned the use of local indigenous languages in education allowed the use of English and Hindi in higher education, highlighting their international scope. The one-nation-one-language ideology was further strengthened during the Panchayat Regime (1960–1990). At this time, the goal of education was to unify the people through linguistic and cultural assimilation (Weinberg, 2013). The 1971–1976 National Education System Plan (NESP) included contradictory policies regarding language in education. While it mentions the aim of education was to create a ‘just, dynamic and exploitation-free society’ (p. 21), it also states that education should contribute ‘to preserve, develop, and propagate the national language [Nepali] and literature, culture and arts’ (p. 21). More importantly, NSEP focused on promoting Nepali as a sole medium of instruction at the school level. In addition, it allowed teaching of various international languages at secondary level. As a result, English enjoyed the dominant position as a foreign language in education throughout the country (Malla, 1977).

5  Mother tongue ideology and multilingual education The 30 years of the Panchayat Era, that promoted monolingual and monocultural nationalism, came to an end with the introduction of multiparty democracy in 1990. This political change gave a significant space for the voices of minoritized language speakers. Indigenous communities formed their own ‘ethnic organizations’ and organized a nation-wide ‘mother tongue movement’ through various activities. Consequently, the 1991 Constitution recognized Nepal’s identity as a multicultural and multilingual country.Yet, this constitution reproduced the power of Nepali, written in the Devanagari script, as the ‘nation’s language’ and ‘official language’ and defined all the languages spoken as the ‘mother tongue’ as the ‘national languages’ of Nepal. The constitution guaranteed the rights of minority linguistic communities to education in their mother tongue, at least up to primary level. However, the policy was still discriminatory as it simply ‘allowed the people to operate schools in their mother tongues’ without ensuring any support from the state. Consequently, the mother tongue education policy was not implemented effectively in public schools. Despite this, Weinberg (2013) considers “the constitution of 1990 as a major step forward for the inclusion of languages other than Nepali in education” (p. 67). As indigenous activism for preservation and promotion of ‘mother tongues’ was rising, the government, in 1993, formed the National Language Policy Recommendations Commission, under the leadership of Til Bikram Nembang. The major task of the Commission was to recommend an appropriate language policy in education. Based on the discussions with multiple stakeholders, the Commission suggested that mother tongues can be used a medium of instruction and taught as a subject at the primary level (Phyak, 2016). Following this recommendation, 345

Prem Phyak and Laxmi Prasad Ojha

the Ministry of Education included teaching of mother tongues as an ‘optional subject’ in its national curriculum and developed textbooks in different local languages. To date, textbooks in more than 20 different mother tongues have been prepared. However, the teaching of mother tongues has not been effective due to lack of teachers and strong teacher education programs. In order to address learning challenges of the children whose mother tongues are other than Nepali, the Ministry of Education developed and implemented a ‘mother tongue-based multilingual education’ (MTB-MLE) program in 2007. According to this policy, children’s mother tongues should be used as a medium of instruction up to Grade 3, with a gradual transition to second language. Piloted for two years from 2007 to 2009 in seven schools of six districts, the policy embraced the importance of children’s knowledge of first language and indigenous knowledge as a resource for quality learning. This policy has been considered as an important step in embracing the importance of the rich linguistic and cultural diversity that children bring into classroom (Taylor, 2010). Despite all these attempts, the MTB-MLE program did not receive much attention across the country, both in number and quality, due to lack of teachers, resources and support from the state and, more importantly, the monolingual ideology that supports the hegemonic power of English medium education. Although the state’s policy embraces the need for multilingual education, the plans for creating space for minority languages in education have not been effective and meaningful. While the technical issues such as lack of scripts, grammars, dictionaries and literature represent the problems at the surface level, the discursive impact of the long history of monolingual ideology in creating and reproducing the ‘ideology of contempt’ (Dorian, 1998) towards minoritized languages has been a strong barrier for implementing MTB-MLE throughout the country. However, the parents, particularly from minority ethnic and indigenous communities, take the MTB-MLE program as a positive step for their children’s quality learning. For example, one parent from Dhankuta, whose children are being taught in Athpahariya, one of the indigenous languages in eastern Nepal, said that: … children learned by force before the introduction of Athpahariya in the school. They could not understand what teachers asked them to do and they also used to cry because they could not express their views. … By introducing Athpahariya in the school, children have received a natural and homely environment to learn”. (cited in Rai, Rai, Phyak & Rai, 2011, p. 41) Studies have shown that MTB-MLE has contributed a great deal to strengthen communicative, cognitive and academic proficiencies of students (e.g., Hough, Thapa-Magar & Yonjan-Tamang, 2009; Taylor, 2010). More importantly, this program has embraced the participation and knowledge of indigenous communities as major source for quality learning.Yet, the increasing impact of neoliberalism in education has created an ideological landscape in that the use of minority languages has been assumed to be without value.

6  Neoliberal ideology and English mania The discourse of multilingual education received a further emphasis during and after another political change, namely the Janaandolan-II (People’s Movement-II). The peaceful protest of 2006 for federal republicanism paved the way for the election of a constituent assembly and ended the long regime of the Shah Kings. As the representatives of the people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds participated in the constitution-making process, the indigenous communities became actively involved to ensure their rights to multilingual education in 346

Language education policy in Nepal

the constitution. Building on the provisions of the 2007 Interim Constitution, the Ministry of Education revised its National Curriculum Framework (CDC, 2007) and developed the School Sector Reform Plan (2009–2015) to promote multilingual education in the children’s mother tongue. However, the Ministry of Education also legitimized English as medium of instruction (EMI) policy for private schools in its revised educational act in 2006. The Ministry of Education states that the medium of instruction for school education should be either Nepali or English or both. It loosely mentions that mother tongues can also be implemented as medium of instruction at the primary level. Since public discourses on education are already influenced by the neoliberal ideology of English as the language of the global market, this policy provided public schools with space to adopt English as a medium of instruction policy (Phyak, 2011). Currently, there is an increasing trend among public schools to imitate the language policy of private schools, English thereby becoming a de facto medium of instruction. As Khati (2016) states, public schools are adopting EMI because they assume English “as a gateway to join the global academic and economic community” (p. 25). The public schools are also under pressure to start EMI because they think that EMI will help them compete with commercially motivated private schools (Ojha, 2018). Although studies (e.g.,Yip & Tsang, 2007; Civan & Coskun, 2016) have shown that EMI policy in the early grades can be detrimental to quality learning, EMI policy has been presented as synonymous with quality education in Nepalese society.This has encouraged the general public to send their children to English medium private schools (Phyak, 2016). However, there is a lack of evidence to support the assumption that the use of English as a sole medium of instruction in multilingual contexts benefits quality teaching and learning. In 2015, the Ministry of Education (MoE) commissioned a study on Medium of Instruction and Languages for Education (MILE), with financial support from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The goal of the study was to inform the MoE to draft a comprehensive language education policy in Nepal. The study team comprised Amanda Seel, Yogendra Yadava and Sadananda Kadel. Based on critical reviews of previous studies in multilingual education policy, analysis of political economy of Nepal’s sociolinguistic context and discussion with multiple stakeholders, the study team have drawn some important findings and made critical recommendations for language education policy. One of the major findings of the study shows that ‘ad-hoc switching’ to the use of English as a medium of instruction is due to weak governance and goes against the idea that multilingual education promotes cognitive engagement and educational achievement of the students (Seel, Yadava & Kadel, 2015). More importantly, the study reports that: The lack of books and materials, or even of teachers who speak English, does not seem to have cautioned schools away from embarking on the change. In reality, most ‘English medium’ schools would seem to be using Nepali quite extensively alongside English, but without the benefits of a planned approach to bilingual teaching.Training and resourcing for English falls vastly short of what is required, even to achieve effective teaching of English as a subject. (Seel et al., 2015, p. xii) The MILE framework is not only critical about the adoption of EMI policy in the early grades but also proposes a medium of instruction road map. According to the framework, mother tongues should be the medium of instruction up to Grade 3.This policy aims to lay the foundation for children’s literacy and basic cognitive ability in their mother tongue before they transition to Nepali and English.The Ministry of Education has developed curriculum and textbooks 347

Prem Phyak and Laxmi Prasad Ojha

for teaching more than 23 different mother tongues in school education. The framework suggests that schools should also continue using mother tongues by teaching them as subjects from Grade 4 onwards. The MILE framework further recommends teaching Nepali and English as compulsory subjects from Grade 1; and using Nepali as medium of instruction from Grade 6 to 8 for the subjects related to social sciences and arts and English as medium for math and science. In addition, English is recommended to be used as medium of instruction from Grade 9, except for the language subjects, i.e. mother tongue and Nepali. Similarly, the framework envisions the medium of instruction in higher education to be English and/or Nepali, where a range of mother tongues can be continued as subjects. The expansion of English in education is not limited to school level only; it has equally been used at tertiary and higher education. The medium of instruction in most of the programs in the higher education institutions is Nepali and/or English. However, the students who take language courses such as Nepali, English, Hindi, Nepal Bhasha (Newari) and Sanskrit are taught in the same language. Although there is a lack of a clear policy regarding the medium of instruction at tertiary education, English and/or Nepali are the de facto languages of instruction. Textbooks, pedagogies and assessment practices for the technical subjects such as Science and Technology, Engineering, Medicine, Nursing, Agriculture and Forestry are exclusively in English whereas, subject areas such as Humanities and Social Sciences, Education, Management and Law are taught using both English and Nepali, depending on the choice and language proficiency of the teachers and students. Students can choose between Nepali and English in their examinations. Currently, universities are also encouraging the use of English as the only medium of instruction.

7  Language policy in the federal context As the country has just started implementing federalism, there are some critical updates regarding language policy. First, based on the constitutional provisions that provide space for the use of local languages for official purposes, the newly elected representatives have already decided to use some local languages. For example, on his first day of office, the Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, Bidya Sundar Shakya, decided to use Nepal Bhasa (Newari), the language spoken by the Newar indigenous people of the Kathmandu Valley, for official purposes. In order to provide services to the public in an efficient manner, the municipality has already assigned one of the officials who has command over the Newari language. This official has a separate desk to help the people who do not understand and speak Nepali, but speak Newari language only, in receiving services from the municipality. The general public can now write their applications and complaints either in Nepali or Nepal Bhasa. Similarly, Kirtipur Municipality and Lalitpur Metropolitan City have also decided to use the Newari language in local government for official communications. Following the constitutional provision, Ghorahi Sub-Metropolitan City in Dang district has also decided to adopt the Tharu language as one of the official languages, effective from January 15, 2018, which coincides with the Maghi festival to mark the New Year of the indigenous Tharu community.The Mayor Narulal Chaudhary and other members from the Tharu community agreed to use Tharu while talking to their Tharu clients in government offices. As the provincial governments have been formed, language policy has become an even more contested issue. For example, on January 21, the elected assembly members from Province 2 took the oath in four different languages, namely Maithili, Bhojpuri, Nepali and Hindi. This has created a new public debate about the status and role of locally dominant languages in the changed political context. While some claim that official ceremonies like this should be 348

Language education policy in Nepal

conducted in the official language, others believe that using multiple languages will give the indigenous people a sense of ownership and recognition. Although there are encouraging efforts to embrace multilingual policies in the changed political context, the educational institutions have not yet been able to create space for linguistic diversity. While private schools, as mentioned above, keep focusing on the use of English as medium of instruction from the early grades, the public schools are increasingly adopting the same policy. This de facto policy has received multiple interpretations. First, this policy is largely shaped by neoliberal discourse of educational reforms. As the government continues to reduce funding for public education, the number of private schools continues to increase throughout the country. For example, the Government of Nepal had allocated 18% of its total budget for education in the fiscal year 2013/2014 but has allocated only 11.6% in the current fiscal year (2017/2018), with more than six percentage decrease in the last five years. More importantly, about 75% of the total budget is spent for teachers’ salaries and administrative works and the remaining budget is used for other managerial and logistic purposes. Although there is no clear rationale of allocating the low budget for public education, it can be interpreted that the government is deeply influenced by the neoliberal ideology; rather than investing in strengthening public schools the government has encouraged the opening of private schools throughout the country. The private schools are considered better than the public ones in terms of two factors: English language proficiency and test results in secondary education exams. As Bhatta and Budhathoki (2014) claim, most parents send their children to private schools because these schools teach in English medium. Although the issue of whether teaching in English medium helps children to achieve better academic performance is unanswered, public schools are keen on adopting it as a way to compete with the private schools (Khati, 2016; Phyak, 2017). However, this policy has not been effective due to the lack of competent teachers to teach through English and, more importantly, because of its irrelevance in terms of teaching and learning for multilingual learners (Phyak, 2015). A significant number of studies (e.g., Cummins, 2006; Garcia & Wei, 2014) have consistently shown that a monolingual approach to medium of instruction impairs the cognitive and emotional investment in the learning process resulting in poor academic achievement. Despite this evidence, there is growing interest of the parents and students towards these ‘English medium’ schools as the students’ success rate of private schools in the Secondary Education Examination (SEE) is higher than the success rate of public schools at the national level. Private schools appear to do better because of their focus on private tutoring, regular classes and efficient management (Thapa, 2011). The higher success rate in national examination is discursively constructed as the sole indicator of quality education. This construction becomes a hegemonic ideology; the general public uncritically takes private schools as the provider of quality education. The discursive impact of EMI has been deeply hegemonic, and it has been one of the major reform agendas in the manifestos of different political parties. In the recent move towards this direction, the newly elected representatives of Suryabinayak Municipality in Bhaktapur district unanimously decided to introduce EMI policy in all public schools up to Grade 3 in the 2018 academic session and expand it to Grade 12 by 2020. The argument, as claimed by the Mayor Basu Dev Thapa, behind this policy is ‘to strengthen the quality of public schools.’ Likewise, in a rally organized after the elections, the newly elected Mayor of Birgunj Metropolitan City, Vijaya Sawawagi, proudly presented English medium instruction as a means of development in education and said: I want to develop this metropolitan city as a model city within five years. I will ‘do’ the development that has not been done for the last fifty years in the next five years. My first decision is to address the issue of discrimination against girls. Girls are sent 349

Prem Phyak and Laxmi Prasad Ojha

to public schools and sons are sent to private schools. Now, the girls that go to public schools will receive the same facilities and quality education as in the private schools. All public schools in this city will have English medium instruction from next year. On the other hand, as a response to a question regarding the official language of the city, he confidently declared that the local dominant language in the city, which is Bhojpuri, will be used as the official language besides Nepali.

8  The formation of the Language Commission The formation of the Language Commission is one of the major steps that the government has taken to address language issues in Nepal. As mandated by the Article 287 of the 2015 Constitution, the government appointed Dr. Lava Deo Awasthi as the Chair of this Commission. As stated in the constitution, the functions of this commission are: (a) to recommend the criteria for selecting official languages; (b) to suggest the measures for the protection, promotion and development of languages; (c) to evaluate the strengths of mother tongues and recommend the policies for their use in education; and (d) to document, study and research languages. Based on these constitutionally defined terms, the Commission is currently organizing a series of consultation meetings with communities, language activists, researchers, teachers and other stakeholders throughout the country to draft policy recommendations for official languages of federal, provincial and local governments. However, the government has not yet appointed the seven other members of the commission (principally, one each from seven provinces) and thus it has not been able to function to its fullest. At the same time, it is worrying to see that the local government bodies are making decisions on the use of language without any consultation with the Language Commission. The Commission is also conducting research on mapping the linguistic situation of schools in different communities and understanding the current status of mother tongues in terms of vitality and standardization. More importantly, the Commission is collecting information with regards to the possibility of implementing mother tongue education in different public schools. In collaboration with the universities and researchers, the Commission is also conducting research on language shift and drafting policies for the preservation and promotion of minority languages. As part of these efforts, the Commission has collaborated with the British Council recently to organize a “Languages in Education Symposium” in Kathmandu. Among various areas discussed, the issue that dominated the symposium was how the multilingual reality of the country can be addressed in pedagogical practices for quality learning of all children. The symposium was attended by policy-makers, teachers, students, activists, politicians, parents and (I)NGOs.The participants in the symposium agreed that there is a need for evidence-based discussions on issues related to language in education and that multilingual education should be promoted for quality learning, particularly in the early grades.

9  Teaching Chinese and other foreign languages The Chinese language is currently becoming popular in Nepal’s linguistic landscape and education. There is a growing trend of including Chinese as an additional language in private schools in the major cities. Schools refer to the parental choice for the inclusion of Chinese in the school curriculum. They argue that since the number of Chinese tourists and trade with China are growing, schools are motivated to introduce Chinese in their curriculum (Sharma, 2018a). The Chinese government is also investing on teaching the Chinese language in Nepal. In 2004, the 350

Language education policy in Nepal

Chinese Embassy in Nepal received permission from the Ministry of Education to start teaching the Chinese language. The deployment of Chinese volunteer teachers is a clear indication that the Chinese government wants to expand the Chinese language in Nepal. More importantly, adding the Chinese language to the school curriculum has been one of the selling points for the private schools as it caters to the aspiration of the parents, especially from the upper-middle and higher classes, thereby promoting elite multilingualism (Sharma, 2018b). Moreover, the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu organizes annual festivals to introduce Chinese language and culture to children. The schools and parents are motivated for their children to learn Chinese due to its symbolic value as a growing international language and the language of the global market (Sharma, 2018b). In addition, universities and colleges in Nepal are including Chinese language programs in their curricula. Realizing the growing demand of the Chinese language teachers in Nepal, Kathmandu University has recently started a Bachelor’s degree in Chinese Language Teaching. Besides, since 2007, the university has also hosted the Confucius Institute to teach the Chinese language and culture. Moreover, the Campus of International Languages at Tribhuvan University has been providing Chinese language classes since 1961. In addition, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Italian and Korean are other foreign languages that are taught on this campus. A few private schools, in Kathmandu, have also been teaching German and French as additional languages to their students. Attended by high and upper-middle class children, these schools highlight the inclusion of these foreign languages in their curriculum as a selling point – to attract more students and increase the tuition fees. Some schools have also reintroduced Sanskrit language teaching in their schools in recent times. The language was taught as a compulsory subject in middle school in all public schools for a long time and was removed from the national curriculum due to the opposition from the then rebelling Nepal Community Party (Maoists) and other civil organizations, citing its association with Hinduism and lack of practical use in society. The religious schools run by Muslim communities teach Urdu and Arabic languages and the schools run by Buddhist monasteries have been teaching the Tibetan languages for a long time. In addition, there are Sanskrit schools throughout the country offering education in the Sanskrit language. In higher education, Hindi, Maithili, Sanskrit and Nepal Bhasa (Newari) are taught as subjects of specialization, besides English and Nepali languages which are also taught as compulsory subjects in the undergraduate programs.

10 Conclusion In this paper, we have traced the history and updates of language education policies in Nepal and discussed the construction, reproduction and role of different language ideologies in influencing the implementation of multilingual education. Our analysis indicates that there are both opportunities and challenges regarding the use of multilingualism in language education policies.The analysis of historical trajectories shows that the state’s educational policies are gradually embracing multilingual ideology that recognizes the importance of linguistic diversity in education. The MTB-MLE policy is one of the major milestones in this regard. This policy has contributed towards transforming the deeply rooted monolingual ideologies and provided insights for policymakers, teachers and parents into understanding why multilingualism is necessary in education. However, our analysis also indicates that neoliberal ideology of language education is creating both ideological and implementational challenges for embracing the significant body of knowledge on the need for multilingual education. The expansion of English as medium of instruction in public schools is an example of how neoliberal private schools shape the public discourses and policies of language education. 351

Prem Phyak and Laxmi Prasad Ojha

Our discussion also portrays how language education policies have become a contested agenda in Nepal’s changed political context. Although multilingualism is recognized as a core component of national identity, as mentioned in the constitution, it has not yet been an integral aspect of education. Our analysis further indicates that there is lack of ideological clarity and awareness (Davis & Phyak, 2017; Kroskrity, 2009) about the relevance of multilingualism among the general public and the lawmakers. Therefore, it is necessary for the Language Commission, local governments, communities, experts and teachers to work together towards engaging in awareness raising activities regarding the relevance of multilingualism in education. The future of Nepal’s language policy depends largely on how federal, provincial and local governments manage the linguistic diversity of the country. On the one hand, the government has a responsibility to create and implement multilingual language policy and to ensure the linguistic and cultural rights of the people, but, on the other hand, they are deeply influenced by the hegemonic neoliberal ideology of education, which reproduces the dominance of English monolingualism in education. In this context, Nepal’s future language policy will be determined largely by effort of the government towards embracing and implementing multilingualism in education. The existing situation clearly indicates that the number of minoritized languages as official language will be increased and the interest in learning ‘mother tongues’ will rise as the communities take a more agentive role towards reclaiming linguistic and cultural identities. Although neoliberal ideology of education is supporting English as a de facto medium of instruction, the newly promulgated constitution reimagines multilingual policies in government offices and education and provides more power to the local governments to develop language education policies.This political change has given more space to the local indigenous communities to play agentive roles in creating and implementing multilingual education policies in local schools. As local governments in some provinces have already started developing and implementing mother tongue education, Nepal’s language education policy will gradually resist monolingual ideology and embrace multilingualism in all public spheres.

Note 1 This government agency was established to work for the development of the Gorkha language, which is now known as the Nepali language.

References Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. New York & London:Verso. Awasthi, L. D. (2008). Importation of ideologies: From Macaulay Minutes to Wood commission. Journal of Education and Research, 1(1), 21–30. Awasthi, L. D. (2011). The making of Nepal’s language policy: Importation of language ideologies. In L. Ferrell, U. N. Singh & R. A. Giri (Eds.), English language education in South Asia (pp. 73–88). New Delhi: Cambridge University Press. Bhatta, P., & Budathoki, S. B. (2013). Understanding private educationscape(s) in Nepal. Education Support Program (ESP) Working Paper Series, 57, 1–34. Caddell, M. (2006). Private schools as battlefields: Contested visions of learning and livelihood in Nepal. Compare, 36(4), 463–479. Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). (2012). National population and housing census 2011: National report. Kathmandu: CBS. Civan, A., & Coskun, A. (2016). The effect of the medium of instruction language on the academic success of university students. Educational Sciences:Theory and Practice, 16(6), 1981–2004. Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal. (1990). Kathmandu: His Majesty’s Government of Nepal. Constitution of Nepal. (2015). Kathmandu: Government of Nepal.

352

Language education policy in Nepal Cummins, J. (2006). Identity texts: The imaginative construction of self through multiliteracy pedagogy. In O. García, T. Skutnabb-Kangas, & M. E. Torres-Guzmán (Eds.), Imagining multilingual schools: Languages in education and glocalization (pp. 51–68). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Curriculum Development Centre (CDC). (2007). National curriculum framework. Bhaktapur: Curriculum Development Center. Davis, K. A., & Phyak, P. (2017). Engaged language policy and practices. New York & London: Routledge. Dorian, N. C. (1998). Western language ideologies and small-language prospects. In L.A. Grenoble & L. J. Whaley (Eds.), Endangered languages: Current issues and future prospects (pp. 3–21). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Education for All (EFA) National Plan of Action. (2003). Kathmandu: Ministry of Education, Government of Nepal. García, O., & Li, W. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Giri, R. A. (2009). The politics of ‘unplanning’ of languages in Nepal. Journal of NELTA, 14(1–2), 32–44. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Holborow, M. (2015). Language and neoliberalism. New York: Routledge. Hough, D. A., Thapa Magar, R. B., & Yonjan-Tamang, A. (2009). Privileging indigenous knowledges: Empowering MLE in Nepal. In A. K. Mohanty, M. Panda, R. Phillipson, & T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds.), Multilingual education for social justice: Globalising the local (pp. 146–161). New Delhi, India: Orient Blackswan. Interim constitution of Nepal. (2007). Kathmandu: Government of Nepal. Irvine, J. T., & Gal, S. (2000). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. V. Kroskrity (Ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities, and identities (pp. 35–84). Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Johnson, D. C. (2013). Language policy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Khati, A. R. (2016). English as a medium of instruction: My experience from a Nepali hinterland. Journal of NELTA, 21(1–2), 23–30. Kroskrity, P.V. (2009). Language renewal as sites of language ideological struggle: The need for ideological clarification. In J. Reyhner & L. Lockard (Eds.), Indigenous language revitalization: Encouragement, guidance and lessons learned (pp. 71–83). Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona University. Lawoti, M., & Hangen, S. (Eds.) (2013). Nationalism and ethnic conflict in Nepal: Identities and mobilization after 1990. Abingdon: Routledge. Malla, K. P. (1977). English in Nepalese education. Kathmandu, Nepal: Ratna Pustak Bhandar. McCarty, T. (2011). Ethnography and language policy. New York: Routledge. McCarty, T. L., Collins, J., & Hopson, R. K. (2011). Dell Hymes and the new language policy studies: Update from an underdeveloped country. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 42(4), 335–363. Ministry of Education. (2015) Nepal education in figures. Kathmandu: Ministry of Education. Mohanty, A. K. (2006). Multilingualism of the unequals and predicaments of education in India: Mother tongue or other tongue. In O. García, T. Skutnabb-Kangas & M. E. Torres-Guzmán (Eds.), Imagining multilingual schools: Languages in education and globalization (pp. 262–279). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. National Education System Plan (NESP). (1971–1975). Kathmandu: Ministry of Education, His Majesty’s Government of Nepal. National Language Policy Recommendations Commission (NLPRC). (1994). The report of National Languages Policy Recommendation Commission. Kathamandu: Royal Nepal Academy, Kathmandu. Nepal National Eduction Commission (NNEPC). (1956). Education in Nepal: Report of the Nepal National Educational Planning Commission. Kathmandu: Bureau of Publications, College of Education. Ojha, L. P. (2018). Shifting the medium of instruction to English in public schools: Policies, practices and challenges in Nepal. In D. Hayes (Ed.), English language teaching in Nepal: Research, reflection and practice (pp. 189–198). Kathmandu: British Council. Onta, P. (1996). Ambivalence denied:The making of Rastriya Itihas in Panchayat era textbooks. Contribution to Nepalese Studies, 23(1), 213–254. Phyak, P. (2011). Beyond the façade of language planning for Nepalese primary education: Monolingual hangover, elitism and displacement of local languages? Current Issues in Language Planning, 12(2), 265–287. Phyak, P. (2015). (En)Countering language ideologies: Language policing in the ideospace of Facebook. Language policy, 14(4), 377–395.

353

Prem Phyak and Laxmi Prasad Ojha Phyak, P. (2016). ‘For our cho:tlung’: Decolonizing language ideologies and (re)imagining multilingual education policies and practices in Nepal. PhD dissertation submitted to The University of Hawai’i, Manoa, USA. Rai, V. S., Rai, M., Phyak, P., & Rai, N. (2011). Multilingual education in Nepal: Hearsay and reality. Kathmandu, Nepal: UNESCO. Seel, A., Yadava, Y. P., & Kadel, S. (2015). Medium of instruction and languages of education (MILE): Ways forward for education policy, planning, and practice in Nepal: Final report. A report submitted to the Ministry of Education, Nepal and DFID. Sharma, B. K. (2018a). Non-English lingua franca? Mobility, market and ideologies of the Chinese language in Nepal. Global Chinese. 1–26. doi: doi.org/10.1515/dlochi-2018-0004 Sharma, B. K. (2018b). Economic markets, elite multilingualism, and language policy in Nepali schools. In J. Crandall & K. M. Bailey (Eds.), Global perspectives on language education policy (pp. 84–94). New York: Routledge. Sharma, B. K., & Phyak, P. (2017). Neoliberalism, linguistic commodification, and ethnolinguistic identity in multilingual Nepal. Language in Society, 46(2), 231–256. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2008). Linguistic genocide in education – or worldwide diversity and human rights? Delhi: Orient Black Swan. Taylor, S. K. (2010). Beyond bilingual education: Multilingual language education in Nepal. Gist Education and Learning Research Journal, 4, 138–154. Thapa, A. (2013). Does private school competition improve public school performance? The case of Nepal. International Journal of Educational Development, 33(4), 358–366. Tollefson, J. W. (1991). Planning language, planning inequality: Language policy in the community. London: Longman. Tollefson, J. W. (Ed.) (2013). Language policies in education: Critical issues (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Tumbahang, G. B. (2009). Process of democratization and linguistic (human) rights in Nepal. Tribhuvan University Journal, 26(1), 7–16. Tupas, R. (2015). Inequalities of multilingualism: Challenges to mother tongue-based multilingual education. Language and Education, 29(2), 112–124. Weinberg, M. (2013). Revisiting history in language policy: The case of medium of instruction in Nepal. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 28(1), 61–80. Yadava, Y. P. (2001). Language. In National population census 2001: National Report. Kathmandu: Central Bureau of Statistics. Yadava, Y. P. (2007). Linguistic diversity in Nepal: Perspectives on language policy (A paper presented at international seminar on constitutionalism and diversity in Nepal). Kathmandu, Nepal. Yip, D. Y., & Tsang,W. K. (2007). Evaluation of the effects of the medium of instruction on science learning of Hong Kong secondary students: Students’ self-concept in science. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 5(3), 393–413.

Further reading Davis, K. A., & Phyak, P. (2017). Engaged language policies and practices. London & New York: Routledge. (This book provides a critical analysis of how language policy actors could be engaged in ideological analysis towards resisting monolingual ideologies. Taking an engaged approach, this book includes chapters that focus on engaging language policy studies with indigenous youth in Nepal.This book provides insights into understanding the influence of neoliberal ideologies in Nepal.) Seel, A.,Yadava,Y. P., & Kadel, S. (2017). Medium of instruction and languages for education (MILE):Ways forward for education policy, planning and practice in Nepal. Kathmandu: Ministry of Education. (This policy report provides an overview of the language situation in Nepal and discusses various models and practices of language education. Building on empirical data collected from schools, teachers and other stakeholders, this report analyses political and pedagogical dimensions of multilingual education.The report critically examines the relevance of English as a medium of instruction policy in Nepal’s multilingual context. More importantly, it suggests a road map for the medium of instruction policy in Nepal.)

354

25 LANGUAGE POLICY IN BHUTAN Lhundup Dukpa

1 Introduction Bhutan is a democratic, constitutional monarchy following the constitutional reforms of 2008. It is a mountainous country, about 200m above sea level in the south and above 7,500m in the higher Himalayas in the north. Over 64.2% of Bhutan is covered by forests. There are more than 600,000 mountain inhabitants who live in close harmony with nature. This harmonious relationship with nature has helped evolve a unique national identity derived largely from its spiritual and cultural heritage based on Buddhism. Bhutan’s pristine ecology and wildlife contributing to its scenic beauty of its majestic mountain peaks and lush valleys, and the untouched traditional culture are considered as significant assets (Zurick, 2006). Bhutan is known for its spiritual heritage. It is believed to be the only country that has pure practices of Mahayana Buddhism in its Tantric form. Buddhism flourished in Bhutan in the 7th century with the visit of Guru Padma Sambhava and the construction of Kurjey Lhakhang in Bumthang and Taktshang monastery (Tiger’s Nest) in Paro in the 8th century. Gongsar Ugyen Wanchuck, the son of Jigme Namgyal, the then Trongsa Penlop (governor of Trongsa), became the first King of Bhutan in 1907. In 1972, the fourth, King Jigme Singye Wanchuck, became the youngest monarch in the world at the age of 17 and it was during his leadership that a strong emphasis was placed on preserving the rich religious and cultural heritage of Bhutan by declaring Gross National Happiness (GNH) as the national development philosophy for Bhutan. The GNH philosophy acknowledges that spiritual and emotional development is as important as material accumulation and physical comfort. Bhutan has adopted a ‘sustainable development policy’ as the guiding principle for its economic development. Examples of sustainable development plans include harnessing hydro power energy, conservation of forests, promoting organic farming, creation of national parks, preservation of traditional-indigenous cultures, and promoting eco-tourism. Although tourism and hydroelectric power generation are the two main sources of income, agriculture is still the economic backbone of the country. Agriculture contributes to about 18.27% of the GDP, and about 85% of the population derives its living from it (National Environment Commission, 2009). Tourism is another major revenue-generating sector. The government plans to preserve Bhutan as a high-end tourist destination by upgrading the existing infrastructure, improving service delivery, diversifying products, and ensuring wider spread of tourism across the country. 355

Lhundup Dukpa

The government is also exploring herbal medicinal production, new cultural heritage sites, and hot springs are being explored as additional attractions.

2  Languages of Bhutan Bhutan is a linguistically diverse country in which most languages are part of the Bodish branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family (see Table 25.1).1 In addition, Chökê (Classical Tibetan, also a Bodish language) is used widely in Buddhist liturgy and other religious contexts. Of the Bodish languages, Dzongkha has a written script, which is derived from the script used for writing Chökê, which was introduced to Bhutan at the time that Buddhism was introduced (Nado, 1982). The official script for Dzongkha is based on the Ucen (serifed) version of the script. A distinctly Bhutanese cursive script, known as Joyî, which was developed by Demang Tsemang in the 8th century, is also used to write Dzongkha. Traditionally, literacy was practiced in Chökê, until the development of a written form of Dzongkha in the 1970s. The existing script is cumbersome and proposals have been made for script reform, but these have not been acted on (van Drien, 1994). Some of the languages that are also spoken outside Bhutan have exogenous scripts. Nepali (Lhotshamkha) uses the Ramajana script also used in Nepal, and some Bhutanese speakers are literate in the language as it was used in some schools prior to 1990. Lepcha also has a script, which is used in Sikkim but not in Bhutan. In the south of Bhutan, the Lhotsampas (Bhutanese of Nepali descent) speak 14 different languages including Nepali. These languages are Bantawa, Tamang, Limbu, Magar, Sherpa, Lepcha,

Table 25.1 Languages of Bhutan Language

Approximate number of speakers

Language family

Brokkat Brokpake Bumthangkha Chalikha Chocangacakha Dakpakha Dzalakha Dzongkha Gongduk Khengkha Kurtokha Lakha Layakha Lepcha Lhokpu Lunanakha Nupbikha Nyenkha Olekha Tshangla Nepali (Lhotshamkha)

300 5,000 20,000 1,500 30,000 2,000 22,000 237,080 2,100 65,000 15,000 8,000 1,100 11,700 2,500 700 ? 10,000 500 98,800 85,000

Central Bodhish Central Bodhish East Bodhish East Bodhish Central Bodhish East Bodhish East Bodhish Central Bodhish Bodic East Bodhish East Bodhish Central Bodhish Central Bodhish Bodic Bodic Central Bodhish East Bodhish East Bodhish East Bodhish Bodic Indo-Aryan

Source: Lewis et al. 2016.

356

Language policy in Bhutan Table 25.2 Languages spoken in the south of Bhutan

 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Community

Commonly spoken language

Script used

Rai Chamling Limbu Tamang Sherpa Lepcha Magar Gurung Ghale Pradhan Chetri Bahaun Kami “mai Sarkey Sunawar Sunar Maji Thakuri Adibhashi Thami Tharu

Bantawa Bantawa Limbu Kura Tamang Kura Sherpa Kura Lepcha Kura Magar Kura Gurung Kura Ghale Kura Newari Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Adibhashi Thami Kura Tharu Kura

Kiratey Kiratey Kiratey Dzongkha/Tibetan Dzongkha/Tibetan Dzongkha/Tibean Not known Not known Not known Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Nepali Not known Not known Not known

Source: Oral interview in community.

Ghale, Newari, Nepali, Tibetan, Adibhashi, Thami, and Tharu. Although 85,000 (Lewis et al., 2016) Lhotsampas speak Nepali not all are from the Nepali speaking community. Among the 22 Lhotsampa communities settled in the south of Bhutan, 13 communities speak ten different languages, and only about nine communities speak Nepali language (see Table 25.2).

3  Language policy It was during the 1960s under the reign of the third king, His Majesty Jigme Dorji Wanchuck (1952–1972), that the importance of developing a national language was felt. He believed in the possibility of a total unification and integration of the people and nation through the adoption of a common language where so many different vernaculars were spoken in different parts of the country (van Drien, 1994). Dzongkha as the national language has served as a symbol of unity and the aim of ‘one nation – one language’ is explicitly articulated in a number of policy documents. The status of Dzongkha is enshrined in the Constitution. Section 8 of Article 1 states, “Dzongkha is the national language of Bhutan;” and, in Section 1 of Article 4, “language” and “literature” are enumerated along with the other cultural heritage of Bhutan to be preserved, protected, and promoted. Dzongkha is thus the national language and symbolises the identity of Bhutan and is taught as a major language in schools across the country. Official correspondence, public speeches, public meetings, and parliamentary sessions are conducted in Dzongkha and constitutional authorities and parliamentarians must be fluent in the language. 357

Lhundup Dukpa

Dzongkha is also perceived as the repository of Bhutan’s spiritual and cultural heritage as well as Buddhist philosophy and indigenous knowledge. It serves as a medium through which all Bhutanese learn about their heritage, although Chökê (Classical Tibetan) is used as a liturgical language in Buddhism. In 1989, the government established the Dzongkha Development Commission (DDC) to carry out national language planning activities in Bhutan. The office had identified four policy objectives: 1) to enhance the Dzongkha competency of the Bhutanese people; 2) to enhance the Dzongkha–English bilingual competency of the Bhutanese people; 3) to develop and promote the national language through the other native languages of Bhutan; and 4) to develop and promote the national language through Information and Communication Technology. The question of the relationship between the national language and other languages was taken up in the National Education Framework realised in 2012 and is discussed further below. As part of its activities, the DDC has responsibility for producing grammars, dictionaries, orthographic guides, and other language reference books for Dzongkha and distributing them to civil servants, students, and the general public. It also participates in the development of Dzongkha curricula in schools, institutes, and university colleges. Besides research, the DDC commissions publications and works on the standardisation of Dzongkha with specific focus on the usage of grammar and spelling. The DDC also has responsibility for studying and documenting minority languages, but there is little of this work that is publicly available (van Drien, 2004, 2015). English is also widely spoken and is considered a key to communication to unlock global intellectual resources. In Bhutan, English is studied at all levels of school. It is the medium of instruction as well as the language of curricular studies in most areas of the curriculum.

4  Schooling in Bhutan Education in Bhutan was historically delivered in monastic schools, using Chökê as the usual language of instruction. Secular education began slowly in Bhutan beginning in the reign of King Uga Wanchu (1907–1926), when two schools were opened, increasing to five by the end of the 1940s. In the 1950s, King Jimi Doji Wanchu (1952–1972) introduced a national system of education (van Drien, 1994). There has been notable growth in educational institutions and enrolment at all levels of education, particularly at the primary and secondary levels. In 1960 there were only 11 schools in Bhutan with about 400 students but by 2016, the number of schools had increased to 522 with 169,560 students (Policy and Planning Division, 2016). The formal education system covers all institution-based education from pre-primary to tertiary education (see Figure 25.1). Bhutan currently has a seven-year primary education cycle, including one year of pre-primary education, followed by six years of secondary education leading to tertiary education. The secondary education programme comprises two years of junior secondary school, two years of middle secondary, and two years of higher secondary education. Children begin their schooling at the age of six when they enter the pre-primary class (PP). Free basic education in Bhutan extends from PP to Class X. After Class X, students continue their specialised education in Classes XI and XII in higher secondary schools, join vocational training institutes, or enter the labour market. Entrance to Class XI in public schools depends upon the students’ performance in the Bhutan Certificate for Secondary Education (BCSE), taken at the end of Class X. Students who attain the required grades are either selected for incountry, government-funded education, or receive scholarships to study abroad. Students who are not selected for government-funded education can attend private higher secondary schools in Bhutan or abroad, at their own expense. Others have the option of joining vocational courses, 358

Language policy in Bhutan Primary Ages 6–12

Lower Secondary Ages 13–16

Higher Secondary Ages 17–18

Tertiary Education Ages 19–22

Vocational Education Age 17+ (VTI) PP-VI

VII-X

XI-XII

Bachelor or Diploma

Vocational

Labor Force

Figure 25.1 Formal education structure of Bhutan. Source: School Education and Research Unit, 2012, p. 28.

which are either state-funded or organised by private firms. A number of training options are available at this level, including engineering, agriculture, health sciences, and office support services. The downside of the system is that children who do not qualify for higher secondary or tertiary education have to pay heavy fees to the private schools. After graduating from Class XII (BHSEC), students enrol in tertiary-level institutions or enter the job market. Students either join one of the institutes of the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) for a diploma or a bachelor’s degree or pursue their studies abroad. Selection for courses offered by the RUB is based on their performance in the Class XII examination. In addition to formal education, education is also provided by monastic schools, which offer education at a range of levels and some of which receive government funding (Dukpa 2016). All monastic schools focus on the teaching of Buddhist religion and religious practice, and monastic colleges (shedras) also offer teaching of languages associated with Buddhist religion in Bhutan: Dzongkha, Chökê, and Sanskrit. Graduates of shedras are eligible to become teachers in schools.

5  Languages in education policies When secular schools were first established, Chökê continued to be used as a language of instruction, but problems with finding material relevant for secular education written in Chökê led to the adoption of Hindi (van Drien, 1994). The adoption of Hindi meant that materials could be sourced from India and also helped to prepare learners for secondary schooling, which was initially available only in India. In 1964, Hindi was replaced by English (Dorji, 2016; Thinley, 2016) and later in 1971, after significant corpus development work had been undertaken, Dzongkha was introduced as a medium of instruction and the Dzongkha Division of the Department of Education began producing materials for use in schools (van Drien, 1994). From the 1950s Nepali medium education was offered in the southern part of Bhutan but was discontinued in 1990 (van Drien, 1994). In 2012, Bhutan issued a new National Framework for Education (NEF) (School Education and Research Unit 2012). One of the key issues that the document discusses is the question of languages and multilingualism, recognising the complexities involved and the educational contexts in which local languages, Dzongkha, and English exist. It resolves this issue by stating that the context for learning local languages is the home: “students acquire their home languages at home and Dzongkha and English language in the school” (School Education and Research 359

Lhundup Dukpa

Unit, 2012, p. 103). Thus, the only languages included in school contexts are the national language and English. Although local languages are relegated to the home domain, the NEF devotes considerable attention to the relationship between Dzongkha and these languages and the role of education in developing them: Whereas Dzongkha is the home language of the largest number of Bhutanese, there are many communities that speak different dialects. Many of Bhutan’s other languages and dialects have a lexical and grammatical similarity with Dzongkha, ensuring mutual intelligibility between speakers of Dzongkha and many other languages. As a result, despite divergent forms and usages, Dzongkha is uniquely placed and can be developed as an effective lingua franca for Bhutan. The study of a standardised version of Dzongkha that fosters positive links with other languages is recommended so that language varieties and various home languages can themselves be developed while strengthening Dzongkha at the same time. (School Education and Research Unit, 2012, pp. 104–105) The NEF therefore works on the assumption that, because many of the languages of Bhutan are linguistically similar to Dzongkha, the teaching and learning of Dzongkha can support the development of other local languages.2 The NEF divides education into three main spheres with different language focuses. In the early years of schooling, the focus is on the development of literacy in Dzongkha, with Dzongkha as the normal medium of instruction: It is strongly recommended that the kindergarten years of schooling be utilised to develop Dzongkha literacy.To this end, the language of early primary years of teaching and learning will be Dzongkha. (School Education and Research Unit, 2012, p. 105) The NEF recognises that the development of Dzongkha literacy is different for those who speak it as a first language and those who are learning it as an additional language: For some, Dzongkha is already a home language (L1). Where it is a second language (L2) it is at least culturally familiar and somewhat overlaps with the home language. The approach to Dzongkha as a first language (L1) and as a second language (L2) will be different. For second language (L2) Dzongkha learners, the emphasis in kindergarten will be to link it with the home language by making the children aware of the structural and cultural similarities across languages and by a focussed development of bilingual competence. (School Education and Research Unit, 2012, p. 105) It proposes a teaching approach of introducing Dzongkha using a comparative perspective that signals the similarities between Dzongkha and other languages, but makes no further recommendations about how Dzongkha is to be taught as an additional language. Also at primary school, students begin to study English, with an emphasis on developing conversational abilities: Kindergarten-level school experiences of children can be used to develop ­conversational fluency in English, setting aside at least an hour of class time for the development of oral competence. (School Education and Research Unit, 2012, p. 105) 360

Language policy in Bhutan

Thus, at kindergarten level, Dzongkha is the sole medium of instruction and English is introduced as a subject. At later primary school levels, the role of English is expanded with English becoming the medium of instruction in increasing, but unspecified proportions over the duration of primary education until in Grade IV, English replaces Dzongkha as the language of instruction, with Dzongkha language and literature continuing as a subject. This situation is then continued through secondary school and in tertiary education. However, in the higher secondary grades, i.e. Grade XI and XII, students have the options to study rigzhung (Bhutanese Studies) in Dzongkha, which consists of astrology, philosophy, history, moral values/etiquette or driglam namzha, music, and dance. The NEF also opens up provision of additional languages in education: While students acquire their home languages at home and Dzongkha and English language in the school, it is important to provide a scope for learning another foreign language for incremental benefit. Students could learn a new language in their middle and high schooling period. The objective is to achieve basic proficiency in a foreign language, where students will be able to communicate in very concrete and personally immediate situations, at first orally for the most part and then later on in gradually increasing written communications. As a result they enhance their language study skills, develop their intercultural competence and realize that while languages and cultures might be different values are not. (School Education and Research Unit, 2012, p. 103) Thus, the framework supports the learning of a new language in middle and high schooling to achieve basic proficiency in a foreign language. No recommendations are made about how this learning will be organised and the languages to be studied are not specified; however elsewhere in the document mention is made of communicating particularly with the countries of Asia: “being able to relate to and communicate across cultures, especially the cultures and countries of Asia” (School Education and Research Unit, 2012, p. 13). The learning of additional languages does not, however, seem to have been implemented and neither the Royal University of Bhutan nor Royal Thimpu College have a programme to support the development of such languages. There is little evidence of how well Bhutan’s language education policy is working, but a study by LaPrairie (2014) suggests that there may be problems, and levels of attainment can be highly variable. Attainment in English appears to be especially weak in rural areas (LaPrairie, 2014). However, LaPrairie’s findings are based on interview comments made by non-Bhutanese teachers and cannot be taken as more than suggestive. These findings, however, appear to agree with the recent Blueprint on education (Ministry of Education, 2014, p. 29), which reports that in 2008 “Student learning outcomes are below the minimum expectations of their grade levels, unable to perform basic numeracy and literacy tasks” in English, Mathematics, and Science. The Blueprint also criticises a prevailing practice of mixing Dzongkha and English in English medium classes for producing low levels of English. LaPrairie also reports that teachers’ English language proficiency is highly variable, and there appear to be problems of proficiency among teachers teaching non-language content, such as science, and this too is taken up by the Blueprint, which acknowledges that Bhutan suffers from problems of teacher supply and quality: “The current teacher preparation programme is challenged by the sheer demand for teachers and is concurrently criticized for producing graduates of mediocre quality” (Ministry of Education, 2014, p. 38).

361

Lhundup Dukpa

6  Future directions Although Dzongkha is the national language of Bhutan, the country decided to adopt English language as the medium of instruction in schools alongside Dzongkha. It is believed that English is the most advantageous language to assist Bhutan in the articulation of its identity, the modernisation of its outlook, and interactions with the international community. The rationale is that the study of English will enhance Bhutan’s capacity to participate more effectively and purposefully in the global community. This plan of transition from home language to Dzongkha to English can be seen as a golden balance between the goals of multicultural identity, multilingual competence and quality learning of English along with high levels of academic achievement. (School Education and Research Unit, 2012, p. 133) It would seem that the challenge for the future of education in Bhutan is in maintaining this ‘golden balance’ in a context in which local languages other than Dzongkha have very limited roles in education and in which English predominates as the medium of instruction at most levels of schooling (Dorjee, 2014). Overcoming problems of teacher quality and supply will also be critical for the future development of education.

Notes 1 For a discussion of Bodish languages see Bradley (1997). 2 How this process relates to less closely related languages, or to Nepalese, is not considered in the NEF.

References Bradley, D. (1997).Tibeto-Burman languages and classification. In D. Bradley (Ed.), Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalayas: Papers in South East Asian linguistics (pp. 1–72). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Dorjee, K. (2014). Linguistic landscape of Bhutan: An overview of number of languages, language policy, language education, and language use in Bhutan. Bhutan Journal of Research & Development, 3(1), 79–101. Dorji, J. (2016). International influence and support for educational development in Bhutan. In M. J. Schuelka & T. W. Maxwell (Eds.), Education in Bhutan: Culture, schooling, and gross national happiness (pp. 109–124). Singapore: Springer Singapore. Dukpa, Z. (2016).The history and development of monastic education in Bhutan. In M. J. Schuelka & T.W. Maxwell (Eds.), Education in Bhutan: Culture, schooling, and gross national happiness (pp. 39–55). Singapore: Springer Singapore. LaPrairie, M. (2014). A case study of English-medium education in Bhutan. (EdD (International)), University of London, London. Retrieved from http://eprints.ioe.ac.uk/21621/1/LaPrairie%20--%20EdD%20 Dissertation%20%28final%20for%20hard-bound%20copy%29.pdf Lewis, M. P., Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (2016). Ethnologue: Languages of the world. Retrieved from http:// www.ethnologue.com Ministry of Education. (2014). Bhutan education blueprint 2014–2024: Rethinking education. Retrieved from http://www.education.gov.bt/documents/10180/1237542/Bhutan+Education+Blueprint+20142024.pdf/ff25066b-49df-41fc-9cb1-59c98e2f3c8e?version=1.0 Nado, L. (1982). The development of language in Bhutan. The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 5(2), 95–100. National Environment Commission. (2009). IV national report to the Convention of Biological Diversity. Retrieved from https://www.cbd.int/doc/world/bt/bt-nr-04-en.pdf Policy and Planning Division. (2016). Annual education statistics 2016. Retrieved from http://www. education.gov.bt/documents/10180/12664/Annual+Education+Statistics+2016.pdf/8dc6828d4de3-4e57-bc8c-0f6e9930422e?version=1.0

362

Language policy in Bhutan School Education and Research Unit. (2012). The national education framework: Shaping Bhutan’s future. Thimphu: Royal Education Council. Thinley, P. (2016). Overview and ‘heart essence’ of the Bhutanese education system. In M. J. Schuelka & T. W. Maxwell (Eds.), Education in Bhutan: Culture, schooling, and gross national happiness (pp. 19–38). Singapore: Springer Singapore. van Drien, G. (1994). Language policy in Bhutan. In M. Aris & M. Hutt (Eds.), Bhutan: Aspects of culture and development (pp. 87–105). Gartmore: Kiscadale Publications. van Drien, G. (2004). Bhutan’s endangered languages documentation programme under the Dongkha Development Authority:Three rare gems. In K. Ura & S. Kinga (Eds.), The spider and the piglet: Proceedings of the First International Seminar on Bhutan Studies (pp. 294–326). Thimphu: Centre for Bhutan Studies. van Drien, G. (2015). Language and identity in Bhuta. འབྲུག་གི་དུས་དེབ་ Druk Journal, 1(1), 61–67. Zurick, D. (2006). Gross National Happiness and environmental status in Bhutan. Geographical Review, 96(4), 657–681.

Further reading Thinley, P. (2016). Overview and ‘heart essence’ of the Bhutanese education system. In M. J. Schuelka & T. W. Maxwell (Eds.), Education in Bhutan: Culture, schooling, and gross national happiness (pp. 19–38). Singapore: Springer Singapore.

363

26 MOTHER TONGUE EDUCATION POLICY IN PAKISTAN Tariq Rahman

Introduction There is no single document issued by the state of Pakistan about language policy. However, the constitution of the country (1973), education policy documents, five-year development plans and some reports contain provisions which state official views about language policy. This chapter is meant to describe language policy as it relates to the role of languages in education.While the role of the mother tongue is the ostensible focus of the chapter, it is the absence of it which will be the main topic of discussion. As Bernard Spolsky tells us in a pioneering study on language policy, “the real language policy of a community is more likely to be found in its practices” and “the explicit policy written in the constitution and laws is likely to have no more effect on how people speak than the generations of schoolteachers vainly urging the choice of correct language” (Spolsky 2004: 222). Thus, it is not only in official documents that one finds all aspects of the language in education policies. Much of it is found in the omissions, de-emphases, silences and gaps found in them.

Linguistic makeup of Pakistan Pakistan is a multi-lingual country which emerged on the map of the world as a result of the partition of British India in 1947. According to the Ethnologue (2016) the number of individual languages listed is 73. However, excluding varieties of the same language counted separately, we get a total of 66 languages (Lewis et al. 2016). The major languages as given in the census are detailed in Table 26.1. The relevant articles of the constitution are as follows: a The National language of Pakistan is Urdu, and arrangements shall be made for its being used for official and other purposes within fifteen years from the commencing day. b Subject to clause (a) the English language may be used for official purposes until arrangements are made for its replacement by Urdu. c Without prejudice to the status of the National language, a Provincial Assembly may by law prescribe measures for the teaching, promotion and use of a provincial language in addition to the national language. (Constitution 1973: Article 251) 364

Mother tongue education policy in Pakistan Table 26.1 Major languages of Pakistan Punjabi Pashto Sindhi Siraiki Urdu Balochi Others

44.15 15.42 14.10 10.53 7.57 3.57 4.66

Source: Census 2001: 107.

To this it may be added that, in 2009 when the last major report on education was published, Urdu was the medium of instruction in 65% of institutions; Sindhi in 15.5%; English in 10.4%; and Pashto, Arabic, Balochi, etc., in 9.5% (GOP 2009: 71). These facts about the status of languages and their place in the educational system need to be understood as part of the linguistic and political history of the country. The status of English was challenged by Urdu and that of Urdu by the ethnic nationalists. Considering that Urdu is the language of a much smaller percentage of Pakistanis than any of the major indigenous languages of the country, it would appear incongruous that it is the national language and the major medium of instruction whereas the most spoken language, Punjabi, is called a regional language and is not used in any of the official domains of power (schools, courts, administration, military, etc.). The reason for this goes back to political history and language ideology (as that concept is defined by Silverstein 1998: 130; also see Bloemmert 2006). Punjabi was never used in the domains of power even by Ranjit Singh, the most powerful indigenous Punjabi-speaking ruler of the pre-colonial Punjabi state. Instead, like most rulers of India, he used Persian for official documentation though, of course, the informal conversation in the court was in Punjabi.The British formally annexed the Punjab in 1849. It was then that the district officers were asked to suggest what language was to be used in the lower domains of power. The officers were influenced in their opinion by the language ideology that Punjabi was lower in the hierarchical order of languages than Urdu and recommended that Urdu should be the vernacular of the province (for the letters of the British officers see Chaudhary 1977). In time the Punjabi Muslims’ apprehension of possible Hindu and Sikh domination led to their support of Pakistan and the Punjabi elite supported Urdu, not Punjabi, in the new-born country. Apart from historical reasons and the language ideology which the Pakistani Punjabis had inherited from the past, they were immediately confronted by Bengali, Sindhi, Pashtun and Baloch ethnicities against which they used the unifying symbol of Urdu implying that the Punjabi elite was ready to give up its language to create a unified Pakistani identity so the federating units too should do the same. As for English, the Pakistani elite, especially those connected with employment in the higher domains of power – high and supreme courts, the central civil services, the officer corps of the armed forces and high offices of the government – had invested in it and drew its disproportionate advantage because of it. Moreover, it was not just the state but the corporate sector, the service providers connected with the outside world, the media, the financial institutions and the NGOs which also operated in English. In short, English was both a class-marker and an engine for upward social mobility in Pakistan and abroad. It was also an engine for modernization and the advancement in science, technology and especially weapon production which the army and the bureaucracy so ardently pursued. Hence English was protected by the elite even after the 15 years stipulated in the Constitution of 1973 had passed. 365

Tariq Rahman

Review of literature In the early phase of Pakistan (1947–1971) the prominent writings on language education policy were from ethnic or Pakistani nationalists who wanted their languages to be given the status of national languages and taught (references given in chapters of the relevant languages in Rahman 1996). The supporters of Urdu, however, opposed English since it was the language of elite schooling, higher education and the best jobs (Abdullah 1976). The first detailed and scholarly book on the subject of language politics was by Rahman (1996). Its principal concern was about the use of language as a symbol of ethnic identity and political mobilization in British India and Pakistan. The book also investigates the relationship of class and identity with the medium of instruction. Rahman also touched upon language education policies and practices in an article on language planning activities by Pakistan’s ruling and counter-elites (ethnic nationalists) (Rahman 1999: 235–295). His major work on the history of the learning of languages among the Muslims of Pakistan and north India also connects language education with identity and class politics (Rahman 2002). In an encyclopaedia article on language policy in Pakistan, Rahman describes the aims of its language policies as modernization, vernacularization, privatization and ideological orientation (Islamization being part of it) (2008: 383–392). In 1999 Kaiser Bengali, an economist then working with a think tank on sustainable development in Islamabad, described the education polices from 1947 to 1998 in a synoptic form (Bengali 1999).While this report is brief, Sabiha Mansoor describes the role of English in higher education in a book-length study (Mansoor 2005). The British Council in its various reports, ostensibly about the role of English in Pakistan, also described the role of languages in Pakistan’s education system and suggested changes in the policy (Coleman 2011; Coleman and Capstick 2012). A major study of language in education policy and practice is by Zubeida Mustafa who goes over the same ground as her predecessors and advocates the use of the mother tongue in education (Mustafa 2011). The most comprehensive analysis of language policy, once again mostly referring to education, is by Shahid Siddiqui, a scholar on education in Pakistan. The book analyzes all educational documents from 1947 to 2009 when the last education policy was announced (Siddiqui 2016). Besides these major works there are many writings which touch upon language policy in education.

Critical discussion of earlier language policies The stated goals of the governments of Pakistan have been modernization and national integration. There is an unstated goal too: preservation of elite privilege and advantage in access to powerful and lucrative employment. English favours the first and the third goals while Urdu favours the second one.The indigenous languages of the people do not favour either so they are given lip service and passed by in silence. A brief abstract of some of the major documents on education and language policy is given in Appendix 1. The gist of them is that from the first conference on education in 1947 to the latest report on education some basic aspects of the language policy in education remained constant. First, English was justified in the interest of modernization, being the language of science and technology. Secondly, Urdu was justified in the interest of Pakistani nationalism since it provided unity in the face of fissiparous tendencies.Third, the reading of Arabic to read the Quran (without understanding the language) was justified – though this was emphasized more from the end of the 1960s onwards – in order to emphasize the Islamic identity of Pakistanis both 366

Mother tongue education policy in Pakistan

to ­separate them from Indians and to confront ethnic identity. The documents kept insisting that the mother tongue is the best medium of instruction for a child but, except in East Pakistan (until 1971 when it became Bangladesh), Sindh and some parts of the North West Frontier Province (present day Khyber Pahtunkhwa or KP), no other mother tongue was used as medium of instruction. There were, however, attempts to use the mother tongues as mediums of instruction in Balochistan and KP. Language activists got a bill passed by the Balochistan legislative assembly to make Balochi, Brahvi and Pashto the media of instruction in rural schools (LAD-B 1990). For two years the experiment continued but when the next government simply amended the bill to replace ‘compulsory’ with ‘optional’ (GOB 1992), parents opted for Urdu. Similarly, a project called ‘Primary Text Book Pashto Translation Project’ was launched in 1984 in order to introduce Pashto as a medium of instruction for Pashto-speaking children (NWFP 1991). This too was abandoned, though Pashto is still used up to class 5 in some areas as before. Parents were simply unwilling to overburden their children with another language especially because the language did not lead to employment and, most importantly, privileged children in private and military schools were not studying it. In short, for most children, since the bulk of the population came from the Punjab, most parts of NWFP, Urban Sindh, Balochistan, the Pakistan-administered former state of Jammu and Kashmir including Chitral, Gilgit and Baltistan, Urdu was the medium of instruction in school. This policy of Urduization did not touch the elite of power and money, however.Thus, Englishmedium schools run by Christian missionaries continued to attract Pakistani elite parents for their children’s education. British style private schools, called public schools on the lines of Eton and Harrow, continued to function. Moreover, the state subsidized English-medium military schools (cadet colleges) (Rahman 2002: 299–300). There was protest by students against this policy of subsidising elite English-medium education during the mid-1960s when Ayub Khan’s education policy was announced. A commission on investigating the protesting students’ grievances, headed by Justice Hamood ur Rahman, concluded that such schools “are intended to produce some better type of students who would be more suitably disciplined and equipped for eventually entering the defence service of the country or filling higher administrative posts” (GOP 1966: 18). The education policy of Yahya’s government did say that there was “almost a caste-like distinction between those who feel at ease in expressing themselves in English and those who do not” but did not actually change anything (GOP 1969: 14). The only government which did say that English-medium schools should use Urdu as the medium of instruction was the Zia ul Haq regime (GOP 1979). However, under pressure from the elite, it reversed the decision (Rahman 1997b: 198). By the 1980s the middle class grew in size and private entrepreneurs created chains of elite English-medium schools. As mentioned earlier, it is not what is stated in policies but what happens in reality which indicates what the real policy is. Take, for instance, the oft-repeated claim that Urdu would replace English as the language of education. This piety was not converted to policy. First, the zeal exhibited by some universities, such as Karachi University in the early 1950s, was discouraged (GOP 1957). Second, Urdu was allowed eventually for arts (i.e. social sciences and humanities) but not for science, medicine, engineering and technology. As such the language policy, though couched in the language of popular demand and facilitating access to higher education, actually ghettoized the non-science students and disciplines since they bore the stigma of being culturally and intellectually inferior. Yet another policy was to use Islam to counter ethnicity and distinguish Pakistanis from Indians. This policy eventually created fundamentalism and militancy which the elite did not really foresee. From the 1970s every education policy mentioned Islam and the ideology of 367

Tariq Rahman

Pakistan as necessary ingredients of the education policy. Z. A. Bhutto, either to assume the leadership of the Muslim world or placating the religious opposition, committed the state “to encourage and facilitate the learning of Arabic language” (Article 31 (2) (a) in ‘The Principles of Policy’ of the 1973 Constitution). The teaching of Arabic was introduced in many institutions. Later, General Zia ul Haq Islamized the education system more thoroughly (GOP 1979: 48). Among other things, Arabic was made a compulsory subject in 1982 from classes 6 to 8 in government schools (Malik 1996: 271). Although the private schools did not have to obey this order and, indeed, some of the public schools also could not make the arrangements to teach the language, those which did teach it had to rely very often on madrassa graduates (Rahman 2002: 110–111). These people brought their preoccupation with religion to the classroom and may have exposed their students to radical interpretations of Islam.

Critical discussion of current language policies Current language of education policies can be studied under three heads: privatization of education and the role of English, teaching in the mother-language and Islamization. If the date of the beginning of current language in education policies is taken as the beginning of the 1990s when civilian rule replaced the military rule of Zia ul Haq, we find that the main preoccupation of all policies is with literacy (Bengali 1999: 5–25). The percentage of literacy did increase but the 100% mark was not attained since it is only 58% for people above the age of ten (GOP 2015: 1.1). However, the number of private, mostly English-medium schools did increase in order to cater to the increasing demand for English, seen as the vehicle of upward social mobility. Besides the elite English-medium schools a number of cheaper, non-elite English-medium schools also emerged in Pakistan’s towns and cities (Rahman 2002: 303–307).They did not teach English very well since their teachers were not competent in the language but people spent disproportionate amounts of money in order to give their children an advantage in life. In 2010, under the 18th amendment to the Constitution, education became a provincial subject. This made the provinces more autonomous than before with the result that the Punjab government under chief minister Shahbaz Sharif decided to cash in on the demand for English in the public. The Punjab government passed an executive order converting a number of government Urdu-medium schools to English-medium (GOPu: 2009). The schools did not have sufficient numbers of teachers to implement this policy in any meaningful way nor were the students exposed to English outside school so the policy failed. In 2011 the British Council concluded that teachers still taught in Urdu and Punjabi just as they did before this policy was declared (PEELI 2013: 22–23). In 2014 the decision was reversed. Privatization of education also had a profound effect on higher education. First, the number of universities grew from 2000 onwards and, second, English became a major class identity marker at the level of higher education as it always had been at the school level. Since the average college lecturer was less fluent in English than the average English-medium student, the latter was disillusioned with the public sector education sector. This provided an opportunity for the private sector to expand its reach to higher education, a phenomenon much lauded in the age of globalization and capitalism of the 1990s (GOP 1998). The apartheid which existed in schools now extended to the university level with expensive private universities catering for the affluent English-using class. Teaching in the mother tongue, called Mother Language Education (MLE) witnessed unprecedented activity in the last ten years or so.The National Awami Party (ANP), which ruled in KP, being a supporter of Pashtun ethnicity, approved the inclusion of Pashto, Hindko, Siraiki, Khowar and Kohistani as compulsory subjects from classes 1 to 8 from 2012 to 2013 in both 368

Mother tongue education policy in Pakistan

government and private schools in the areas where these languages are spoken. The scripts of these languages were standardized so that primers and reading material could be made (Report KP 2011). However, the succeeding government of the Tehrik-e-Insaf which took power in the province (KP) in 2013, did not implement these recommendations. However, though the state has kept changing its policies or has not made good on them, language activists are privately promoting MLE, generally with the help of foreign bodies, like the Summer Institute of Linguistics and the Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI). Annexures 2 and 3 give information about these initiatives in a synoptic form. The present author interviewed language activists from the Hindu Kachi-language and Parkari-language communities. Kachi is a small language which is close to Gujrati which is spoken in India and the city of Karachi.This community is a low ranking, poor community of agricultural workers and the author was told by the activists of the Kachi Community Development Project in November 2010 at Bangkok that they have established two schools teaching children up to class 5 in this language. In 2011 Khwaja Rehman and Mohammad Zaman Sagar, two language activists from northern Pakistan, interviewed and tested ten students from these schools and concluded that they were competent in their mother tongue, Sindhi, English and Mathematics. They were not, however, compared with students of government schools studying through the medium of Sindhi or Urdu. The Parkari language, another mother tongue of the Hindu community in Sindh living near the villages of the Tharparkar and Nagar regions, was taught in 27 MLE schools up to class 5. These were established by the Parkari Community Development Project (PCDP). According to Rehman and Sagar, who interviewed students and teachers, these schools provided a supportive atmosphere to this poor, minority community which was under-confident and uncomfortable in government schools. In the city of Karachi there are Balochi-language schools established in Liyari, one of the poorest areas of Karachi, by the Balochi Language and Literacy Organization (BLLO). These four schools were established from 2002 onwards and teach pre-primary school children (Rehman and Sagar 2011). There are also MLE schools in parts of KP. In 2005 Susan and Denis Malone, two literacy consultants working with the SIL, encouraged Sagar and others working with the Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI) to teach in Gawri, a language of Kalam (Swat). By 2008 two pilot schools were opened in the Kalam valley. Soon a Gawri Community Development Project (GCDP) was registered and teaching started in earnest with the encouragement of parents. The aim was to educate 500 children, though only 88 were being educated through Gawri when the report was written in 2010 (Sagar 2010). Reports on the competence of students are positive, although, being written by the language activists themselves, they should be checked by disinterested observers. The data they provide is, however, worth noting. For instance, there are two Palula-language schools in Ashret, Chitral. They have been functioning since 2008 and offer two years of pre-school education. These language activists interviewed students and teachers in the only Kalasha school in the Bumboret valley in Chitral. This school offers education up to class 5. Another minority language, Torwali, is taught in a school up to class 2. However, it is expected to be offered up to class 5 eventually. This project was initiated by the Idara Barae Taleem-o-Taraqqi and offers two years of MLE. Another interesting case study is of Aslam Academy in the Kaghan Valley. This offers education in the Gojri language since 2008. It started with 14 students but this number is still increasing. Interviews with students suggested that they find the atmosphere using their mother tongue friendlier than the government schools which are supposed to teach in Urdu though they too use the local Hindko, but not Gojri, for explanation. In short, Rehman and Sagar suggest that MLE education makes it easy for students to learn not only their own mother tongue but also other subjects (Rehman and Sagar 2015: 126). 369

Tariq Rahman

Reports on the competence of students are positive, though, being written by the language activists themselves, they should be checked by disinterested observers. UNESCO has been collecting data on these schools for some years and the person who sends it to them is Zaman Sagar. The data from 2015, which takes into account the present state of teaching in the mother tongues of Pakistani students, has been summed up in tabular form in Annexure 4.What is worth noting is that nomads speaking Gujri, who are called Bakarwals (keepers of goats), are taught through mobile schools. The present author interviewed one of the organizers of these schools, Brandon Baughn, in Kotli at a conference organized by the University of Management Sciences and Information Technology on April 14 and 15, 2016. He said the teachers are taught and then they move with the community and teach children and even adults. The schools are in tents and children sit on the ground which is covered with sheets or tarpaulins at times.The school is moved along with the rest of the community and its goats (Baughn Int. 2016). Other language activists who were interviewed on the same occasion were Zaman Sagar, Zubair Torwali and Khwaja Rehman. Besides, teachers of the indigenous languages were also interviewed. The conference featured a number of activists who were engaged in initiatives of various kinds to promote the mother tongues of the people.The activists were very positive, reporting superb functioning of the schools and expansion in their numbers since 2011 when similar interviews were held with them (Sagar, Torwali and Rehman Int. 2016). However, two school teachers in the schools for Gawri, whose names are not mentioned to ensure confidentiality, confided to the author that there was resistance from parents who often wondered whether their children were not being burdened unnecessarily since they would have to switch over to Urdu after the initial few years. After all, children from privileged backgrounds did not study any languages except Urdu and English. The only major language still lagging behind others is Punjabi. Demands to introduce it in schools started in the early 1950s (Rahman 2002: 400–401). These got fresh impetus since 2004 when the Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture was established (Act 21 of 2004). Nazeer Kahut, an activist, demanded that Punjabi should be declared the “sole official and judicial language of Punjab” (Kahut 2011). The ‘Lahore Declaration’ of February 6, 2015 passed in a one-day conference on Punjabi organized by a prominent Punjabi activist and writer, Fakhar Zaman, demanded jobs for Punjabi degree-holders and to make Punjabi compulsory at the primary level (Zaman 2016: 4). As in a number of previous education policies, Islamization is also emphasized in the latest education policy (GOP 2009). Among other things the policy document also mentions the teaching of Arabic as a vehicle for the pursuit of this policy. Moreover, Urdu is taught to all students much more than Arabic from class 1 to class 12 and it contains lessons and exercises which use Islam to create a jingoistic nationalism (Rahman 2002: 511–515). The policy was devised, as was that of using history and social studies, to create anti-India sentiment and support for Pakistan’s large military expenditure and aggressive policies regarding Kashmir (Aziz 1993; Nayyar and Salim 2004) but it also helped in creating space for aggressive interpretations of militancy in the name of Islam.To sum up, these three trends – Urduization of the masses, extension of the linguistic apartheid by extending the role of elite English-medium education from schools to colleges and universities, and Islamization – have made Pakistan more divided than ever. Moreover, since the divisions are now prone to be expressed through the idiom of Islam, there is the added danger of the country facing class conflict in the guise of religious conflict.

Future scenarios Surveying the educational scene in 2016 one sees no prospect of any major change in previous practices. One uses the term ‘practices’ advisedly since policy statements are subject to 370

Mother tongue education policy in Pakistan

interpretations which defeat the spirit behind them or, as is usually the case, are applied on an experimental basis to underprivileged children where they are resented as devices for further ghettoization. For example, the role of English as a formative medium for the privileged elite seems likely to remain constant.This is because there is a class dimension to the medium of instruction which is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future as the following report on the association of Englishmedium schooling with the privileged classes suggests. According to the ASER survey of 2015, the ‘poorest quartile has the highest level of children enrolled in government schools (87 %) whereas the remaining 9 % of the children are enrolled in private sector schools. On the other hand, the richest quartile has the highest number of children enrolled in private schools (38 %) and the lowest percentage of children in government schools (61 %). (ASER 2015: 19) As most of these private schools teach, or at least claim to teach students in English, that language is tied to wealth and power. It is distributed roughly in proportion to affordability with school fees in elite schools as high as 24.97% of the average income of middle-class families in the country (Rahman 2016: 19). In short, English is a product of wealth and a means for securing both material and non-material wealth or “cultural capital” (Bourdieu 1991: 230–231). This trend, I believe, will continue to grow as there is no substantial force to reverse the trend. This state of affairs was challenged from time to time and in 2015 the Supreme Court of Pakistan passed an order that Urdu should be used for all official purposes. The court order applies only to the official organs of the state: the legislature, judiciary and the administration as the Constitution has stated (Court 2015: 11). But the huge corporate sector which also controls elite education is not affected by it. Moreover, the court itself provides a loophole for English to flourish since it says that “it is not at all the object of this judgment to denigrate the importance of English as a language used in international commerce and other activities” (ibid.: 10). Hence it is not expected that this order will remove English from its de facto status as the elite language of the country. With the recent (since 2014) military action against the Islamic militants on the Pak-Afghan border, it may be assumed that the trend for Islamization will decrease. However, the Islamization of textbooks and discourse in the media is protected not only by the religious parties but also by a large section of the media which internalized the values promoted by Zia ul Haq and reinforced by American policies in favour of Israel, the US attack on Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11 and the spread of Islamist ideas in Pakistan.This ensures the survival of Islamization in education more effectively than the number of religious seminaries in the country. One trend which may augur well for the future is that there is far more activity in the field of the mother tongues of the country than ever before. Many of these languages are being used on the radio and the TV and there is more printed reading material in them than before. So, although the state has not actually started using these languages as the mediums of instruction even at the basic level, it has not stopped private individuals from carrying out experiments of this kind in many parts of the country. This trend may result into a more robust reversal of language shift than has been witnessed so far in Pakistan. In the end one must come to be basic question which has haunted language education policies from the beginning. What should be the medium of instruction? Which other languages should be taught and at what level? First, there is the status quo approach. Sabiha Mansoor, for instance, says that “Urdu and English be used as alternative mediums of instruction till 371

Tariq Rahman

Intermediate levels for both public and private sector institutions” (Mansoor 2005: 353). She also recommends that ‘regional languages’ “be used as a medium in primary classes, and taught as compulsory subjects till graduate levels in all schools and colleges in both public and private sectors” (Mansoor 2005: 355). While the recommendation about the regional languages does not appear to leave a loophole, the first recommendation does. If the elite is allowed to use either Urdu or English, it will opt for English while the poor will not be able to afford it. The British Council also proposed that there should be a multilingual education policy in Pakistan in which “English would play a more modest role than it does at present” (Coleman and Capstick 2012: 69). However, the various reports of the British Council do not rule out the option of elite children choosing a different medium of instruction from their underprivileged counterparts. For the present author, the ideal language policy would be to use the mother tongue as far as possible for basic schooling, Urdu and other major mother tongues as media of instruction for the secondary and English for the university level education. There is, however, the fear that the state appeases the language activists by agreeing to teach the mother tongue and then applies this policy only to government schools, i.e. underprivileged children. In that case it will only ghettoize poor students while the elite will continue to study through the medium of English (Rahman 2002: 533–535; 2004: 152–153; 2006: 233; Rahman in Coleman and Capstick 2012: 98 point 18). Earlier experiments of this discriminatory nature failed since the parents did not want to overburden their children, knowing that their children will find no jobs in the end and be left behind the other children who will acquire the languages of power earlier than them. In short, unless choice is taken away from the elite, the medium of instruction will not change in any meaningful way.

Conclusion To conclude, Pakistan’s language education policy has always given lip service to the indigenous languages of the people but has never put this rhetoric into practice. The only exception to this general rule has been Sindhi which was taught in the province of Sindh during the British period, and the Sindhi nationalists have never allowed their language to be relegated to the level of other indigenous languages. Pashto too may be considered an exception but, since it is taught only up to class 5 and that too in some peripheral areas, it is not really the medium of instruction for most children who are mother tongue speakers of it. This reality is being slowly changed by the efforts of private language activists with the help of foreign bodies. The state’s language policy is really to reserve English for the elite while Urdu is spread as the lingua franca of the country. This facilitates the elite in socio-economic mobility while functioning as an impediment for other students who cannot afford English-medium education during school years. The dissemination of Urdu serves the ruling elite’s nation building project by supposedly providing a centralizing, cohesive symbol of the nation. However, resistance to this project actually weakens the nation by providing a source of friction to the state’s homogenizing policies. As for Islamization, again conceived as an integrative, nation building force, it too has failed the ruling elite since Islam is increasingly being interpreted in fundamentalist ways which see the elite as Westernized and, therefore, lacking in Islamic legitimacy to rule. However, having invested this project with emotion, and being internally conflicted itself, the ruling elite finds itself powerless to control the more radical fallout of this policy. To sum up, Pakistan’s language education policies have failed the people of Pakistan and are now also failing the long-term interests of the very elite which has promoted them. 372

Mother tongue education policy in Pakistan

Note 1 The Asia MLE Working Group is a network whose membership consists of UN agencies, relevant international NGOs, and civil society organisations. The MLE Working Group is administered by APPEAL, UNESCO Bangkok.

References Abdullah, S. (1976). Pakistan mein urdu ka masla [The problem of Urdu in Pakistan]. Quetta: Kuzak Publishers. ASER. (2015). Annual status of education report: Pakistan 2015. Lahore: South Asian forum for Education Development. Aziz, K. K. (1993). The murder of history in Pakistan. Lahore:Vanguard. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Oxford: Polity Press. Bengali, K. (1999). History of education policy making and planning in Pakistan. Islamabad: Sustainable Development Policy Institute. Bloemmert, J. (2006). Language policy and national identity. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An introduction to language policy:Theory and method (pp. 238–254). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Census. (2001). 1998 census report of Pakistan. Islamabad: Population Census Organization, Statistics Division, Govt of Pakistan. Chaudhry, N. A. (1977). Development of Urdu as official language in the Punjab 1848–1947. [Official letters and documents] Lahore: Government of the Punjab. Coleman, H. (Ed.) (2011). Dreams and realities: Developing countries and the English language. London: British Council. Coleman, H. and Capstick, T. (2012). Language in education in Pakistan. London: The British Council. Constitution. (1973). Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (as amended from time to time). Islamabad: Government of Pakistan. Latest reprint 2015. Cooper, R. L. (1989). Language planning and social change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Court. (2015). In the Supreme Court of Pakistan: Constitution Petition No. 112 of 2012. Islamabad: Announced September 8, 2015. GOB. (1992). Order No. SO. CAB-4-359/92 [SRGAD]/827, Govt. of Balochistan, typed order. GOP. (1947). Proceedings of the Pakistan educational conference 27 November–1st December 1947. Karachi: Ministry of Interior, Education Division. GOP. (1948). Proceedings of the first meeting of the Advisory Board of Education for Pakistan. Karachi: Government of Pakistan, Education Division. GOP. (1949). Proceedings of the second meetings of the Advisory Board of Education for Pakistan 7th–9th February 1949. Karachi: Government of Pakistan, Education Division. GOP. (1950). Report to proceedings of the fourth meeting of the Advisory Board of Education for Pakistan. Karachi: Government of Pakistan, Education Division. GOP. (1955). Report of proceedings of the sixth meeting of the Advisory Board of Education for Pakistan. Karachi: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. GOP. (1957). Report of the University of Karachi Enquiry Commission. Karachi: Government of Pakistan, West Pakistan Government Press. GOP. (1959). Report of the Commission on National Education. Karachi: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. GOP. (1966). Report of the Commission on Student’s Problems and Welfare and Problems. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. GOP. (1969). New education policy. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. GOP. (1972). The education policy 1972–1980. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. GOP. (1979). National education policy and implementation programme. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. GOP. (1992). National education policy. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Planning Commission. GOP. (1998). National education policy: 1998–2010. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. GOP. (2002). Education sector reforms: Action plan 2001–2004. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. GOP. (2009). National education policy 2009. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Education. GOP. (2015). Education for all: National review report 2015: Pakistan. Islamabad: Ministry of Education,Trainings and Standards in Higher Education, Academy of Educational Planning and Management, 2014.

373

Tariq Rahman GOPu. (2009). Conversion of selected government schools into English medium from 1st April 2009 in each district. Lahore: Government of the Punjab School Education Department Order, 28 March 2009. Kahut, N. (2011). Punjabi’s status as official language sought. Dawn, January 1. LAD-B. (1990). Balochistan mother tongue use bill No. 6 15 April and 21 June 1990. In Legislative Assembly debates, Balochistan. Quetta: Government of Balochistan. Lewis, M. P., Simons, G. F. and Fenning, C. F. (Eds.) (2016). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (19th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Online version: http://www.etnologue.com. Retrieved on March 24, 2016. Malik, J. (1996). Colonialization of Islam: Dissolution of traditional institutions in Pakistan. Lahore:Vanguard. Mansoor, S. (2005). Language planning in higher education: A case study of Pakistan Karachi: Oxford University Press. Mustafa, Z. (2011). Tyranny of language in education: The problem and its solution. Karachi: Ushba Publishing International. Nayyar, A. H. and Salim,A. (2004). The subtle subversion. Islamabad: Sustainable Development Policy Institute. NWFP. (1991). Evaluation report on the primary Pashto Textbooks Translation Project. Peshawar: Government of the North West Frontier Province, Education Department. PEELI. (2013). Can English medium education work in Pakistan? Lessons from Punjab. Islamabad: The British Council. Phillipson, R. and Skutnabb-Kangas,T. (2016).The politics and policies of language and language teaching. In M. Long and C. Doughty (Eds.), Handbook of language teaching (pp. 26–41). Molden, MA and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. Rahman, T. (1996). Language and politics in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Rahman, T. (1997). The Urdu-English controversy in Pakistan. Modern Asian Studies, 31(1): 177–207. Rahman, T. (1999). Language, education and culture. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Rahman, T. (2002). Language, ideology and power: Language-learning among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India. Karachi: Oxford University Press. This revised edition Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2008. Rahman,T. (2004). Denizens of alien worlds: A study of education, inequality and polarisation in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Rahman, T. (2007). The role of English in Pakistan with special reference to tolerance and militancy. In A. B. Tsui and J. W. Tollefson (Eds.), Language policy, culture, and identity in Asian contexts (pp. 219–239). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Rahman, T. (2008). Language policy and education in Pakistan. In N. H. Hornberger and S. May (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language and education (2nd ed., pp. 383–392). New York: Springer. Rahman,T. (2016).The development of English in Pakistan. In G. Leitner, A. Hashim and H.-G.Wolf (Eds.), Communicating with Asia: The future of English as a global language (pp. 13–27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rehman, K. and Sagar, Z. (2011). Sindh survey report: Survey of Balochi MLE schools in Karachi. 01–15 Nov 2011. Printed report. Rehman, K. and Sagar, Z. (2015). Language and social cohesion. In H. Coleman (Ed.), Language and social cohesion in the developing world (pp. 116–127). Colombo: British Council & GIZ. Report, K. P. (2011). Consensus on standardization of alphabets report 2011. Peshawar: Khyber Pakhtunkwa Textbook Board and Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit. Sagar, Z. M. (2010). Gawri literacy initiatives: An indigenous community in northern Pakistan mobilises to promote mother tongue-based education. Peshawar: Forum for Language Initiatives. Siddiqui, S. (2016). Education policies in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Silverstein, M. (1998). The uses and utility of ideology: A commentary. In B. Schieffelin, K. Woolard and P. Kroskrity (Eds.), Language ideologies: Practice and theory (pp. 123–146). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zaman, F. (Ed.) (2016). Punjab: Punjabi aur Punjabiat [Panjab: Punabi and the Punjabi Identity]. Lahore: Classic.

Further reading Mansoor, S. (2005). Language planning in higher education: A case study of Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Siddiqui, S. (2016). Education policies in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press.

374

Mother tongue education policy in Pakistan

Interviews Braughn, B. (2016). Interview by the present author on mobile schools of the Bakarwal community. April 14 and 15, 2016, Kotli. Rehman, K. (2016). Interview by the present author on April 14 and 15, 2016, Kotli. Sagar, Z. (2016). Interview by the present author on April 14, 2016, Kotli. Teachers. (2016). Interviews of two teachers of schools operating in the mother tongues in Northern Pakistan, April 14 and 15, 2016, Kotli.

Appendix 1: Summary of major policy documents on language in education 1. Pakistan Educational Conference 1947 Recommended Urdu as the lingua franca of Pakistan and that it should be taught as a compulsory subject in all schools (GOP 1947: 43). 2–5. Advisory board and other relevant reports 1948–1957 Several reports of the advisory board on education, their sub-committees and bodies on using Urdu in place of English as an official language recommended teaching in the mother tongue in the first five years of schooling. In practice, however, Urdu was allowed as an optional medium of instruction and examination up to class 12 for non-science subjects while science continued to be taught in English (GOP 1948, 1949, 1950, 1955 and 1957). 6. Ayub Khan’s Education Policy 1959 Mother tongues may be used as medium of instruction if they are already being used for that purpose. However, in Sindh, Urdu should replace Sindhi from class 6. English should be a compulsory subject from class 6 to 12 in all schools. In English-medium schools Urdu or Bengali should be taught as compulsory subjects. In the natural sciences English should continue as medium of instruction and examination for another 15 years, though in non-science subjects universities may consider changing to Urdu sooner (GOP 1959). 7. Yahya Khan’s Education Policy 1969 Privileged English-medium schools are undesirable since they discriminate between citizens. Admissions to those funded by the state should be on merit and 25% of students should be admitted free. Islamic studies should be compulsory up to class 10 (GOP 1969). 8. Z.A. Bhutto’s Education Policy (1972) There was no change as far as language in education policy was concerned. Most private educational institutions were nationalized (GOP 1972). 9. Zia ul Haq’s Education Policy (1979) English-medium schools will use Urdu, or an approved provincial language, as medium of instruction and examination. English will be taught as a subject from class 6 onwards. Both Urdu and English will be used for university education with the aim to switch over to Urdu in a few years. Education was to be oriented towards Islam (GOP 1979). 10. National Education Policy (1992) No substantial change as far as language policy is concerned. Literacy was to be achieved through non-formal schools as well as formal ones (GOP 1992). 11. National Educational Policy (1998–2010) Non-formal basic education programme should be started to increase the rate of literacy to 70% by 2010 and to achieve universal primary education (GOP 1998). 12. National Education Policy (2009) English will be used as the medium of instruction for sciences and mathematics from class 4 onwards. However, five years will be given to the provinces to transition to English from Urdu. Teaching to read the Quran in Arabic is part of the continued emphasis on Islam as part of identity (GOP 2009).

375

Tariq Rahman

Appendix 2: MLE in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Language Community and location No. of students/schools Remarks Palula

Ashret (Chitral)

Two pre-schools

Kalasha

Bamboret (Chitral)

One school

Gawri

Kalam (Swat)

Torwali

Bahrain (Swat)

Two schools from 2008 to 2011, 40 students One school

Gojri

Budgram (Kaghan valley)

Aslam Academy, 34 students

After one year of MLE, Urdu and English are introduced. Students did better than nonMLE ones in English and mathematics. Offers education up to class 5. English and Urdu are introduced from the beginning. MLE students did better in language proficiency and mathematics. Two-year pre-school MLE programme.

Up to class 5. However, by the end of 2011, only up to class 2 was available. Started in 2008 with 14 students and 2 teachers.

Source: Rehman and Sagar 2015: 116–127. Figures are only up to 2011.

Appendix 3: MLE in Sindh Language Community and location Balochi

Kachi

Parkari

No. of students/schools

Baloch/Lyari (Karachi) one 650 up to 2011 school at Shahigoth and one in Maroro. The latter was shifted to Machi Goth in 2009 Mirpur Khas Two schools. Magsi Goth One called Nya Sawera (New Dawn) and the other Amar Ujala (Eternal Daylight) Mirpur Khas 27 schools Rattanabad 1200 students Isolated villages of the Tharparkar and Nagar region

Source: Rehman and Sagar 2011.

376

Remarks Started in 2003 in two pre-primary schools. Now there are four schools. Offers education up to class 5.

Offers education up to class 5.

377

Two-year preschooling

Two-year preschooling, with primary 1

2 Anjuman Taraqi-e Palula

3 Torwali: Idara Bara-e Taleem–oTaraqi (IBT)

1 Gawri Community Two-year preDevelopment schooling, with Programme primary 1

NFE

NFE

NFE

Name of organization/ Level of schooling Formal or institution non-formal

Private

Private

Private

Public or private

Name of person completing form: Muhammad Zaman Sagar

Name of country: Pakistan

Location of action

Total schools, two Total students 62

District Swat in Khyber Pukhtoon Khwa

District Chitral in Khyber Pukhtoon Khwa

Total five schools, District Swat in Khyber current students Pukhtoon enrolled 121 Khwa Transition to public sector schools 135

Number of children reached by action by school level

Torwali, Urdu Total three schools Total students 160

Palula, Urdu

Gawri, Urdu

Which languages

Materials in classroom

(Continued )

Gawri as MOI, Primer, pre-reader, pre-writer, oral and math books, written reading stories, Urdu oral listening English oral stories, rhymes and songs Palula as MOI, Primer, pre-reader, pre-writer, oral and math books, written reading stories, Urdu oral listening English oral stories, rhymes and songs Primer, pre-reader, Torwali as pre-writer, MOI, oral math books, and written reading stories, Urdu oral listening English oral stories, rhymes and songs

Use of language in classroom

Mapping of actions and actors addressing language in education issues in our country: pre-primary and primary levels

Appendix 4: Asia Multilingual Education Working Group (MLE WG)1

Mother tongue education policy in Pakistan

Private Non-formal PP and PR (but (varies officially depending recognized on at the PR qualification level via level of registration instructors) of flagship school)

Private

6 Bakarwal Mobile Schools

NFE

Up to Primary grade 5

Private

5 Parkari Community Development Programme

NFE

PP

Public or private

4 Balochi Language & Literacy Organization

Name of organization/ Level of schooling Formal or institution non-formal

Gojri, Urdu, English

Parkari (L1), Sindhi (L2), Urdu (L3) and English (L4)

Balochi Southern (bcc)

Which languages

Karachi, Sindh

Location of action

Materials in classroom

Primer, pre-reader, pre-writer, math books, reading stories, listening stories, rhymes and songs

Primer, pre-reader, Balochi as pre-writer, MOI, oral and written math books, Urdu oral reading stories, listening stories, rhymes and songs Parkari as MOI, Primer, pre-reader, pre-writer, oral and math books, written reading stories, Sindhi oral and listening written stories, rhymes Urdu oral and songs

Use of language in classroom

Lower Province 1,911 children of Sindh and 538 female Nagar Parkar 1373 male Desert (MLE schools 29 Districts: Community selfhelp schools 38) Thar Mithi Badin Mirpurkhas Sanghar Gojri as MOI, 428 students. Mansehra, oral and 208 female and Batagram, written 220 male Haripur, Attock, Gojri, Khanpur, Urdu oral and Jhelum, written Chakwal, Rawalpindi, Fatahjang, Mardan (seasonal in Kaghan, Swat, Gilgit, Astore)

More than 700

Number of children reached by action by school level

11 Tharadri

PP

NFE

Private

Private Government education system (FE) or is non-formal (NFE) Tharadri, Sindhi, Urdu, and English

Kachhi, Sindhi, Urdu, and English

32 Female 14 Male 18

Thousands of students in Khyber Pukhtoon Khwa’s nine districts Total 15 schools Total students 520 Female 190 Male 320

Public

Formal

9 Pashto (it is run by Up to primary the education 5, after class department of 5 Pashto KPK province) is used as elective subject 10 Kachhi Two Level Community the primary 5 Development primary 2 Association (PR)

Pashto

Private, Kalasha, Urdu More than 100 public students are currently studying in Kalasha Mun school

Thousands of students throughout the Sindh province

FE & NFE

Sindhi, Urdu

8 Community Based PP School (CBS) Government primary school, Greek Volunteers

Public

Formal

7 Sindhi (it is run by Up to class 10 the education department of the Sindh province)

Sindh

Mirpurkhas And Tando Allahyar

Nine districts of Khyber Pukhtoon Khwa

District Chitral

Whole Sindh province

Primer, pre-reader, pre-writer, math books, reading stories, listening stories, rhymes and songs

Primer, pre-reader, pre-writer, math books, reading stories, listening stories, rhymes and songs Primer, math, science, general knowledge, etc.

Primer, math, science, general knowledge, etc.

(Continued )

Primer, pre-reader, Tharadri as pre-writer, MOI, oral, math books, written reading stories, Sindhi oral and listening written stories, rhymes Urdu oral and and songs written English oral

Sindhi MOI, oral, written Urdu oral and written English oral and written Kalasha as MOI, oral and written Urdu oral and written English oral and written Pashto MOI, oral, written Urdu oral and written English oral and written Kachhi MOI, oral, written Sindhi oral and written Urdu oral and written English oral

NFE

NFE

NFE

NFE

PP

13 Khowar: Mother PP Tongue Institute for Education & Research

14 Hindko: Hindko PP Language and Cultural Society

15 Indus Kohistani: PP Indus Kohistan Language & Cultural Society

12 Dhatki

Name of organization/ Level of schooling Formal or institution non-formal

Private

Private

Private

Private

Public or private

Number of children reached by action by school level

Ranolia, Duber, district Kohistan

36

Indus Kohistani, Urdu, English

Abottabad, KPK

Chitral, KPK

Sindh

Location of action

Hindko, Urdu, 22 English

Khowar, Urdu, 16 English

Dhatki, Sindhi, 30 Urdu and English

Which languages

Materials in classroom

Dhatki as MOI, Primer, pre-reader, pre-writer, oral, written math books, Sindhi oral and reading stories, written listening Urdu oral and stories, rhymes written and songs English oral Dhatki as MOI, Primer, pre-reader, pre-writer, oral, written math books, Sindhi oral and reading stories, written listening Urdu oral and stories, rhymes written and songs English oral

Dhatki as MOI, Primer, pre-reader, pre-writer, oral, written math books, Sindhi oral and reading stories, written listening Urdu oral and stories, rhymes written and songs English oral Dhatki as MOI, Primer, pre-reader, pre-writer, oral, written math books, Sindhi oral and reading stories, written listening Urdu oral and stories, rhymes written and songs English oral

Use of language in classroom

Materials in classroom:

Location of action: Use of language in classroom:

Number of children:

Public or private: Which language:

Formal or non-formal:

Name of organization/ institution: Level of schooling:

Give the name of the organization (NGO, local association, etc.) or institution (church, pagoda, temple, university, etc.) which is supporting the action. This can include government agencies and institutions. Identify whether action is at the pre-primary level (PP) or at the primary level (PR). The mapping is focusing only on these two levels of schooling. Identify whether action is in the formal or government education system (FE) or is non-formal (NFE) outside the government education system. Identify whether the action is happening in the public education system or private. If this does not apply to your country, write n/a. Give the name of the local or minority language(s) which the action includes. If possible, see your country’s section on the Ethnologue. com (http://www.ethnologue.com/country_index.asp?place=Asia) and find the relevant three-letter ISO language code for these languages. Give the number of children reached by the action by school level (pre-primary and primary). Please disaggregate by sex gender (i.e. M: and F:), if possible. Give sub-national location of action(s) either province or district Identify how language is used in the classroom by using the descriptors below. Choose the most appropriate one.You can choose more than one. 1 Language of instruction (LoI) mother tongue (MT) and second language (L2) 2 Language of instruction mother tongue (MT) only 3 Language of instruction second language officially 4 Language of instruction second language with MT as subject 5 Oral use of MT, no materials – officially 6 Oral use of MT, no materials – unofficially 7 Second language (L2) is taught as second language Are there teaching and learning materials in MT in classroom? Yes or no

27 LANGUAGE IN EDUCATION POLICY IN BANGLADESH A neoliberal turn? M. Obaidul Hamid and Arifa Rahman

1 Introduction Bangladesh as a polity is underrepresented in international scholarship on language or education policy. However, the past couple of decades have seen a small number of journal articles and book chapters being dedicated to language education policy and practice in this South Asian nation of over 160 million people (e.g. Chowdhury & Kabir, 2014; Hamid, 2011, 2016; Hamid & Erling, 2016; Hossain & Tollefson, 2007; Imam, 2005; Rahman, 2010; Rahman, 2015; Sultana, 2014a). In this chapter we draw on these and other relevant sources to provide an overview of language policy in the Bangladeshi education system from the early days of independence in 1971 to the present decade.We argue that the changes in language policy in general and English language policy in particular during this period can be read as a neoliberal narrative in a globalized world, i.e. how a nation with a strong sense of linguistic nationalism at birth has gradually opened itself to English and has given space to supra-national and sub-national entities that have promoted English.This neoliberal transformation of language policy in education can be related to the continuous weakening of the state and state sovereignty (Blommaert, 2006;Wright, 2012). Although the state’s control over social, political and cultural domains has reached an extreme height in recent years in the absence of true democratic norms and tolerance of dissenting voices (see e.g. Sohail, 2016), its grip on language and linguistic nationalism appears to have loosened. In the first section we discuss relationships between language policy, nation-state and neoliberalism followed by an examination of how nationalism informed early language policy in Bangladesh. We then illustrate the neoliberal turn with reference to the establishment of English medium schools and private universities and to the growing dominance of NGO (non-­ government organization) education in the country. In the final section, we summarize the key points and link them to recent debates on maintaining the purity and supremacy of Bangla1 before drawing our conclusions.

2  Language policy and nation-states under neoliberal globalization Globalization refers to global interdependence of nations and communities while neoliberalism seeks to establish the rule of the market at the expense of state authority. The two concepts are 382

Language in education policy in Bangladesh

complementary to each other. If globalization is compared to an electric wire, neoliberalism is the current passing through this wire. Indeed, the absence of borders in physical or virtual spaces may not be imagined without the rule of the market and the free flow of capital, labor, ideas and entrepreneurship (Appadurai, 1996). Although, in this chapter, we mainly use the term “neoliberalism,” it is intended to stand for globalization as well, and therefore “neoliberal globalization” may be a more appropriate term. Neoliberal globalization has undermined the long-held authority of the nation-state in the key areas of governance, economy and, to a certain extent, education (see Hamid & Luo, 2016). The continued weakening of state sovereignty has paved the way for post-nationalism (see Heller, 2011), although different states would be located at different stages in the transformation process. While many states have already made a significant compromise with their authority in such areas as economy (see Lingard, Thompson & Sellar, 2016), this compromise may be achieved only slowly in some other areas. The national language may be cited as an example in which nation-states may like to retain their authority. However, the changing ecology of languages within polities as well as globally may prompt language policy responses that may ultimately affect national languages as well. Understanding how language policy relates to neoliberalism calls for revisiting the role of language in the formation of nation-states, initially in Europe and subsequently in Asia and Africa, at the end of European colonial rule. Language policy is understood as a nationalist project that invented national languages (Wright, 2012). In the state-before-the-nation model (e.g. France), the national language was required to unite various ethnolinguistic and cultural groups within the nation-state territory, giving them a distinct national identity. In the state-after-the nation model (e.g. Germany), the national language, together with a common history, culture and heritage, provided the basis for national unity which then produced the rationale and inspiration for searching for political identity as a nation-state with a distinct territory. In both cases the processes of state-formation constructed the national language as a singular, countable and distinct entity distinguished from other languages (Gal, 2006; Makoni & Pennycook, 2006).This new linguistic identity either subsumed all other dialects and varieties spoken in the polity, or they were proscribed with the expectation that they would disappear in course of time. This process of monolingualization produced the condition for the one-nation, one-language, oneterritory ideology (Wright, 2012). Theoretically, languages of other nations cannot exist in the ideological space of the nationstate which, it is assumed, can accommodate only one language. This can be understood from, among many instances, President Theodore Roosevelt’s statement in 1919: We have room for but one flag, the American flag…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language… and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people. (cited in Phillipson 2012: 212, italics in the original) This one-nation, one-language ideology was expressed almost in a similar fashion by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Founder of Pakistan. As British rule came to an end in 1947, the dominion of Pakistan was carved out of colonial India, and comprised East and West Pakistan. However, uniting the various ethnolinguistic and cultural groups within the new nation which was also geographically divided by a large segment of Indian territory, posed critical challenges for nation-builders. In line with the prevailing ideology, the newly chosen national language, Urdu, was deployed for the task. As Jinnah stated unequivocally on 21 March 1948 at a national consolidation meeting in Dhaka, the current capital of Bangladesh: 383

M. Obaidul Hamid and Arifa Rahman

Whether Bengali should be the official language of this province is a matter for the elected representatives of the people of this province to decide. … But let me make it clear to you that the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Anyone who tries to mislead [you] is merely the enemy of Pakistan. Without one state language, no nation can remain tied up solidly together and function. Look at the history of other countries. There[fore] so far as the state language is concerned, Pakistan’s language should be Urdu; but, as I have said, it will come in time.2 Although Jinnah was not concerned about which language would be used at the provincial level, at the federal level he emphasized the role of a single national language for bringing together the poorly imagined nation of Pakistan (Oldenburg, 1985). However, what worked in other countries, such as Indonesia and in the hostile neighbor India (see Lo Bianco, 2012), did not work for Pakistan. It is on the very grounds of language, further complicated by issues of economic and political exploitation, that East Pakistan broke away from the federation in 1971 (see Musa, 1996). The ideological construction of the national language as a pillar of the nation-state led to the othering of languages of other nations. These othered languages can exist only with the identity of foreign languages inside the nation-state territory. Despite the growing recognition of languages for their cultural and commercial significance in the new economy (e.g. British Council, 2013; Kubota, 2016) and of multilingualism (e.g. May 2014), foreign languages remain unrelated to the nation-state. Even when these languages have existed in nation-state territories for decades as “community languages” (Clyne & Kipp, 2006), they remain outside the ideological space of the nation-state (see Hamid & Kirkpatrick, 2016). Although the European one-language, one-nation ideology had a great appeal to decolonized nations in Africa and Asia (as illustrated by the Pakistan example above), the colonial experience brought them complex language choice options for nation-building purposes. European languages introduced through colonial rule became an integral part of local linguistic ecologies which were given the status of official/national languages. Some polities tried local languages for this role (see Lo Bianco, 2012), but they ended up retaining colonial languages as more neutral options. Even those nations which succeeded in adopting local languages for nationbuilding purposes retained colonial languages such as English either as a co-official language or as a medium of instruction. With the globalization of English and its perceived role in a globalized economy, the hegemonic presence of English has become naturalized and normalized in many post-colonial nations. As a language of globalization and as a global lingua franca, English has ceased to be a foreign language in other countries as well, even in those which were not introduced to English as part of British or American colonial rule. The dominant role of English in Europe (see Dimova, Hultgren & Jensen, 2015) and in East and Southeast Asia (Kirkpatrick & Liddicoat, 2017) undermines Kachru’s (1982) theory of concentric circles which has included these polities under the concept of the Expanding Circle giving English the status of a foreign language. The fact that English was proposed as a co-official language, although without success in “monolingual” societies such as Korea, points to the perceived necessity of English, primarily due to its instrumental potential in neoliberal globalization (Song, 2011). An examination of  ‘non-native’ English-using nations’ policy response to English can tell us how these nations relate to neoliberalism in a post-national era. In the face of globalization and global spread of English which is also perceived as posing threats to national languages, cultures and identities, language policies in these polities have been characterized by a balanced approach 384

Language in education policy in Bangladesh

(Tsui & Tollefson, 2007). This is to ensure that these societies can benefit from the instrumental potential of English while protecting their national languages and identities from its hegemonic effects (Hamid & Luo, 2016). This balance has been translated in different ways in different polities, although achieving the balance is particularly problematic in highly multilingual societies such as the Philippines and Indonesia. The most recent language policy in Malaysia, which has replaced earlier PPSMI (i.e. the teaching of science and mathematics through English) (see Ali, Hamid & Moni, 2011), is an excellent example of this balance. This policy is abbreviated MBMMBI which literally means “To uphold Bahasa Malaysia and to strengthen the English language.”3Singapore has pursued English more enthusiastically for its instrumental role, following what has been labelled a pragmatic approach (Wee, 2003). This approach guided the linking of culture and identity to ethnic languages such as Chinese, Malay and Tamil, away from English. However, the increased penetration of English into Singapore homes has pointed to signs of cracks in the widely considered successful management of language and national identity (Stroud & Wee, 2007). Unlike some other Asian countries, Indonesia appears to have swayed more towards the maintenance of local culture and identity.The move to withdraw English from primary schools in 2013 and the policy emphasis on religious and moral values suggests a different kind of policy balance for this linguistically, culturally and geographically diverse nation. Our aim in this chapter is to illustrate how language policy in Bangladesh relates to neoliberal ideology. We argue that from an early start with linguistic nationalism through a period of balanced planning, language policy direction in the country appears to be heading towards neoliberalism under the influence of local and global forces.

3  Linguistic nationalism in Bangladesh: Before and after 1971 Bangladesh has experienced the nation-state twice: first as a geographically distant part of the federation of Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947 (known as East Pakistan) and then from 1971 onwards when East Pakistan broke away from Pakistan as a separate nation. Linguistic nationalism has played a key role in both nation-states, although in different ways. During the Pakistani era (1947–1971), Bangladesh refused to join the imagined community of the Pakistani nation built around the newly claimed national language called Urdu. It is on the grounds of linguistic nationalism, as we previously mentioned, that Bangladesh exited from the federation of Pakistan and formed the new nation-state of Bangladesh where, ironically, language (Bangla) was a key tool for national unity. Urdu-based Pakistani nationalism perceived as foreign, undemocratic and exploitative was given up to form a Bangla-centric Bangladeshi nationalism. As a requirement of the nation-state ideology, the new nation brought its national language to the center of social, economic, cultural and political life. The first few years of postindependence Bangladesh saw the rule of linguistic nationalism which refused to acknowledge the existence of ethnic minority communities and their languages (see Hamid, 2011; Rahman, 2010; Murshed, 2016 for details).4 Bangla was elevated to the highest status, which was to serve as a language of higher education and the bureaucracy. Although English was retained for the nation’s historical ties with the language, it had only a limited scope. Without the use of English for internal communication and with Bangla taking over many new domains, English literally became a foreign language. Conceived of as a socialist democracy in the nation’s original constitution, the state had full control over the means of production as well as education (Hamid, 2016). The socialist-nationalist imaginary influenced by a strong sense of linguistic nationalism did not provide a fertile ground for English as a foreign language to flourish in the country. There is a wider perception that the promotion of Bangla during this period of linguistic nationalism had a negative impact on English teaching and learning. A Task Force commissioned 385

M. Obaidul Hamid and Arifa Rahman

by the Ministry of Education to investigate English teaching and learning gave credibility to prevalent perceptions of the declining standards of English (BEERI, 1976). This undesirable reality of English on the one hand, and an acknowledgement of the growing significance of English on the global stage on the other, marked the beginning of a significant policy shift towards English in the coming decades. Although the promotion of Bangla along the line of linguistic nationalism was further consolidated during the military rule from 1982 to 1990 (Banu & Sussex, 2001), this was not at the expense of English. A significant policy step towards more English in Bangladesh was the introduction of English as a compulsory subject from Grade 1 (Ahmed, 2005). The 1976 Task Force recommended that English be introduced in either Grade 3 or Grade 5 taking into consideration the availability of English teachers, among other factors. After trialling these recommendations in the 1980s, English was finally introduced at the earliest school grade in the beginning of the next decade. Thus, Bangladesh was one of the leading polities to introduce early English, which has now emerged as a common policy trend across Asia (Baldauf et al., 2012). The last decade of the 20th century saw some other important policy initiatives for English. Of note were the curriculum reforms and the introduction of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in the late 1990s (Hamid & Baldauf, 2008). Under the auspices of the English Language Teaching Improvement Project (ELTIP) jointly funded by UK DFID (Department for International Development) and the Government of Bangladesh, new textbooks for Grades 1–12 were redesigned in the light of CLT (Hamid, 2010). Around the same time, an English course was introduced for undergraduate studies in colleges across the country. Following this government initiative, some universities introduced a similar course for non-English major students. Particularly notable was the Foundation English Course for all first-year students in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Dhaka which was introduced in 1998 (Hamid, 2000).

3.1  Balanced and unbalanced planning Despite the gradual promotion of English, a balance between English and Bangla in the education system was maintained until the turn of the century (Hamid, 2000). For instance, since the introduction of English in Grade 1 in 1991, the curricular space given to Bangla and English subjects in the Grade 1–12 curriculum was the same. Both subjects also had equal weighting in all public examinations held at the end of Years 5, 10 and 12. Similarly, the introduction of the English course at the University of Dhaka was balanced by the introduction of a Bangla foundation course for the same students (Hamid, 2000). In the new millennium, although the Bangla–English balance may not have been affected in a significant way, English seems to have received growing consideration. For instance, Chowdhury and Kabir (2014) examined the place of English in education commissions and national policy documents from 1974 to 2010. From the 2010 National Education Policy, they extracted a number of policy initiatives which contrast strikingly with those from the first education commission of 1974. This can be seen in Table 27.1. English in the 2010 Education Policy aimed to develop human capital and to enable students to participate in the workforce as well as the globalized economy. The emphasis on English is striking despite the fact that not a single chapter in the policy document is devoted to language policy or language education. The emphasis on English can also be understood from the dozens of English language projects that have been implemented in the country in the last couple of decades (see Hamid, 2010). These projects have been funded by various development partners and donor agencies. Although policy emphasis on Bangla together with more effective efforts for the development and expansion of Bangla is often articulated in policy texts (Ministry of 386

Language in education policy in Bangladesh Table 27.1 English in education policies in Bangladesh Bangladesh Education Commission (1974)

National Education Policy (2010)

•• English given priority as foreign language, to be taught from Class 6 •• General emphasis on English language

•• English recognized as essential tool to building knowledge-based society •• Emphasis on English writing and speaking from the very beginning of primary education •• English to be set as compulsory subject adopted in all streams from the secondary level •• English as medium of instruction could be introduced from the secondary level •• Emphasis on appointing adequate number of English teachers at secondary level •• English to be a compulsory subject in all colleges and universities •• English (along with Bengali) to be the media of instruction at the tertiary level •• Emphasis on the need to translate books written in English to Bengali

Source: Adapted from Chowdhury & Kabir, 2014, p. 10.

Education, 2010), it can be argued that national investment in this language is negligible compared to that in English (Alam, 2002). The latest policy document, the Draft Education Act (2016) (Ministry of Education, 2016) is the translation of the National Education Policy 2010 into a legal document. As such, the Act reflects the English language policy initiatives suggested in the policy document. For instance, it is stated that use of English at the tertiary level will be continued together with Bangla, although it is also pointed out that necessary steps will be taken to translate books written in English and other languages into Bangla in order to expand the opportunity of higher education through the mother tongue. Similarly, English is stipulated as a compulsory subject at the tertiary level. Schools are given permission to introduce an English version of the national curriculum, provided they satisfy logistics and other requirements (see Hamid, 2016; Rahman, 2015). The National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) publishes English versions of all Grade 1–12 textbooks alongside Bangla versions for use by these schools.

4  The neoliberal turn Despite the increased accommodation of English in the public sector education as illustrated in the previous section, neoliberal tendencies do not necessarily underpin English language policies. Policies were still guided by principles of justice and equality which sought to ensure, at least theoretically, universal access to English (see Hamid, 2011; Hamid & Erling, 2016). However, recent policy thinking seems to have given way to a neoliberal influence. An example of this, as mentioned above, is allowing well-resourced schools to introduce the English version of the national curriculum. This means that qualified schools can operate entirely in English or offer an English version alongside the Bangla curriculum. While the motivation behind this policy move may have various interpretations, one aim seems to be to allow more freedom and choice to parents in pursuing the medium of education of their children. This appears to be recognition of parental wealth and wishes (Brown, 1990; Dewiele & Edgerton, 2016) in the selection of schools. It also reflects the recent trend of incorporating private education services 387

M. Obaidul Hamid and Arifa Rahman Table 27.2 Medium of instruction and socioeconomic backgrounds of target populations Nature of education Medium of instruction

Section of population targeted

English education English (General Certificate A section of elite people with higher socioeconomic of Education) status. English version Middle class people concentrated in the various cities (NCTB syllabus) of Bangladesh. Religious education: Islamic education Urdu and Arabic (Quowmi A section of Muslim people with the fundamental madrasa) values of Islam. Bangla/Arabic A good number of Muslim people who maintain (Alia madrasa) Islamic value leaning to the mainstream education. Hindu education Sanskrit A small number of Hindu priests requiring Sanskrit for religious rites and rituals. Buddhist Pali A small number of Buddhist priests comprising both education Bengali people and indigenous people. General education Bangla (NCTB Almost the entire rural population and a section of curriculum) urban population with lower socioeconomic status. NGO education Bangla/Indigenous Marginalized groups of the mainstream population and languages people of ethnic minority communities. Source: Adapted from Faquire, 2010.

into public institutions (Dewiele & Edgerton, 2016; Nguyen, Hamid & Moni, 2016; Nguyen, Hamid & Renshaw, 2016). Schools are allowed to introduce more expensive fee structures for students enrolled in the English version. These educational provisions may promote parental choice (Dewiele & Edgerton, 2016) but they belie the traditional free-of-cost character of public education (Bray & Kwo, 2013). Importantly, in describing the language situation in Bangladesh, Faquire (2010) has illustrated how the various medium of instruction options are reflective of family socioeconomic status and parental choices noted in the previous paragraph.Table 27.2 shows this connection between educational choices and socioeconomic factors. The table is adapted from Faquire (2010) in which we have added NGO education (last row) which was not included in the original. It points to the diversity of medium of instruction choices available in the country.

4.1  Privatization of education: English medium schools and English medium universities However, the neoliberal turn that we would like to emphasize in this chapter is more compellingly associated with privatization and marketization of education which are two key features of neoliberalism (Anwaruddin, 2013). The changing of the fundamental principles of state ­policy–particularly from “socialism” in the 1972 Constitution to “socialism meaning economic and social justice” through the fifth amendments in 1977–opened the way for the privatization of education in the country (Kabir, 2013). Given the limited scope for the development of English proficiency in public sector education in the 1970s, as previously indicated, the wealthier class opted for private English medium education for their children. This demand encouraged educational entrepreneurs to establish English medium schools with different versions of external curricula mainly in the metropolitan centers. In the next few decades the demand 388

Language in education policy in Bangladesh

grew so exponentially that English medium schools of various qualities are currently available not only in large cities but also in small regional ones (Hamid & Jahan, 2015). English medium schools remained outside the purview of education authorities for a long time during which they exercised their entrepreneurial freedom to choose the curriculum and charge self-imposed tuition fees. However, the government has sought to regulate these schools through the 2010 Education Policy (Ministry of Education, 2010) particularly in terms of the specification of the curriculum (see discussion below). There was a wider social perception that English medium schools did not give adequate emphasis to Bangla or Bangladesh in their pursuit of Western curricular content. This gave rise to debates on English medium versus Bangla medium schools which have been enacted in newspapers, internet-based newsgroups and social media (Jahan, 2016; Sultana, 2014b).The elitist character of some of these schools has been critiqued and defended. This can be understood from the following editorial in the Daily Star, the prominent English daily in the country, which is also a key patron of English medium education: The critics of English medium schools are apt to say that they are elitist while the proponents see the merit of pursuing the courses that better equip students to pursue higher studies abroad. We are for a realistic and rational approach to the whole issue. The elitist label no longer holds good as it used to. Local cultural and educational ingredients are being integrated into the English medium curriculum. Secondly, Bangla is being taught in these schools. (Daily Star, 2008) The Education Act (Draft) 2016 (Ministry of Education, 2016) has made it obligatory for English medium schools to register with the government authorities and they are required to include Bangla and Bangladesh studies in their curriculum. These requirements may establish some control over some aspects of private English education in the country. However, these may not affect the growing popularity of English medium schools or their operation. Even the inclusion of Bangla or Bangladesh studies in their curriculum may not match the dominance of western content or the achievement of English proficiency, often done in a subtractive way at the expense of Bangla (see Hamid & Jahan, 2015). The second critical marker of the neoliberal turn in the Bangladeshi education system is the introduction of higher education in the private sector (Anwaruddin, 2013; Kabir, 2013) and its implications for English and the national language. A number of factors including the limited capacity of state-funded universities to meet the growing demand for higher education, lengthening of student enrolment time in public universities due to political unrest and disruptions, low quality of education and limited options for students and parents to choose fields of study and the increased outflow of foreign currency associated with young Bangladeshis pursuing tertiary education overseas motivated the government to pass the Private University Act, 1992 (Anwaruddin, 2013; Kabir, 2013). Educational entrepreneurship exhibited by the business community was a key factor that lobbied with the government for passing the bill (Anwaruddin, 2013). Since the introduction of the law in 1992, more than 100 private universities have been established in the country and these now exceed the number of public universities, which currently stand at 42. The operation of these education enterprises has been driven by a stronger alignment of their academic programs with the job market, using English as the exclusive medium of instruction (Anwaruddin, 2013; Kabir, 2013). The pursuit of profit in a highly competitive environment has led to limited or no offering of subjects in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences 389

M. Obaidul Hamid and Arifa Rahman Table 27.3 Characteristics and assumptions of LPP in the public and the private sector Public sector – Classical Macro LPP

Private sector – Neoliberalism-driven LPP

Motivated by nationalism and the national language Language is a tool for uniting people and for creating national identity Politics of national language denies minority languages Languages require state protection and control Promotion of global languages may have adverse effects on national languages and identities Language planning is a balancing act

Driven by open market economy Language is a communicative tool; the role of language in national identity is not on the agenda Politics of language involves the instrumentality of languages; promoting or denying languages is not the explicit focus Languages do not require control or protection No language can harm any other languages or identities. The use of languages and identities changes over time Balancing between languages is irrelevant

Source: Reproduced from Hamid & Baldauf, 2014, pp. 202–203.

(Anwaruddin, 2013). Particularly noteworthy is the absence of Bangla either as a medium of instruction or as academic programs across the board (Hamid, Jahan & Islam, 2013).5 Regardless of the academic challenges faced by Bangla medium students from public schools (Sultana, 2014a), the exclusive use of English has been pursued in response to market demands for their products on the one hand and in line with the new global trend of using English in higher education on the other (Dimova, Hultgren & Jensen, 2015; Nguyen, Hamid & Moni, 2016). Despite the growing recognition of English in the public sector, there is still a strong presence of Bangla which cannot be seen in the private sector where there is a clear dominance of English.Hamid and Baldauf (2014) have drawn clear patterns of language use and language ideologies in the two sectors in which the second column is underpinned by neoliberal tendencies (see Table 27.3).

4.2  “NGO-ization” of education If private sector education emphasizes the neoliberal turn in terms of privatization and marketization of education and undermines the state’s emphasis on national language and identity, nongovernment organizations (NGOs) running education programs (e.g. education for marginalized communities or education for ethnic children offered in Bangla and indigenous languages) may also undermine state sovereignty by unsettling the traditional state–education relationship and pointing to the state’s incapacity to deal with education for its citizens. NGO education mainly draws on capital from global development partners (see Bano, 2008). Education programs run by NGOs may not undermine the national language; however, their advocacy for ethnic minority languages may challenge the monoglot ideology that has underpinned the nation-state. The Bangladeshi state was in a denial mode about the existence of languages of these communities (Hamid, 2011; Rahman, 2010), and only recently has there been policy recognition about creating opportunity for mother tongue-based pre-primary education for some of these communities (Ministry of Education, 2010; see also Murshed, 2016). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the extent of NGO involvement in education given the sheer number of NGOs of different types, origins and funding sources (Bano, 2008; Sabur & Ahmed, 2010). Bangladesh is one of the few countries in the world with a high 390

Language in education policy in Bangladesh

density of NGOs and other development organizations (Islam & Anwar, 2012) which is a consequence of the NGO boom of the 1990s (Silova, 2008). NGOs have proliferated in the country to address its development needs which are difficult for the state sector to handle on its own with limited resources and capability. Education constitutes one of the multitudes of programs run by NGOs including poverty alleviation, health and sanitation, women empowerment and micro-finance (see Anwar & Islam, 2013; Islam & Anwar, 2012). The provision of education by the NGO sector implies that the public sector does not have the capacity to meet education needs of the diverse communities including the disadvantaged and minority groups. NGOs are registered with the government department called the NGO Affairs Bureau,6 but their education programs may not be monitored separately from other (non-education) programs by this department. Moreover, the majority of NGOs in Bangladesh have their operations in rural areas, away from the central authorities, involving women, children and other vulnerable groups. The growing NGO coverage of education in the country for the disadvantaged groups (see Table 27.2) may raise a perplexing question:Who is responsible for and who runs the education of the masses in the country? The traditional view of the state ownership of education has been significantly altered in the face of the dominance of non-state players such as NGOs. Within the scope of the chapter, we will provide two examples of NGOs providing education in the country. Instead of focusing exclusively on language or language policy in education, which is also difficult to do given that language questions may not be a priority in development initiatives undertaken by NGOs, we will consider education in general to illustrate the hold of neoliberal thinking in education. We do this based on the premise that if education provision is informed by neoliberal thinking, then language issues associated with this education will also be affected by neoliberal principles regardless of the presence or absence of overt language policies. NGOs are generally considered neoliberal entities which illustrate the means and mechanisms of state deregulation of education and public sector liabilities. Although there are debates on the NGO contribution to development and their relationships with the state, donors and the communities they serve (e.g. Bano, 2008; Ilon, 2008), engaging in those debates is not within the purview of the present chapter. Our first example is BRAC (Building Resources Across Communities)7 which is the largest NGO in the world with BRAC Education Program (BEP) being “the largest secular and private education system in the world,”8 currently operating in seven countries. In Bangladesh, BRAC owns 13,800 pre-primary schools with 400,072 students and 22,971 primary schools with 681,794 students. BRAC also operates 1,635 ethnic minority schools in the south eastern region which provide multilingual education (involving indigenous languages, Bangla and English) in which 40,175 minority students are enrolled. These figures may indicate the size of an education system larger than the national education systems of many countries.The size itself points to the dominance of the education space occupied by this NGO challenging its state ownership. Given the discourses of cost-effectiveness and efficiency of the NGO sector, it is the state sector of education which has to rely on the non-state sector and learn from it, not the other way around (details below). The Bangladesh government has acknowledged the role of the private sector, the civil society and NGOs in pursuing its Vision 2021. By 2021, the government seeks to attain the status of a middle-income economy for Bangladesh (Planning Commission, 2012). It is expected that NGOs will help achieve the national economic goals as outlined in the Vision and that NGOs will supplement government efforts in this regard.9 However, a critical reading of the roles of NGOs may also reveal a lack of alignment between state aims and those of the NGOs operating education programs. For instance, although mainstream education in Bangladesh is secular in character (see Table 27.2), there is also an emphasis on religious and moral education in the national curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2010, 2016). However, the secular BRAC 391

M. Obaidul Hamid and Arifa Rahman

education program may emphasize materialism and worldliness without consideration of social and religious values in a Muslim-majority society. Similarly, a number of Christian missionary NGOs operate education programs under the guise of providing service, although their ultimate aim appears to be winning souls (see Pennycook & Coutand-Marin, 2003 for the use of English for Christian missionary purposes in Muslim and non-Muslim societies). From a structural point of view, the increased supplementation of state education by NGO education (e.g. BRAC programs targeting disadvantaged groups left out of the mainstream system) may point to the helplessness of the state in the face of the growing dominance of the NGO sector.This may lead to a situation where government not only legitimizes the NGO sector but also allows it to establish control over the state sector. For instance, in 2008, the government approved a BRAC pilot project which was going to supervise primary school teachers and provide in-house teacher training in primary schools in 20 sub-districts. The relevant teachers’ association saw this as the “NGOization” of primary education (Sabur & Ahmed, 2010). This initiative had to be dropped in the light of resentment and demonstrations by the association. The incident points to how BRAC influence is perceived by the teaching community. Islam and Anwar (2012) examined the establishment and operation of BEP in Afghanistan and considered “whether BRAC Afghanistan can build a long-term infrastructure that will integrate BRAC values into Afghan education system” (p. 68, emphasis added). It may be inferred that BRAC, being the largest NGO in the world, may have already infused its neoliberal, secular and materialistic values into the education system in Bangladesh, where BRAC had its origin. Our second example is of a more recent and small-scale education program offered by what is called Teach for Bangladesh (TfB) which is a local brand of the global Teach for All network which was particularly inspired by Teach for America (see Adhikary, Lingard & Hardy, 2018). TfB is represented as “a nationwide movement of exceptional university graduates and young professionals who are committed to expanding educational opportunity for all children in Bangladesh.”10 It offers two-year fellowships to prospective candidates who receive teacher education and training from BRAC Institute of Education and are then given placements in urban primary schools mainly in Dhaka. Although the website does not provide essential details about how TfB fellows are accommodated in schools and under what provisions, it is stated that these fellows mainly teach English. Thus, TfB can be seen as a local version of the American Peace Corps volunteer program which operated in Bangladesh in the early 1960s. The two examples provided in this section indicate the diversity of education and linguistic markets in Bangladesh (see Hamid, 2016) where non-state players such as NGOs are increasingly becoming dominant.This growth of education outside the public sector contributes to the neoliberal turn in language in education policy in the sense that NGOs have not subscribed to nationalistic conceptions of languages or language education; rather, they have emphasized all languages including Bangla, English and indigenous languages, although arguably for their instrumental potential.

5  Discussion and conclusion In providing an overview of language in the education policy in Bangladesh, in this chapter we have argued that there has been a shift towards neoliberalism as illustrated by the growing emphasis on English in the public sector, privatization of education and the dominance of NGO education which challenges state capability as well as control of education including languages. If the state can be seen to maintain some sort of balance between Bangla and English in the public sector, this balance does not appear to be relevant for the non-state sector (see Table 27.3). Bangla appears to have been undermined in English medium schools and private universities. Bangla may still be dominant in NGO education given the limited access to English by its clientele 392

Language in education policy in Bangladesh

which happens to be the socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. However, minority languages are also promoted by NGO education programs such as Education for Ethnic Children by BRAC. Operating outside state authority with funding from external donor agencies, the sector may not subscribe to a nationalistic conception of languages and language policies in education. The public sector has also come to recognize minority languages (Ministry of Education, 2010). Efforts are currently underway to provide mother tongue-based multilingual education to the minority communities (Murshed, 2016). Thus, we may be witnessing an educational situation where the national language is losing ground to English and indigenous languages, albeit slowly, brought about by forces beyond state control. While the acknowledgment of indigenous languages indicates a desirable direction in language policy and planning, the growing hegemony of English may be less welcome by critical and post-colonial scholars (see Alam, 2002). This diminishing significance of the national language or linguistic nationalism is probably not unique to Bangladesh. Globalization of the economy along neoliberal lines has enhanced the value of English as a global lingua franca. Increasingly, nations are committing to more and more English to develop human capital and be competitive in the globalized economy (Hamid, 2010; Majhanovich, 2014). Education is increasingly being privatized and commodified to produce marketable qualifications and skills in a globalized job market (Spring, 2015). The public sector is increasingly giving in to the growing demands for education and qualifications of choice. As a consequence, English is set to compete with national languages for its acceptance in domains such as education and employment (Hamid, 2016). As we have indicated in the chapter, this loosening of the grip on the national language, the last bastion of the nation-state ideology, can be related to continuing weakening of the nation-state in a neoliberal world. This is particularly so in the area of economy. Even nations such as China and Vietnam felt obliged to open themselves to the rest of the world essentially on economic grounds. The question of language has followed economic footsteps. Increasingly, language policies and programs are justified by an economic rationale (Hamid & Kirkpatrick, 2016). Regionalization of the economy or the formation of a trade and economic block requires the deployment of a non-national language as evidenced by the adoption of English as the official language of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation). The economic imperative that privileges English may lead to developing rational and pragmatic attitudes towards national languages in place of linguistic sentimentalities underpinning languages of national identity. This can be substantiated by referring to recent government responses to suggestions for maintaining the linguistic purity of Bangla and reinforcing its use in all spheres of national life. State deregulation of the media led to the opening of numerous private TV channels and radio stations in Bangladesh. Some of these electronic media outlets have promoted English-accented Bangla which may sound strange to language nationalists who believe in the purity of the national language. This “linguistic transgression” (Sultana, 2014b) has had a great appeal to urban youth and some sections of English medium students. This phenomenon drew media attention as some prominent intellectuals stood against the “distortion” of Bangla for which Bangladeshi people sacrificed their lives in the language movement of 1952. It is argued that this distortion of the language of national pride has the potential to turn it into a “street language” and is tantamount to its “rape” (Express Tribune, 2012).The issue then rolled on to the judiciary as a public interest litigation and the High Court took four important steps. It •• ••

“directed the radio and television channels authorities not to use distorted Bangla or foreign languages in Bangla broadcasts;” “ordered the government to form an expert committee … to stop distortion of Bangla language radio and TV programmes;” 393

M. Obaidul Hamid and Arifa Rahman

•• ••

“issued a rule upon the government to explain why it should not be directed to take necessary steps against the distortion of Bangla;” and “asked the government to explain why it should not be ordered to take legal action against those responsible for destroying the mother tongue.” (Daily Star, 2012, n.p.)

Although not directly following on from the alleged distortion of Bangla, in 2014, the High Court issued another ruling for the government “to take measures for implementing and ensuring the use of Bangla language everywhere, including signboards, banners, electronic media advertisements, nameplates, and vehicle number plates” (Misbah, 2014, n.p.). The government was indicted for its failure to implement the Bengali Language Implementation Act 1987 and to ensure the use of Bangla in offices and courts. The government considered some policy initiatives in response to these court rulings (Karim, 2014). For example, the Prime Minister “urged all to use Bangla in every sphere without any distortion” (Dhaka Tribune, 2016). However, the High Court was not satisfied with the government action. It was of the opinion that the government “had no interest regarding implementation of Bangla in all spheres” (Dhaka Tribune, 2014, emphasis added). As of 2016, language practices in the domains in question may not have changed since “the government has failed to comply with the two directives of the apex court in 2014 and 2012, that had asked authorities concerned to ensure use of Bangla in all spheres of life and take steps to stop distortion of the language” (Alamgir & Moneruzzaman, 2015, n.p.).While the government inaction was deplored by the Court and some intellectuals, “the misguided ‘war on English’” sponsored by the prevailing ideals of “patriotism” did not consider that “it may not be realistic or practical to try to completely stop the use of English across the board in all spheres overnight” (Dhaka Tribune, 2014, n.p.). The same could be said about the economic cost as well as the effectiveness of language policing to stop the distortion of Bangla. These incidents may not represent the government’s overall position on the national language which is a sensitive issue involving significant political stakes. What appears to be the case is that the government is more interested in making rhetorical investment in the national language than financial or policy investment. Or more importantly, language issues are only given priority when these issues entail political blessings. For instance, in order to appear truly secular to its well-­wishers at home and abroad, the government introduced the 15th amendment to the Constitution11 in June 2011 and reintroduced secularism as one of the state principles removing the expression “Absolute Faith and Trust in Allah” which is the first of the five pillars of the Islamic faith. Through this amendment, it also sought to take out the opening Arabic expression meaning “In the name of Allah, the most Merciful and the most Compassionate” from the Preamble. However, it stopped short of doing this and retained the expression just above the Preamble probably to be able to argue, depending on the audience, the expression was/was not part of the Constitution. Interestingly, in reinstating secularism, the government did not remove the provision “Islam as State Religion” which had been introduced by a former military government (see Harun, 2011). In conclusion, it can be argued that instead of subscribing to linguistic nationalism as a blanket approach, national policymakers seem to prefer calculated and strategic approaches to the national, global and indigenous languages.This position can be seen as a consequence of the neoliberal turn which has influenced many aspects of life in the country including the economy and education.

Notes 1 The national language of Bangladesh (also spoken in West Bengal in India), Bangla, is historically represented as “Bengali” in English. This can be seen from some of our references. However, the former

394

Language in education policy in Bangladesh title (which is the actual L1 word for the language) has gained momentum in the country. This can be seen as one example of linguistic nationalism. 2 Speech retrieved on 17 June 2016 from: (http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/ txt_jinnah_dacca_1948.html) 3 The number of ethnic minority communities varies across sources – from 27 in government records to 45 suggested by ethnic minority groups (see Murshed 2016). These communities constitute 2% of the total population of the country. Ethnologue reports 41 individual languages in Bangladesh including Bangla, which is spoken by over 98% of the population. Faquire (2010) describes languages in Bangladesh in three categories including: a) the national language and its regional varieties (e.g. Rangpuri and Sylheti); b) indigenous languages (e.g. Chakma, Marma, Bishnupriya and Santali); and c) second/foreign languages (e.g. English and Arabic). The 2010 National Education Policy (Ministry of Education 2010) made provision for the teaching and learning of indigenous languages in primary schools in the minority-concentrated regions. Efforts are currently underway, as previously noted in the chapter, to provide education to these communities in their own languages (Murshed 2016). BRAC Education Program (discussed in the chapter) “has introduced a full-fledged multi-lingual education (MLE) in the Chittagong Hill Tracts to suit the learning needs of the indigenous communities using their own script as the medium of teaching” (n.p.). This program is known as Education for Ethnic Children (EEC). Refer to http://www.brac.net/education-programme/item/775-educationfor-ethnic-children-eec. 4 Refer to http://www.moe.gov.my/v/soalan-lazim-view?id=150&cat=28&keyword=&page=1& 5 University Grants Commission (UGC), which oversees higher education in the country in both public and private sectors, has recently passed a directive to all universities to include two courses including “Bangla Language” and “History of Emergence of Bangladesh,” in addition to “Bangladesh Studies.” Refer to http://www.ugc.gov.bd/en/home/recentnews/464. However, these courses have not been introduced by universities as yet. 6 Refer to http://www.ngoab.gov.bd. 7 BRAC initially stood for Bangladesh Rehabilitation Advancement Committee and later for Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee. We have used the current title here. 8 Cited from BRAC website www.brac/net/education 9 Refer to http://www.ngoab.gov.bd. 10 Copied from the Teach for Bangladesh website: http://www.teachforbangladesh.org. 11 Refer to http://studiesbangladesh.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/constitutional-amendments-constitution.html

References Adhikary, R. W., Lingard, B., & Hardy, I. (2018). A critical examination of Teach for Bangladesh’s Facebook page: “Social-mediatisation” of global educaiton reforms in the “post-truth” era. Journal of Education Policy, 33(5), 632–661. Ahmed, M. (2005). Teaching English in the primary school: Challenges and options. Bangladesh Education Journal, 4(1), 17–23. Alam, M. U. (2002). Bengali nationalism and the language question. In F. Alam & F. Azim (Eds.), Politics and culture: Essays in honour of Serajul Islam Choudhury (pp. 289–301). Dhaka: Department of English, University of Dhaka. Alamgir, M., & Moneruzzaman, M. (21 February 2015). Horrendous mixup threatens Bangla. New Age. Retrieved from http://newagebd.net/97133/horrendous-mixup-threathens-bangla/ Ali, L. H., Hamid, M. O., & Moni, K. (2011). English in primary education in Malaysia: Policies, outcomes and stakeholders’ lived experiences. Current Issues in Language Planning, 12(2), 147–166. Anwar, A., & Islam, M. N. (2013). Achieving EFA by 2015: Lessons from BRAC’s para-professional teacher model in Afghanistan. Teacher Reforms around the World: Implementations and Outcomes. International Perspectives on Education and Society, 19, 99–119. Anwaruddin, S. M. (2013). Neoliberal universities and the education of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences in Bangladesh. Policy Futures in Education, 11(4), 364–374. Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Baldauf, R. B. J., Kaplan, R., Kamwangamalu, N., & Bryant, P. (Eds.) (2012). Language planning in primary schools in Asia. London, New York: Routledge.

395

M. Obaidul Hamid and Arifa Rahman Bangladesh Education Extension and Research Institute (BEERI). (1976). Report of the English Teaching Task Force. Dhaka: BEERI. Bano, M. (2008). Non-profit education providers vis-à-vis the private sector: comparative analysis of non-governmental organizations and traditional voluntary organizations in Pakistan. Compare, 38(4), 471–482. Banu, R., & Sussex, R. (2001). English in Bangladesh after independence: Dynamics of policy and practice. In B. Moore (Ed.), Who’s centric now? The present state of post-colonial Englishes (pp. 122–147). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Blommaert, J. (2006). Language policy and national identity. In T. Ricento (Ed.), Introduction to language policy:Theory and method (pp. 238–254). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Bray, M., & Kwo, O. (2013). Behind the facade of fee-free education: Shadow education and its implications for social justice. Oxford Review of Education, 39(4), 480–497. British Council. (2013). Languages of the future. Retrieved from London https://www.britishcouncil.org/ sites/default/files/languages-for-the-future-report.pdf Brown, P. (1990). The ‘third wave’: Education and the ideology of parentocracy. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 11(1), 65–85. Chowdhury, R., & Kabir, A. H. (2014). Language wars: English education policy and practice in Bangladesh. Multilingual Education, 4, 4–21. Clyne, M., & Kipp, S. (2006). Australia’s community languages. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 180, 7–21. Daily Star. (17 March 2008). English medium schools prove their worth: Impelling need for rational policy. Daily Star. Retrieved from http://www.thedailystar.net/news-detail-27998 Daily Star. (17 February 2012). HC ruling against distorted Bangla. Daily Star. Retrieved from http:// www.thedailystar.net/news-detail-222776 DeWiele, C. E. B., & Edgerton, J. D. (2016). Parentocracy revisited: Still a relevant concept for understanding middle class educational advantage? Interchange, 47, 189–210. Dhaka Tribune. (30 April 2014). HC: Govt not interested to implement Bangla. Dhaka Tribune. Retrieved from http://www.dhakatribune.com/law-rights/2014/apr/30/hc-govt-not-interested-implement-bangla Dhaka Tribune. (21 February 2016). PM: Use Bangla without distortion. Dhaka Tribune. Retrieved from http://archive.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2016/feb/21/pm-use-bangla-without-distortion Dimova, S., Hultgren, A. K., & Jensen, C. (Eds.) (2015). English-medium instruction in European higher education. Berlin: De Gruyter. Express Tribune. (17 February 2012). Bangladesh bans ‘Banglish’ to protect local tongue. Express Tribune. Retrieved from http://tribune.com.pk/story/337843/bangladesh-bans-banglish-to-protect-localtongue/ Faquire, R. K. (2010). Language situation in Bangladesh. Dhaka University Studies, 67(2), 63–77. Gal, S. (2006). Migration, minorities and multilingualism: Language ideologies in Europe. In C. MarMolinero & P. Stevenson (Eds.), Language ideologies, policies and practices: Language and the future of Europe (pp. 13–27). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hamid, M. O. (2000). A proposed content-based academic purposes syllabus for the Foundation Course-2 at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Unpublished MA dissertation, Deakin University, Australia. Hamid, M. O. (2010). Globalisation, English for everyone and English teacher capacity: Language policy discourses and realities in Bangladesh. Current Issues in Language Planning, 11(4), 289–310. Hamid, M. O. (2011). Planning for failure: English and language policy and planning in Bangladesh. In J. A. Fishman & O. Garcia (Eds.), Handbook of language and ethnic identity: The success-failure continuum in language and ethnic identity efforts (Vol. 2, pp. 192–203). New York: Oxford University Press. Hamid, M. O. (2016). The linguistic market for English in Bangladesh. Current Issues in Language Planning, 17(1), 36–55. Hamid, M. O., & Baldauf, R. B. J. (2008). Will CLT bail out the bogged down ELT in Bangladesh? English Today, 24(3), 16–24. Hamid, M. O., & Baldauf, R. B. J. (2014). Public-private domain distinction as an aspect of LPP frameworks: A case study of Bangladesh. Language Problems & Language Planning, 38(2), 192–210. Hamid, M. O., & Erling, E. J. (2016). English-in-education policy and planning in Bangladesh: A critical examination. In R. Kirkpatrick (Ed.), English language education policy in Asia (pp. 25–48). Dordrecht: Springer. Hamid, M. O., & Jahan, I. (2015). Language, identity and social divides: Medium of instruction debates in Bangladeshi print media. Comparative Education Review, 59(1), 75–101.

396

Language in education policy in Bangladesh Hamid, M. O., & Kirkpatrick, A. (2016). Foreign language policies in Asia and Australia in the Asian century. Language Problems & Language Planning, 40(1), 26–46. Hamid, M. O., Jahan, I., & Islam, M. M. (2013). Medium of instruction policies and language practices, ideologies and institutional divides:Voices of teachers and students in a private university in Bangladesh. Current Issues in Language Planning, 14(1), 144–163. Hamid, M. O., & Luo, S. (2016). Discourses of “Crazy English”: Reconciling the tensions between the nation-state and neoliberal agenda. English Teaching: Practice & Critique, 15(2), 285–308. Harun, N. M. (7 July 2011). Fifteenth Amendment introduces fusion of ideologies. Bdnews24.com. Retrieved from http://opinion.bdnews24.com/2011/07/07/fifteenth-amendment-introduces-fusion-of-ideologies/ Heller, M. (2011). Paths to post-nationalism: A critical ethnography of language and identity. New York: Oxford University Press. Hossain, T., & Tollefson, J. W. (2007). Language policy in education in Bangladesh. In A. B. M. Tsui & J. W. Tollefson (Eds.), Language policy, culture, and identity in Asian contexts (pp. 241–257). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Ilon, L. (2008). The growing market for NGO influence. Current Issues in Comparative Education, 10(1–2), 16–21. Imam, S. R. (2005). English as a global language and the question of nation-building education in Bangladesh. Comparative Education, 41(4), 471–486. Islam, M. N., & Anwar, A. (2012). BRAC in Afghanistan: Building South-South partnerships in teacher training. Prospects, 42, 55–70. Jahan, I. (2016). Medium of instruction and the discourses of “Self” and “Other” in print and social media in Bangladesh. Unpublished PhD dissertation, The University of Queensland, Australia. Kabir, A. H. (2013). Neoliberalism, policy reforms and higher education in Bangladesh. Policy Futures in Education, 11(2), 154–166. Kachru, B. B. (1982). The other tongue: English across cultures. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Karim, M. (15 May 2014). Bureaucrats asked to ensure use of Bangla. Dhaka Tribune. Retrieved from http:// www.dhakatribune.com/op-ed/2014/may/21/are-we-jinnah%E2%80%99s-realm Kirkpatrick, A., & Liddicoat, A. J. (2017). Language education policy and practice in East and Southeast Asia. Language Teaching, 50(2), 155–188. Kubota, R. (2016). Neoliberal paradoxes of language learning: Xenophobia and international communication. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development, 37(5), 467–480. Lingard, B.,Thompson, G., & Sellar, S. (2016). National testing from an Australian perspective. In B. Lingard, G.Thompson & S. Sellar (Eds.), National testing in schools: An Australian assessment (pp. 20–38). New York: Routledge. Lo Bianco, J. (2012). National language revival movements: Reflections from India, Israel, Indonesia and Ireland. In B. Spolsky (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of language policy (pp. 501–522). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Majhanovich, S. (2014). Neo-liberalism, globalization, language policy and practice issues in the AsiaPacific region. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 34(2), 168–183. Makoni, S., & Pennycook, A. (Eds.) (2006). Disinventing and reconstituting languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. May, S. (Ed.) (2014). The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and bilingual education. New York: Routledge. Ministry of Education. (2010). National Education Policy 2010. Dhaka: Government of Bangladesh. Ministry of Education. (2016). Draft Education Act, 2016. Dhaka: Government of Bangladesh. Misbah, H. A. ( 21 May 2014). Are we in Jinnah’s realm? Dhaka Tribune. Retrieved from http://www. dhakatribune.com/op-ed/2014/may/21/are-we-jinnah%E2%80%99s-realm Murshed, S. M. (2016). The ethno-linguistic situation of Bangladesh [in Bangla]. Matribhasha: Journal of the International Mother Language Institute, 2(1), 47–59. Musa, M. (1996). Politics of language planning in Pakistan and the birth of a new state. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 118, 63–80. Nguyen, H. T., Hamid, M. O., & Moni, K. (2016). English-medium instruction and self-governance in higher education: The journey of a Vietnamese university through the institutional autonomy regime. Higher education, 72(5), 669–683. Nguyen, L. C., Hamid, M. O., & Renshaw, P. (2016). English in the primary classroom in Vietnam: Students’ lived experiences and their social and policy implications. Current Issues in Language Planning, 17(2), 191–214.

397

M. Obaidul Hamid and Arifa Rahman Oldenburg, P. (1985). “A place insufficiently imagined”: Language, belief, and the Pakistan crisis of 1971. The Journal of Asian Studies, 44(4), 711–733. Pennycook, A., & Coutand-Marin, S. (2003). Teaching English as a missionary language. Discourse, 24(3), 337–353. Phillipson, R. (2012). Imperialism and colonialism. In B. Spolsky (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of language policy (pp. 203–225). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Planning Commission. (2012). Perspective plan of Bangladesh 2010–2012: Making Vision 2012 a reality. Dhaka: Government of Bangladesh. Rahman, A. (2015). Secondary English education in Bangladesh: A critical review. In B. Spolsky & K. Sung (Eds.), Secondary school English education in Asia: From policy to practice (pp. 85–101). New York: Routledge. Rahman, T. (2010). A multilingual language-in-education policy for indigenous minorities in Bangladesh: Challenges and possibilities. Current Issues in Language Planning, 11(4), 341–359. Sabur, Z. U., & Ahmed, M. (2010). Multiple providers and access to primary education: The case of Bangladesh. Prospects, 40, 393–415. Silova, I. (2008). Contested alliances: International NGOs and authoritarian governments in the era of globalization. Current Issues in Comparative Education, 10(1–2), 26–31. Sohail, E. (4 October 2016). Bangladesh just became a Vassal State. The Diplomat. Retrieved from http:// thediplomat.com/2016/10/bangladesh-just-became-a-vassal-state/ Song, J. J. (2011). English as an official language in South Korea: Global English or social malady? Language Problems and Language Planning, 35(1), 35–55. Spring, J. (2015). Economization of education: Human capital, global corporations, skill-based schooling. London, New York: Routledge. Stroud, C., & Wee, L. (2007). Language policy and linguistic markets in Singapore. Sociolinguistic Studies, 1(2), 197–216. Sultana, S. (2014a). English as a medium of instruction in Bangladesh’s higher education: Empowering or disadvantaging students? Asian EFL Journal, 16(1), 11–52. Sultana, S. (2014b). Heteroglossia and identities of young adults in Bangladesh. Linguistics and Education, 26, 40–56. Tsui, A. B. M., & Tollefson, J. W. (Eds.) (2007). Language policy, culture and identity in Asian contexts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Wee, L. (2003). Linguistic instrumentalism in Singapore. Journal of Multilingual &Multicultural Development, 24(3), 211–224. Wright, S. (2012). Language policy, the nation and nationalism. In B. Spolsky (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of language policy (pp. 59–78). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Further reading Hamid, M. O. (2016). The linguistic market for English in Bangladesh. Current Issues in Language Planning, 17(1), 36–55. Hossain, T., & Tollefson, J. W. (2007). Language policy in education in Bangladesh. In A. B. M. Tsui & J. W. Tollefson (Eds.), Language policy, culture, and identity in Asian contexts (pp. 241–257). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Imam, S. R. (2005). English as a global language and the question of nation-building education in Bangladesh. Comparative Education, 41(4), 471–486. Piller, I., & Cho, J. (2013). Neoliberalism as language policy. Language in Society, 42, 23–44.

398

28 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN SRI LANKA Indika Liyanage

1 Background Language education is situated prominently in contemporary policy-making in the island nation of Sri Lanka. Linguistically diverse, highly literate, and engaged with the world, Sri Lankans have a long and often tumultuous experience of investment in language/s as a means of shaping social, political, economic, and educational circumstances. Language education policy has been, and continues to be, driven by varying iterations of the interaction of local and external forces against a background of practical plurilingualism (Canagarajah & Liyanage, 2012) and individual desires and motivations evident in the formal and informal teaching and learning of additional languages. In many ways, the current language education policies of Sri Lanka are no different from many other nations following a history of linguistic diversity and language contact, mobility and migration, colonisation and independence, globalisation and resistance. As elsewhere, this history has seen policy and grassroots driven fluctuations in the dominance and influence of languages, in the prestige, rivalries, and inequalities among languages, the emergence of lingua francas, and linguistic convergences. The linguistic history of Sri Lanka, documented for more than two thousand years (Canagarajah & Liyanage, 2012; Liyanage & Canagarajah, 2014), is one of local and introduced languages, dialects, and creoles, many of which continue to be used today to varying extents (Coperahewa 2009: 80–83). Three languages are at the centre of current language education policy in Sri Lanka – Sinhala and Tamil, considered local vernaculars, and English, a relatively recent introduction still associated with colonisation and now the lingua franca of globalisation. Sinhala is the dominant language of 75% of the population, and closely associated with Sinhalese ethnic identity and cultural practices, and with practices of Buddhism. Ethnic Tamils constitute about 12% of the population, but the Tamil language is used by a diverse group, ethnically, culturally, and in religious affiliation. Movements from other language communities located to the east and west of Sri Lanka included Moorish traders and settlers from the Persian Gulf region who, at least 1,500 years ago, introduced Arabic, used today primarily for religious purposes by the small but significant Muslim community; the community of Moorish decent are generally Tamil users, but less ethnically attached to that language than the predominantly Hindu Tamil community (Coperahewa, 2009). The Muslim community of Sri Lanka also includes Malays from the Malayan peninsula and Indonesia, whose arrivals initially preceded the European 399

Indika Liyanage

c­ olonial era but accelerated during this later period, and who constitute a community of users of Sri Lankan Creole Malay. Despite the distinct ethnic, cultural, and religious associations of Sinhala and Tamil, the two language communities also have much in common, sharing many social customs, beliefs, and practices, and linguists have identified shared linguistic patterns and linguistic convergences as a result of centuries of contact (Coperahewa, 2009). Language education in Sri Lanka is accorded a distinctive role across many dimensions of national life. It is the focus of tensions generated by ongoing colonial legacies, of development agendas influenced by powerful international institutions and agencies, and of efforts to develop and implement policies with the objective of consolidation of national unity following recent internal armed conflict (Herath, 2015). Current language education policies that simultaneously aim to achieve goals of socio-political harmony and economic development (Wijesinha, 2011) are constrained by a variety of factors, including failures of government to maintain policy certainty and to secure provision of resources necessary to overcome structural weaknesses that continue to make implementation unfeasible. While the three languages central to current policy – Sinhala, Tamil, and English – have all historically served both the particular needs of distinct communities and the needs of national governance, they have also been sources of political, economic, and social tension and resentment (Canagarajah, 2005), and globally and locally oriented imperatives compete in practice with individual aspirations and desires coloured by historical circumstances.The linguistic aspirations of Sri Lankans are shaped by diverse influences far more complex than ethnic identity and linguistic affiliation, and it would be misleading and simplistically reductive to suggest the various language communities hold unified views on language education policies (Brutt-Griffler, 2002). This chapter provides background to this current policy situation for language education in Sri Lanka and offers some reflections on policy outcomes, past and present, and prospects for the future.

2  Earlier language education policies 2.1  Pre-colonial language education Language education policy as an instrument of the state is a feature of the British colonial and post-independence eras in Sri Lanka, but, unsurprisingly given the historical linguistic diversity of the island, there is ample evidence of language teaching and learning in pre-colonial education systems (Canagarajah & Liyanage, 2012; Liyanage & Canagarajah, 2014). A close association between religion and language was an essential and inseparable aspect of group cultural identity and sociocultural practices, and education, including language education, was centred on the religious institutions responsible for its provision. Temples of both Sinhalese Buddhist and Tamil Hindu communities, and mosques serving the Muslim population, not only provided education that developed literacy in the language affiliated with each religious grouping (Liyanage, 2010), instruction extended to additional languages including the local vernaculars – Sinhala and Tamil – and those essential for study of classical religious texts, such as Sanskrit and Pali ( Liyanage & Canagarajah, 2014). The multilingual proficiency of educated individuals fostered by these activities extended beyond informal conversational competence acquired through day-to-day interactions. Arguably, languages education was a contributing factor to sustaining the strong identities of socio-linguistically and culturally diverse groups whilst participating in the collective endeavour of inclusive identification with the larger community (Khubchandani, 1998). Although pre-colonial Sri Lanka experienced various degrees of political reconfigurations, linguistic differences were not a significant source of conflict, unlike the recent period since independence during which language was implicated in ethnic division and armed hostility (see Canagarajah & Liyanage, 2012, for a full discussion). 400

Language education policy in Sri Lanka

2.2  Colonial language education: Portuguese and Dutch policies The established systems of language education provided by religious institutions suffered a severe disruption following the early 16th-century arrival of the Portuguese who gradually occupied the island’s western and northern coastal areas. A state-endorsed attempt to convert the population to Christianity resulted in wholesale destruction of temples in these areas (Paranavitana, 2004), and the cessation of educational activities. These were allowed to continue only in areas outside Portuguese control. Although Portuguese was used by the colonisers to conduct trading and administrative activities, there was no state-coordinated attempt to learn local languages, or to teach Portuguese to locals. They relied instead on interpreters, supplemented in part by the endeavours of missionaries who facilitated their proselytising by learning basic Sinhala and/or Tamil and teaching Portuguese to converts to Christianity.The spoken form of the language also spread as Portuguese settlers married and interacted with locals (Somaratna, 2018). Some formal language education, which included Portuguese, Arabic, Greek, and Latin (Baldsing, 2013), was conducted in Portuguese-medium of instruction (MOI) schools attached to the Roman Catholic churches established in Portuguese controlled territory, and thus language education continued as the preserve of religious institutions. Colleges established by Jesuits and Franciscans in the major centres of Colombo and Jaffna provided instruction in Portuguese language to children of Portuguese/local marriages and upper-class families to produce a literate class able to then enjoy some social and material advantages (Somaratna, 2018). The close association between religious institutions and language education in Sri Lanka continued after a second European coloniser, the Dutch, collaborated with local rulers to expel the Portuguese from their territories during the latter half of the 1630s. The attempt to exploit tension between the two European rivals to end Portuguese attempts at further expansion on the island and achieve continued independence in practice installed an even more effective coloniser. Although schools under the stridently Protestant Dutch were administered not by the church but by the quasi-state of the East India Company, “the link between proselytization and education established by the Portuguese was maintained, but with greater skill and rigidity” (Baldsing, 2013: 9). The Dutch took control of church schools established by the Roman Catholic Portuguese, expanded education by attaching schools to every church, and offered free schooling, but only to converts to the Dutch Reformed Church. Although there was a largely unsuccessful attempt to introduce Dutch to locals through the school curriculum, language education also focused on development of literacy in local languages, both as an element of a general academic education and to provide a workforce for colonial administration (Baldsing, 2013). There was a concerted effort, especially by Dutch missionaries, to learn local languages and, to support both this endeavour and school education, the first vernacular bilingual dictionaries and grammars were complied, and religious texts and tracts were translated into Sinhala (Coperahewa, 2009). Thus, when the British assumed control of Dutch territories in Sri Lanka they inherited an established state-administered education system organised around vernacular MOI and language education.

2.3  Colonial language education: British policies At the close of the 18th century, as a consequence of the Napoleonic wars in Europe, Dutch colonial territories in Sri Lanka were absorbed into the expanding British Empire. British control rapidly expanded to encompass the entire island by 1815. The introduction and ascension of yet another European language, English, has exercised a lasting impact on language education policy, laying the foundations for a (multi)lingual landscape in which language education 401

Indika Liyanage

and policies have been the source of social division, dissension, resentment, and agitation. By the 1830s, English was designated the official language to be used in all government activities, including use as the MOI for education (Herath, 2015). In practice, access to English instruction and English-medium education was purposely restricted. English was acknowledged as the language of power (Coperahewa, 2009), and to sustain the importance and influence of its users it was considered by the colonial administrators injudicious that its use become general. Membership of the elite class of English users thus became very desirable, and this desirability was cultivated, and the prestige of the language over the local vernaculars enhanced, by limiting access to the language (Canagarajah, 2005). Whatever the espoused official language education policy, the enactment of policy denied English language education to the great majority of Sri Lankans. Outside the major urban areas, government-provided education was rudimentary, delivered in the local vernacular, and with the intention of the reproduction of a social hierarchy that benefitted the profit-seeking activities of the colonisers. Calculated restriction of access to the language of power, privilege, and prosperity meant the island comprised people who spoke English and had access to all privileges and those who could not (Balakrishnar & Thanaraj, 2015). Schools based on British educational practices used curricula and teaching materials that entirely neglected local cultural values and heritage, producing an educated class that was oriented to emulating European lifestyles (Golding, 2018). There was, however, another dimension to British language education policy that arguably laid the foundation for the linguistic divide between users of Sinhala and Tamil that dominated much of Sri Lanka’s post-independence experience. Restrictions on access to English did not merely perpetuate existing privilege; Tamil, as lingua franca of trade not only on the Sri Lankan and Indian coasts, but further afield in British colonial activities in the Asia-Pacific region, was deemed a more useful linguistic background than Sinhala, which was not used outside Sri Lanka (Coperahewa, 2009). Perhaps because of this, a disproportionate number of English-medium schools established in northern Sri Lanka provided greater access to the Tamil population than to their Sinhalese counterparts (Lim, 2013). A minority in population terms, Tamils were thus provided greater access to English language instruction and English MOI school education, to higher education, and hence to the status, privileges, and prosperity that followed admission, even in the lower ranks, to the ruling class, while the majority of the population, the Sinhalese, found themselves marginalised in the new socio-economic order (Herath, 2015). Thus, the priorities of profit and power that shaped access to language education under British colonial rule positioned language/s as a symbol of inequality and as a source of resentment not only directed toward foreign imposition but also between local language communities.

2.4  Post-independence language education policies When reforms to allow local participation in governance were introduced in the 1930s, demands to remedy the neglect of local vernaculars and restore their status aligned with the growing swabasha (local languages) movement and desires to reassert national identity, and in 1946 a new language education policy began a process aimed at reinvigorating study of the vernaculars whilst acknowledging that teaching and learning English would continue to play a role in Sri Lanka’s future. All pre-secondary education was to be conducted using either Sinhala or Tamil as the MOI as appropriate, and the study of English as an additional language was to be compulsory in all schools (Coperahewa, 2009). In lower secondary education, either vernacular or bilingual (Sinhala/English, Tamil/English) MOI was permitted, while in upper secondary MOI could be one of the vernaculars, bilingual, or English only (Balakrishnar & Thanaraj, 2015). An exception permitted English-only MOI education for the Burgher population, because of their resistance 402

Language education policy in Sri Lanka

to vernacular use, and for Muslims, although this exception applied only to Muslim children in urban areas (Wijesinha, 2003). Serious obstacles constrained the effective implementation of these vernacular MOI policies. The compulsory study of English was simply not achievable, at least in the short term; the majority of schools had not one teacher of English, and the quality of the teachers that were in schools, in terms of both pedagogic expertise and their own English proficiency, was questionable (Balakrishnar & Thanaraj, 2015). With few or no teaching and learning materials available in the vernacular languages, delivery of mother tongue secondary education of an acceptable standard in the secondary sector was impossible (Balakrishnar & Thanaraj, 2015). Moreover, independence transferred power to the existing English-educated elite who saw no advantage in diminishing the status of that language (Canagarajah, 2005). English remained the official language of government administration until 1956, and as this was the employment destination of most graduates of the newly independent University of Ceylon (now The University of Peradeniya), it continued to offer programmes exclusively in English (Coperahewa, 2009). Language education policy during the first decades of independence reflected the prevailing ethno-nationalist urge, characterised by efforts to diminish the role of English in education, to restore the status of the vernacular languages, and to open up opportunities for those educated in the local languages, in particular Sinhala (Coperahewa, 2009). This was a period of tumult around language policy in general. The Sinhala Only Act of 1956, in the eyes of the Sinhala majority, was an attempt to reverse continued greater Tamil representation in government administration and socio-economic disparity between the two language groups, directly attributable to ongoing Tamil membership of a wealthy and privileged English-speaking class with access to English MOI private school education. The consequent resentment by Tamils that then began to dominate political affairs aside (see S. Perera, 2015), the move to displace English that underpinned the rationale and practicalities of a Sinhala-only administration had significant implications for language education. Programmes for Sinhala language instruction for English and Tamil speaking civil servants were established (Coperahewa, 2009). The right to education in the mother tongue remained, and in 1960 political pressure led the University of Ceylon to make significant shifts to Sinhala and Tamil MOI in many courses (Golding, 2018). At the same time the government took control of most private schools (Balakrishnar & Thanaraj, 2015) in which English MOI had been the norm, followed by prohibition of any new private schools (Wettewa, 2016). The final steps in this nationalist decolonising imperative in language education policy were progressive abandonment of English MOI in state secondary schools from 1965, and then Burgher and Muslim schools by the early 1980s. Inevitably, the teaching of science-based courses in universities, which had continued in English, moved to the vernaculars in 1970 (Balakrishnar & Thanaraj, 2015).The study of English, at least in state-controlled education, continued as a foreign language only, though without political commitment to addressing structural and resource obstacles to effective learning outcomes. Despite these policy shifts, the need for English persisted, and the desire for English remained strong, increasingly so as the government became more oriented to participation in regional and global affairs and economic activity. Sinhala did not – and does not – serve as medium for international contact or communication in foreign relations, business, the sciences and technology, education, and so forth. As Sri Lankans had become more inwardly focussed on their indigenous languages and culture, the language of their former coloniser was becoming the global lingua franca, and thus English proficiency remained an essential attribute for a successful career in various administrative portfolios. Within the nation, earlier policy directed at development of Sinhala/Tamil bilingualism, particularly in civil servants, had been unsuccessful (Coperahewa, 2009). Most Sinhalese and Tamils, educated separately in their respective vernaculars, were not 403

Indika Liyanage

literate in any language other than their own (S. Perera, 2015), and English retained an essential role for official communications between the two language communities. One response to this ethnolinguistic division, against a background of increasing Tamil separatism that would escalate in the 1980s to open military conflict, was new Ministry of Education policy initiatives in 1977 that shifted attempts at Sinhala/Tamil bilingualism to schools with a “link language” (Coperahewa, 2009, p. 95) programme to teach Sinhala to Tamil students and Tamil to Sinhala students. Language policy, if not allocation of resources, directed at vernacular bilingualism was re-emphasised following recognition of Tamil in 1987 as an official language beside Sinhala, with the stated objective of developing curricula and establishing training to achieve bilingualism in all civil servants (Coperahewa, 2009). But as Canagarajah (2005, p. 420) notes, many have argued the futility of a language policy that aims to promote a vernacular competing with a dominant language like English because “economic and social mobilities of individuals are bound to work against this enterprise.” Despite the shift to vernacular-medium education and curtailment of the private school sector, English language education and English MOI schooling was a freely available commodity for those with the means to purchase it, partly as a consequence of policy failure. First, although there was a ban on the establishment of any new private schools, a legal inconsistency meant use of companies legislation had allowed “a profusion” (Wettewa, 2016, p. 67) of educational institutions, known as ‘international schools,’ that used English MOI, mainly to deliver imported curricula. Wijesinha (2003, p. 369) notes that international schools first appeared, “coincidentally,” in the year that English MOI finally ceased in Burgher and Muslim schools. Government tolerance effectively permitted the continuation of this new class of elite schools and of class distinctions that had characterised colonialism. Distinguishing only in the capacity to pay, rather than on the basis of ethnicity, language, or gender, these schools attracted an elite clientele destined for preferment in private sector employment (Punchi, 2001) on the basis of their English proficiency, foreign credentials (Wettewa, 2016), and a perceived ‘link’ between linguistic ability and professionalism (K. Perera & Canagarajah, 2010). The “class ideology” (K. Perera & Canagarajah, 2010, p. 113) that continued to ‘link’ English to opportunity and prosperity was far more powerful than any policy discourse of social and ethnic harmony, and was a source of social division, and for the marginalised vernacularly educated majority, of individual conflict. Far from being a neutral medium, English, associated with colonial impositions and injustices, was a target for ideological resistance whilst exerting a powerful attraction as an object of desire. The local metaphor for English of ‘kaduwa’ (sword) captures the double-edged nature of an education in the English language (Kandiah, 1984). The transition to vernacular-medium instruction had been portrayed as a means of asserting national identity, of upending privilege, and democratising opportunity, but 40 years later English continued to be a ‘sword’ that cleaved socioeconomic division among Sri Lankans irrespective of ethnicity and mother tongue. This division had been exacerbated by steady decline in the quality of purportedly compulsory English language education and its teachers in schools, especially in rural areas, a situation described by Wijesinha (2003, pp. 369–370) thus: “fewer than a third of students pass in English, while many do not even take the exam since the subject is neglected in the majority of schools, the textbooks are incomprehensible to most students, and the teaching is inadequate.” Now, a policy reversal positioned English-language education and proficiency as the means by which the nation might progress through access to the knowledge economy, as a practical, industrial education response to the demands and opportunities of privatisation and globalisation (Golding, 2018), and a path towards redress of socioeconomic division and inequality. Transformed from villain to saviour, by the beginning of this century it was a policy objective to introduce English-language education into classrooms 404

Language education policy in Sri Lanka

for oral c­ ommunication from Grade 1 (Walisundara & Hettiarachchi, 2016), and English had been designated a core subject in the Ordinary and Advanced General Certificates of Education (GCE), compulsory for those wishing to progress to higher education (Coperahewa, 2009). Reintroduction of English-medium education in bilingual programmes was proposed as the solution to the dual problems of inequitable provision of English-language education and deteriorating rates of English literacy in order to “provide an enabling environment to ensure that all students, irrespective of socio-economic and/or regional disparities, have the opportunity to acquire the level of English proficiency adequate for higher education and career advancement” (National Education Commission, 2003, p. 178). Since independence, policy for language education, and language in education, had been characterised by continually shifting parameters dictated by political imperatives against a background of social and ethnic division. Despite this, Sri Lanka has been applauded as a model of access to educational participation, and in the context of other developing nations the high rates of literacy suggest language education in the vernaculars has been an outstanding success (Brock-Utne, 2016; Little, 2011). Yet assessments of policy enactment by bodies such as the National Education Commission identified serious shortcomings in many dimensions of language education and a failure of political will to adequately resource and monitor policy implementation. The flourishing international school sector was testament to both the growing demand for English and the failure of state schooling to deliver it in terms of both quality and access. The current policy settings continue to face these same challenges in the aftermath of cessation of the open ethnic conflict in 2009.

3  Current language education policy (-ies) Language education policy in recent times, after conclusion of hostilities in 2009 between the government and the Tamil separatist movement, has a trilingual focus, with development of vernacular bilingual proficiency, intended to contribute to the process of reconciliation (Liyanage & Canagarajah, 2014), and of English proficiency, politically repositioned as a “culturally neutral life skill for occupation, employment and for accessing knowledge from the outside world” (Fernando, 2011a, p. 4) and essential as both local and international language (Aturupane, 2011). A change of government in 2015 has placed universal school-based learning of the second national languages (2NLs), as well as English, on a more precarious footing that arguably threatens a policy severely constrained in implementation by structural and resourcing difficulties (Borham, 2017; National Education Commission, 2016). Although the previous government publicly stated the necessity of development of “both physical and human resource capacities of the relevant institutions for the effective promotion and delivery of language teaching and learning” (Fernando, 2011b, p. 1) was critical to success, both these perennial shortcomings endure. Policy to teach 2NLs in pursuit of the political goals of “peaceful living and coexistence in a multi-ethnic and culturally diverse country like Sri Lanka with a citizenry speaking two main languages” (National Education Commission, 2016, p. 122) commenced during the recent armed conflict. From a policy perspective, it was to be introduced in Grades 6 to 9 in 1999, made an additional subject for Grades 10 and 11 from 2001, introduced for Grades 3, 4, and 5 in 2003, and finally for oral communication for Grades 1 and 2 in 2007. Instruction in 2NLs remains a policy objective, with a guiding principle proposed for the New Education Act (National Committee for Formulating a New Education Act for General Education, 2017, p. 8) being that “provision should be made for Sinhala speaking children to learn Tamil and Tamil speaking children to learn Sinhala.”The evidence is, however, that teaching 2NLs has been a comprehensive policy failure due to inadequacies across the entire educational spectrum, so much so that 405

Indika Liyanage

2NLs have not been taught in the majority of schools. To begin, the scarcity of 2NL teachers makes effective policy enactment impossible. An estimated 23,000 2NL teachers were needed for policy implementation, yet in 2011 there were fewer than 4,000 teachers of 2NLs and more than 7,000 schools, of a total of around 10,000, in which Sinhala and Tamil were not taught as second languages (Prematunge, 2011). By 2015, despite government promises to fund various initiatives for teacher development, retraining, and restructuring of language teacher education, with only one teacher education institution preparing 2NL teachers the number had barely increased to 4,250 (Ministry of Education Data Management Branch, 2015). The quality of the existing 2NL teacher workforce is questionable, many lacking any qualifications in language teaching, with the National Education Commission (2016, p. 124) asserting that “some of the Sinhala and Tamil teachers are not proficient enough to teach their own language.” Add to this the failure, acknowledged by education authorities (National Education Commission, 2016), to base curricula and teaching materials on sound principles of language teaching and learning, and nearly two decades of policy has produced negligible results with little prospect of change given the structural constraints on any sort of effective policy enactment. To complicate this policy failure, the inadequate supply of teachers and resources that exists is inequitably distributed to the disadvantage of students in non-urban settings (Liyanage & Canagarajah, 2014). From the perspective of the policy objective of peaceful living and coexistence, although the government produces data to show the population support the 2NL policy (Satyanarayanan, 2011), at least in principle, in 2017, of more than 10,000 government schools, the number of bilingual schools using both Sinhala and Tamil as MOI was a mere 75, while those using Sinhala, Tamil, and English numbered 47 (Ministry of Education Sri Lanka Statistics Branch, 2018). Research suggests interaction between students of the two groups in these schools is limited (Wettewa, 2016). This 2NL education policy failure in schools is repeated in the public service. A policy initiative in 2007 to establish an institute responsible for the provision of intensive 2NL education of government employees to support achieving the objective of bilingualism in the public service (Coperahewa, 2009) has achieved little in terms of remedying the routine violations of the right to access and provision of services in the language of choice mandated by the National Languages Policy (S. Perera, 2015). S. Perera (2015) argues successive governments have enacted legislation and issued instructions relating to 2NL education without ensuring the human or resource capacity to implement “even the most basic measures” (p. 61). While the absence of political will of successive governments is undoubtedly responsible for much of the failure of 2NL education policy, the context of challenges facing a plan for nationwide 2NL learning includes a third language. Several other modern/foreign/international and classical languages apart from English are offered in Sri Lanka’s school education system – for example, French, German, Japanese, Pali, Sanskrit, Latin (Atapattu & Abeykoon, 2015) – and the Ministry of Education supports activities in Muslim schools to encourage Arabic language learning (Ministry of Education Sri Lanka, 2018), but the direction of language learning endeavours is overwhelmingly influenced by the belief that English delivers opportunities for individual socioeconomic advancement. Whether the notion that English proficiency will always change lives for the better is a misconception (Pennycook, 2007) or not, while 2NL policy focuses on culturally bound identity and ethnic division, English is synonymous with a different division that cuts across cultural and ethnic boundaries. The problem for Sri Lanka is that policy adjustments have thus far failed to deliver English proficiency to the population at large, that English is exalted but continues to be a barrier to participation, and the perception of the language as the unjust preserve of elites persists. Unlike the 2NLs, there is not an apparent acute teacher shortage. However, many of those teaching English are poorly qualified, or not qualified; a 2009 government survey reported nearly 406

Language education policy in Sri Lanka

21,000 untrained English teachers in primary and secondary schools (Lim, 2013). The problem of the preparation and competence of the teachers has been compounded by weaknesses in curriculum programmes, and the consequent unsuitability and ineffectiveness of teaching methods and materials. Although some (e.g. Walisundara & Hettiarachchi, 2016) point to a shortage of qualified teachers as the major problem, others (e.g. Wijesekera, 2011/2012) consider the problem to be the lack of sustained, effective professional development and learning for English teachers, vital for effective curriculum development and policy implementation and enactment in schools and classrooms. A key shortcoming frequently cited is the language proficiency of teachers, and the constraints this places upon practice, and although this situation is an expected and inevitable outcome of the ongoing failure of English teaching and learning, this also arguably reflects, to some extent, the perpetuation of an elitist conception of English as standard British English, rather than Sri Lankan English.The curriculum, teaching materials, and examinations regime focused on grammatical rules, vocabulary, and written language that must conform to the ‘international’ standard of British English to ensure transnational communication devalues the local variety, supports discourses of linguistic inferiority, and sustains ‘English’ as gatekeeper (Parakrama, 2012). The ‘English as life-skill’ policy in 2009, and the call to ‘speak English our way’, was an attempt to recognise Sri Lankan English as a spoken variety whilst retaining the focus on Standard English for literacy. Plans to introduce oral communicative English in Grade 1, to train in excess of 20,000 teachers of Spoken English and to test speaking and listening skills at the GCE Ordinary Level, to implement a cascade-style professional development regime for English teachers, and to develop materials for teaching spoken Sri Lankan English were launched (Walisundara & Hettiarachchi, 2016). This immediately encountered resistance from teachers and academics, as well as the general public, due to uncertainty about what constituted Sri Lankan English, whether it would simply serve once again the interests of urban (predominantly Sinhalese) elites, and concerns about deterioration in standards, a curious response given the problems besetting English teaching and the elitism embodied in existing standards. Subsequently, the ‘speak English our way’ movement disappeared from the policy agenda (Meyler, 2015). Introduction to oral English communication in Grade 1, and formal teaching of English from Grade 3 have been reiterated in more recent policy documents, as have requirements for pre-service and in-service training in psycholinguistics and language-specific pedagogy, expansion of teacher education to equip all teachers for delivering instruction in both a mother tongue and English, and development of textbooks based on current principles of language teaching and learning (National Committee for Formulating a New Education Act for General Education, 2017). Another current policy approach to improve English language education has been the introduction of bilingual education using English MOI. Since 1960, establishing an English MOI school was illegal, although the practice continued in existing private schools and in the 1980s ‘international schools’ using English MOI began to appear and quickly proliferated (Balakrishnar & Thanaraj, 2015). For a very limited minority, enrolment in one of the 80 private schools – fewer than half of which charge fees (Ministry of Education Sri Lanka Statistics Branch, 2018) – or one of the 265 fee-levying ‘international schools’ has been seen as the path to a more successful English education; that these institutions cater for under 5% of the total student population (Ministry of Education Sri Lanka Statistics Branch, 2018) is indicative of their elite status. Another response, most accessible to wealthier families, has been to resort to private tuition services, which are flourishing, so much so that school attendance rates decline as major examinations approach because students are receiving tuition during school hours (National Committee for Formulating a New Education Act for General Education, 2017). The rationale for the reintroduction of English MOI in 2001 was soon broadened to include 407

Indika Liyanage

the national political objectives of unity, espousing the benefits of students from the two ethnic groups learning in a common language, English, and of educational and employment equity, providing access for all students, urban and rural, to the advantages that accrued to the children of wealthy families attending English MOI private and international schools (Premarathna, Yogaraja, Medawattegedara, Senarathna & Abdullah, 2016). More fundamentally, it was seen as a means of responding to external demands for provision of an English-proficient workforce, given that policy to promote English language education had failed for more than 40 years (Liyanage, 2012). Quickly renamed bilingual education, rather than English-medium education, learning the language through the process of construction of content knowledge was seen as a solution to a desperately needed reform of English language teaching (ELT) and as a means of fostering communicative use of the language in authentic situations, while simultaneously sustaining the priority accorded the national vernaculars and cultural identity (Prasangani, 2014). Most recent data (Ministry of Education Sri Lanka Statistics Branch, 2018) indicates 778 government schools are offering three or more subjects in English MOI for one or more grades. Although the Ministry of Education asserts these schools are “distributed throughout the island” (Ministry of Education Sri Lanka Statistics Branch, 2018, p. 6), in reality one-third of the 1.8% of students learning through English MOI are resident in the Western province (Ministry of Education Sri Lanka Statistics Branch, 2018). The policy objective of equipping all junior and senior secondary schools with sufficient suitably qualified teachers to enable introduction of English-medium instruction of selected subjects by 2008 had been realised, by 2014, in only 17.5% of junior secondary schools (M. Perera & Kularatne, 2014). What seems evident from these figures is that access to English MOI in the bilingual programmes of government schools is far from universally available, and has not alleviated the inequities of the urban/rural divide in education. In short, access to English education appears to continue to be a marker of privilege for an elite group. In practice, ‘bilingual schools’ generally operate a vernacular-only stream and a bilingual stream for students that choose it, and in these contexts the kaduwa (sword) remains potent (Premarathna et al., 2016). After more than 15 years, bilingual education remains an unrealised policy objective. The policy proviso that bilingual programmes must be satisfactorily resourced points to the key shortcomings of attempts to introduce bilingual MOI. Following the policy shift, many schools, perhaps under pressure from ambitious parents (Balakrishnar & Thanaraj, 2015), moved swiftly to introduce English MOI classes, but teachers with both the necessary language proficiency and the subject-specific pedagogic knowledge were few, and those with experience of teaching in the medium even fewer. Suitable textbooks and teaching resources were not freely available and preparation became a time-consuming burden for teachers who lacked fundamental knowledge and skills, such as the capacity to identify language and content outcomes when planning lessons (Liyanage, 2012). Large numbers of students, many with limited English, opted to return to vernacular-medium classes after struggling to learn in poorly planned programmes that had little capacity to support students, (Balakrishnar & Thanaraj, 2015). These problems persist, although the severity varies from school to school. Urban schools, such as in Colombo, often have a surfeit of experienced qualified teachers and have achieved some success, while it is not unusual for rural schools to have no English teacher or subject teachers with English proficiency necessary for using English medium to teach effectively. Many classes are taught by English teachers with both/either insufficient knowledge of the content area and/or without the language proficiency to teach in the English medium. Many classes are conducted mainly in vernacular to expedite explanation of difficult concepts and material. Teachers themselves complain of inadequate and irregular professional learning opportunities, and of deficient textbooks and teaching/learning materials, usually translated from the vernacular versions with 408

Language education policy in Sri Lanka

frequent instances of imprecise technical terms, unsuitable language, and distorted meanings (National Education Commission, 2016). Many students’ prior English language learning in earlier grades has been poor preparation for the demands of an English-medium classroom, so many opt to return to vernacular-medium classrooms. The English curriculum as delivered does not develop the communicative capacities nor the requisite cognitive academic language proficiency skills needed for effective learning in the medium of the additional language. Brock-Utne (2016, p. 123), referring explicitly to the Sri Lankan experience, challenges the policy assumption that English MOI – without an integrated approach – produces the best academic outcomes for students if it means “they will learn less than they could have, had they been taught in a language they know well.” Studies do find students in bilingual programmes achieve outcomes in English exams and English-medium subjects that compare favourably with students studying the language and other learning areas in a monolingual context (National Education Commission, 2016), but mostly ignore the significant numbers of students who opt out of bilingual programmes, primarily because they lack English proficiency. Bilingual programmes are arguably catering to the more able students, to the more Englishproficient students, some of whom have acquired English at home and have opportunities to use the language communicatively. The policy argument that national development demands access to learning in the sciences and technology through the use of English MOI ignores the success of nations, such as Finland, Norway, Japan, or South Korea, that have delivered science education overwhelmingly in their local language (Brock-Utne, 2016). Science learning through the vernacular media facilitates, arguably, the interaction and dialogue essential to activity- and inquiry-based pedagogy associated with effective science teaching and learning. The belief that English MOI is essential for science teaching and learning aligns with the position of aid agencies, the Anglophone nations, the English-language publishing industry, and local political elites (Brock-Utne, 2016), but there is another argument that science learning is possibly suffering in the cause of teaching English, in the current circumstances, to a small minority of mostly elite students. Policymakers need to reconsider their assumption that English MOI is the solution to the desire for improved outcomes in English learning, and pursue instead effective implementation of oft-reiterated policy to reform and resource English-language teaching.

4  The future There seems to be no intention to deviate in the near future from policymakers’ determination to pursue the policy of bilingualism in the two national languages of Sinhala and Tamil whilst positioning English as an ostensibly neutral life skill. While it is not difficult to see the two vernacular languages retaining their predominance as vehicles of local linguistic interaction, success in teaching of 2NLs is unlikely unless severe structural deficiencies in staffing and resourcing are addressed. Language policy in general in Sri Lanka has been characterised by a failure to build in evaluation components to plans for implementation (Coperahewa, 2009) and this has meant there has often been little alignment of policy and responses in schools and classrooms. The most recent proposals for reform of the Education Act (National Committee for Formulating a New Education Act for General Education, 2017) acknowledge implementation failures but reaffirm objectives; progress requires sustained political will to break a cycle of stagnation in teaching 2NLs if it is to be retained as a policy objective. Without injection of funds and resources into teacher preparation and development, and the development and provision of teaching and learning materials, schools and teachers will continue to struggle to enact the policy in any meaningful way across the government school sector. The reality is that using 409

Indika Liyanage

language e­ ducation policy to achieve a political objective cannot succeed without accompanying political will and resources, both human and material. Although implementation of the policy for the teaching of English suffers from many of the same problems as 2NL education, the desire of the population to learn it is unlikely to diminish in the future. Policymakers’ claims that “English can develop only in association with a parallel development, enrichment and dissemination of Sinhala and Tamil language skills” (Fernando, 2011a, p. 3) seem unlikely to be accurate.The powerful discourses of the benefits and inevitability of globalisation will in the foreseeable future continue to reinforce and perpetuate beliefs that English is the more useful language to learn, and individuals will continue to make decisions about how language can serve their needs amidst tensions between de-colonisation and globalisation (Canagarajah, 2005). In contrast to the implementation of 2NL education policy, the teaching of English is supported by international agencies and institutions, the preferences of the private sector, and involvement of foreign experts and consultants in English teaching. This is almost certain to continue with millions of dollars of aid and assistance tied to reform and rationalisation of English language education and to specific English language projects (Liyanage, 2010). Until policy failure in the teaching of English is reversed, and acknowledged to be so by the general population, families who can afford it and who seek advancement for their children will continue to access English schooling offered by private and international schools. This, and the realities of the implementation of bilingual education, suggest English appears destined to remain a kaduwa for Sri Lankans for some time yet. English remains “almost exclusively an urban language” (Coperahewa, 2009, p. 93) and the divisions in Sri Lanka around language, around class, around rural/urban inequalities seem unlikely to change soon.

5 Conclusion Languages education policy in Sri Lanka has been both source and instrument of social and political division for nearly 200 years. Since independence, frequent changes have tended to reflect political and economic priorities ahead of practical and achievable educational approaches. Perhaps governments need to accept that, provided provisions for language rights are honoured, most citizens do not need 2NL proficiency of the kind envisaged by monolingually conceived and examination-driven teaching models. In what is an effectively functioning plurilingual community, the desire for English is far more universal than any urge to learn a 2NL. Current policy struggles for a precarious equilibrium between local socio-cultural and historical circumstances and a nation open to global flows of people and information in which the ascendancy of English is perhaps impossible to resist. What needs addressing are not simply the current shortcomings in policy implementation, which seem entrenched, but some of the potentially unhelpful beliefs about language education, such as what Pennycook (2007) calls “the myth of English as a language of development and opportunity … (that) … deludes many learners through the false promises it holds out for social and material gain” (pp. 103, 101), that English is the “only language that will enable people to take part in modernity and development” (K. Perera & Canagarajah, 2010, p. 113), and “the undeniable ‘truth’ that having English as the language of instruction is the best way to learn English” (Brock-Utne, 2016, p. 123). The questions policy-makers must resolve centre on what constitutes English proficiency in the diverse spheres of communicative activity of a dynamic multilingual context, and how can effective processes be put in place to ensure teaching and learning of English to satisfy these needs. The high levels of English proficiency required for interaction with monolingual English speakers from abroad, or for international travel, work, or study might be best achieved through high quality English-as-an-additional-language teaching rather than the current ­bilingual model of 410

Language education policy in Sri Lanka

English MOI education. What is clear is that if a policy of bilingual education is to be considered a viable language learning pathway for all students, considerable curriculum restructuring and reform to take a more integrated approach is essential. For day-to-day communicative use of English, however, policymakers need to recognise the current teaching/learning model is based on a goal of monolingual proficiency, while the language resources at the disposal of most Sri Lankans are not a set of discrete language competencies, but an integrated plurilingual (Khubchandani, 1998) repertoire. Until the necessary political will and resources can be found, many young Sri Lankans will not possess the linguistic resources to choose how they participate in the nation’s development, or whether and how they interact with global cultures and economies.

References Atapattu, A., & Abeykoon, A. (2015). Effectiveness of bilingual education in selected districts of Sri Lanka. Paper presented at the IOCES 4th Conference, 16–17 June 2015, Bangalore, Karnataka, India. http://nwpedu. lk/pdfup/uploads/2015%20IOCES%20Book.pdf#page=99. Aturupane, H. (2011). Transforming school education in Sri Lanka: From cut stones to polished jewels. Colombo, Sri Lanka: The World Bank Colombo Office. Balakrishnar, J., & Thanaraj, T. (2015). Instruction in the English medium: A Sri Lankan case study. In H. Coleman (Ed.), Language and social cohesion in the developing world (Selected proceedings of the Ninth Language and Development Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2011) (pp. 166–177). Colombo, Sri Lanka: British Council and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Baldsing, L. (2013). Making English the lynchpin for globalisation of education in Sri Lanka: Quality versus equality. (DEd), Edith Cowan University, Perth. Retrieved from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/594 Borham, M. (8 January 2017). Official language policy: Lack of funds prevents satisfactory implementation. Sunday Observer. Retrieved from http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2017/01/08/news/ official-language-policy-lack-funds-prevents-satisfactory-implementation Brock-Utne, B. (2016). English as the language of science and technology. In Z. Babaci-Wilhite (Ed.), Human rights in language and STEM education: Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (pp. 111–128). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Brutt-Griffler, J. (2002). Class, ethnicity, and language rights:An analysis of British colonial policy in Lesotho and Sri Lanka and some implications for language policy. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 1(3), 207–234. doi:10.1207/S15327701JLIE0103_3 Canagarajah, A. S. (2005). Dilemmas in planning English/vernacular relations in post-colonial communities. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9(3), 418–447. doi:10.1111/j.1360-6441.2005.00299.x Canagarajah, A. S., & Liyanage, I. (2012). Lessons from pre-colonial multilingualism. In M. Martin-Jones, A. Blackledge, & A. Creese (Eds.), Routledge handbook of multilingualism (pp. 49–65). Abingdon, Oxon, UK; New York: Routledge. Coperahewa, S. (2009). The language planning situation in Sri Lanka. Current Issues in Language Planning, 10(1), 69–150. doi:10.1080/14664200902894660 Fernando, S. (26 October 2011a). From dethroning English to planning for a trilingual society: Keynote address by Sunimal Fernando at the 9th International Language and Development Conference on ‘Language and Social Cohesion’, Colombo, October 18, 2011 (Part 3). Daily News. Retrieved from http://www.dailynews.lk/2001/pix/PrintPage.asp?REF=/2011/10/25/fea0... Fernando, S. (2011b). Ten Year National Plan for a Trilingual Sri Lanka (2012 – 2021) (Draft Plan 22nd June 2011). Retrieved from www.priu.gov.lk/news.../Ten%20Year%20National%20Plan%20-%20English. pdf Golding, D. (2018). The colonial and neoliberal roots of the public-private education debate in Sri Lanka. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 16(1), 145–174. Herath, S. (2015). Language policy, ethnic tensions and linguistic rights in post war Sri Lanka. Language Policy, 14(3), 245–261. doi:10.1007/s10993-014-9339-6 Kandiah, T. (1984). Kaduva: Power and English language weapon in Sri Lanka. In P.-C. Thome & A. Halpe (Eds.), Honoring E.F.C.Ludowyke: Felicitation essays (pp. 117–154). Dehiwala: Tisara Prakashakayo. Khubchandani, L. M. (1998). Plurilingual ethos: A peep into the sociology of language. Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 24(1), 5–37.

411

Indika Liyanage Lim, L. (2013). Kaduva of privileged power, instrument of rural empowerment? The politics of English (and Sinhala and Tamil) in Sri Lanka. In L. Wee, R. B. H. Goh & L. Lim (Eds.), The politics of English. South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific (pp. 61–80). Amsterdam; Philidelphia: John Benjamins. Little, A.W. (2011). Education policy reform in Sri Lanka:The double-edged sword of political will. Journal of Education Policy, 26(4), 499–512. doi:10.1080/02680939.2011.555005 Liyanage, I. (2010). Globalization: Medium-of-instruction policy, indigenous educational systems and ELT in Sri Lanka. In V. Vaish (Ed.), Globalization of language and culture in Asia: The impact of globalization processes on language (pp. 209–232). London; New York: Continuum. Liyanage, I. (2012). Critical pedagogy in ESL/EFL teaching in South-east Asia: Practices and challenges with examples from Sri Lanka. In K. Sung & R. Pederson (Eds.), Critical ELT practices in Asia: Key issues, practices, and possibilities (pp. 137–152). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Liyanage, I., & Canagarajah, A. S. (2014). Interethnic understanding and the teaching of local languages in Sri Lanka. In D. Gorter,V. Zenotz & J. Cenoz (Eds.), Minority languages and multilingual education: Bridging the local and the global (pp. 119–135). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Meyler, M. (2015). Sri Lankan English: An appropriate model for the teaching of English in Sri Lanka? In H. Coleman (Ed.), Language and social cohesion in the developing world (Selected proceedings of the Ninth Language and Development Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2011) (pp. 178–185). Colombo: British Council & Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Ministry of Education Data Management Branch. (2015). Sri Lanka Education Information 2015. Retrieved from www.moe.gov.lk/english/images/Statistics/EducationData_2015.pdf Ministry of Education Sri Lanka. (2018). Muslim School Development Branch. Retrieved from http:// www.moe.gov.lk/english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=827&catid=351&Ite mid=803 Ministry of Education Sri Lanka Statistics Branch. (2018). School census report 2017. Ministry of Education Retrieved from http://www.statistics.gov.lk/education/School%20Census%20Report_2017.pdf. National Committee for Formulating a New Education Act for General Education. (2017). New Education Act for General Education in Sri Lanka: Context, issues and proposals: Final report. In. Retrieved from http:// nec.gov.lk/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Towards-a-New-Education-Act.pdf National Education Commission. (2003). Envisioning education for human development: Proposals for a national policy framework on general education in Sri Lanka. Narahenpita, Sri Lanka: National Education Commission. National Education Commission. (2016). Raising the quality of education: Proposals for a National Policy on General Education in Sri Lanka. Nugegoda, Sri Lanka: National Education Commission. Parakrama, A. (2012). The malchemy of English in Sri Lanka: Reinforcing inequality though imposing extra-linguistic value. In V. Rapatahana & P. Bunce (Eds.), English language as hydra: Its impacts on nonEnglish language cultures (pp. 107–132). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Paranavitana, K. D. (2004). Suppression of Buddhism and aspects of indigenous culture under the Portuguese and Dutch. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka, 49, 1–14. Pennycook, A. (2007). The myth of English as an international language. In A. Pennycook & S. Makoni (Eds.), Disinventing and reconstituting languages (pp. 90–115). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Perera, K., & Canagarajah, A. S. (2010). Globalisation and English teaching in Sri Lanka: Foreign resources and local responses. In V.Vaish (Ed.), Globalization of language and culture in Asia:The impact of globalization processes on language (pp. 106–119). London; New York: Continuum. Perera, M., & Kularatne, S. A. (2014). An attempt to develop bilingualism in Sri Lanka through content and language integrated learning (CLIL). International Journal of Arts & Sciences, 7(3), 107–116. Perera, S. (2015). Reflection on issues of language in Sri Lanka: Power, exclusion and inclusion. In H. Coleman (Ed.), Language and social cohesion in the developing world (Selected proceedings of the Ninth Language and Development Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2011) (pp. 55–74). Colombo: British Council & Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Prasangani, K. S. N. (2014). Overview of changes in the Sri Lankan English education system: From the colonial present day Sri Lanka. Modern Research Studies: An International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 1(2), 193–202. Retrieved from http://files.hostgator.co.in/hostgator201172/file/2014010208.pdf Premarathna, A.,Yogaraja, S. J., Medawattegedara,V., Senarathna, C. D., & Abdullah, M. R. M. (2016). Study on medium of instruction, national and international languages in General Education in Sri Lanka. Retrieved from http://nec.gov.lk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/9-Final-.pdf Prematunge, S. (23 June 2011). Ten year national action plan for a trilingual Sri Lanka: Redefining language (Part 1). Daily News. Retrieved from http://www.dailynews.lk/2001/pix/PrintPage. asp?REF=/2011/06/23/fea0...

412

Language education policy in Sri Lanka Punchi, L. (2001). Resistance towards the language of globalisation: The case of Sri Lanka. International Review of Education, 47(3–4), 361–378. Satyanarayanan, S. (Tuesday, 4 October 2011). Interview of the fortnight: Srilanka turning trilingual. Afro Asian Business Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.aabc.co.in/interviews/3186-interview-ofthe-fortnight-srilank... Somaratna, G. P. V. (2018). The rise and fall of the Portuguese language in Sri Lanka. Retrieved from http://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/20015/967 Walisundara, D. C., & Hettiarachchi, S. (2016). English language policy and planning in Sri Lanka: A critical overview. In R. Kirkpatrick (Ed.), English Language Education Policy in Asia (pp. 301–332). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Wettewa, V. (2016). Postcolonial emotionalism in shaping education: An analysis of international school choice in Sri Lanka. International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 15(1), 66–83. Wijesekera, H. (2011/2012). Dreams deferred: English language teaching in Sri Lanka. Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences, 7/8, 16–26. Wijesinha, R. (2003). Bringing back the bathwater: New initiatives in English policy in Sri Lanka. In C. Mair (Ed.), The politics of English as a world language: New horizons in postcolonial cultural studies (pp. 367–374). Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi. Wijesinha, R. (20 October 2011). Language, economic development and social cohesion: Keynote address by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha at the 9th International Language and Development Conference, Colombo, October 19, 2011. Daily News. Retrieved from http://www.dailynews.lk/2001/pix/PrintPage. asp?REF=/2011/10/20/fea0...

Suggestions for further reading Coperahewa, S. (2009). The language planning situation in Sri Lanka. Current Issues in Language Planning, 10(1), 69–150. doi:10.1080/14664200902894660 Golding, D. (2018). The colonial and neoliberal roots of the public-private education debate in Sri Lanka. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 16(1), 145–174. Liyanage, I., & Canagarajah, A. S. (2014). Interethnic understanding and the teaching of local languages in Sri Lanka. In D. Gorter,V. Zenotz & J. Cenoz (Eds.), Minority languages and multilingual education: Bridging the local and the global (pp. 119–135). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Walisundara, D. C., & Hettiarachchi, S. (2016). English language policy and planning in Sri Lanka: A critical overview. In R. Kirkpatrick (Ed.), English Language Education Policy in Asia (pp. 301–332). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Wettewa, V. (2016). Postcolonial emotionalism in shaping education: An analysis of international school choice in Sri Lanka. International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 15(1), 66–83.

413

29 FROM A MONOLINGUAL TO A MULTILINGUAL NATION Analysing the language education policy in the Maldives Naashia Mohamed

1 Background Maldivians take great pride in the fact that the Dhivehi language is unique to the Maldives, and note that this linguistic heritage has been a unifying agent when its people are scattered across a country where there is more sea than land. The Maldivian archipelago consists of 1192 islands, 188 of which are today inhabited by locals, and over 111 maintained exclusively for foreign tourists. According to the 2014 Census, the country has a population of over 407,000, out of which 38% resides in the capital island of Malé, making it one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The Census also reports that a little over 15% of the population are foreign residents; and that 33% of the population are school-aged children (National Bureau of Statistics, 2015).

1.1  The development of Dhivehi The official historiography of the Maldives begins from 1153 A.D., considered to be the year that the country converted to Islam. Chronicles of history prior to that date are not reliable, with difficulties faced in distinguishing fact from myth and legend. But it is largely believed that by 500 B.C. the Maldives was inhabited with settlers arriving from India and/or Sri Lanka (Naseema Mohamed, 2005), and that these natives spoke the earliest known versions of Dhivehi (Fritz, 2002). Dhivehi is an Indo-Aryan language, believed to have descended from Maharashtri Prakrit and is linguistically related to Marathi, Konkani and Sinhalese languages, although not mutually intelligible with them (Fritz, 2002). Maldivians traditionally lived in very isolated, closely bonded, small island communities, depending largely on their natural surroundings, and especially the sea, for their livelihood. This strong link with nature and the marine environment is reflected in the Dhivehi language, and its rich oral literature. For example, there are a number of different words for “sea” in the Dhivehi language, with the depth, colour and location of the water determining its name. As Maumoon (2002) notes, the sea also features prominently in the proverbs and figures of speech in Dhivehi

414

From a monolingual to a multilingual nation

and is a recurrent theme in its oral literature, lending clear evidence that the island environment has been central in the development of the Dhivehi language. Being on the sea faring route in the Indian Ocean, the Maldives was a well-known port of call to traders who stopped for fresh water and supplies on their travels over the centuries. Persian and Arab traders were particularly common, and their indelible mark is observed in the Dhivehi lexicon relating particularly to navigation and trade (Maumoon, 2002). Over time, the influence of Arabic strengthened, becoming a particularly significant source of influence to the Dhivehi language since Islamisation. As the European colonial powers took over much of the trade in the region during the 16th century, their linguistic influences gradually filtered into the Dhivehi language (Naseema Mohamed, 2005).Yet, despite such linguistic influence, the Maldives maintained its sovereignty as an independent sultanate for much of its history. The first recorded period of colonisation occurred during the 16th century, when the Maldives was colonised by the Portuguese for a period of 15 years (Romero-Frias, 2003). Later, in the 19th century, it came under British rule, gaining independence in 1965. The lasting effects of these colonial languages are evident in contemporary Dhivehi (Fritz, 2002). During the middle of the 19th century, opportunities for Maldivians to study abroad, in countries like India, Pakistan and Egypt, became available. With the return of these new scholars, strong influences from Urdu and Arabic filtered into Dhivehi, and particularly in the literary and legal spheres (Maumoon, 2002). Tourism was initiated in the Maldives in the early 1970s, and introduced the isolated island nation to the wider world. This, coupled with the expansion of education, led to the English language being regarded as an essential pathway to progress.

1.2  The Dhivehi language Dhivehi has its own script, referred to as Thaana, and is written from right to left, following the Arabic tradition. It is not known when the current form of the Thaana script first appeared; but both Thaana and its predecessor Dives Akuru, which had similarities with the language’s ancestral roots, were both used in official documents during the 18th century. Some of the Thaana letters were derived from Dives Akuru, while others were modelled on Arabic numerals.Thaana is a largely phonemic script, with vowel indication modelled on the Arabic system of diacritics. After Dives Akuru was finally given up in the late 19th century, official documents have mostly used Thaana, with some notable exceptions. Fritz (2002) notes that during the 17th and 18th centuries, Arabic was the language of choice in communicating with foreign powers and some historical chronicles were also scripted in Arabic. In addition to this, with the introduction of new technology in the late 1970s, the Thaana script was viewed as an obstacle to progress, and a transliterated form of Thaana using the Roman alphabet was used for a period of two to three years before the Thaana script was reinstated to its official status in 1978. The geographically isolated nature of islands in the archipelago gave rise to regional linguistic differences over time, particularly in phonology. As a result, four main regional dialects are observed, each one attributed to a different atoll in the south of the country. Fritz (2002) classifies the dialects of Dhivehi into two broad categories: Northern dialect and southern dialect, counting the four distinct regional dialects as sub dialects of the southern vernacular. The dialectal divergences between northern and southern dialects are of such a quality that northern Maldivians barely understand the southern dialects. Nevertheless, the variety of Dhivehi spoken in Malé has always been regarded as the standard form of the language, and is the only accepted form of written communication. In the educational context, children from all parts 415

Naashia Mohamed

of the country use the standard Malé variety for learning. The change in the attitudes towards regional dialects over time (Habeeb, 2014) could perhaps be attributed to this influence from the educational context.

1.3  Contemporary linguistic attitudes and influences While Dhivehi is the dominant language in contemporary Maldivian society, attitudes towards Dhivehi are changing, particularly among the youth. Habeeb’s (2014) study revealed that Maldivian youth do not view Dhivehi to possess adequate power to steer them towards success. Instead, more importance was given to English due to its global status. This perceived lack of prestige in Dhivehi was also evidenced in other studies (Naashia Mohamed, 2013a, 2013b) where children, young people and even adults, were found to elevate the status of English and proclaim their preference for it over the national language. Such attitudes may explain the high degree of code mixing between Dhivehi and English observed in modern Maldivian culture (Afeef, 2014). While this mixing of English into predominantly Dhivehi interactions is now commonplace not only in spoken interactions, but is increasingly observed in print media, it is interesting to note that both English and Arabic make a substantial contribution to Dhivehi vocabulary.This is evident from the bulletins listing new Dhivehi words borrowed or adapted from other languages (Dhivehi Bahuge Academy, 2018). Unlike English, the sounds of Dhivehi are similar to those in Arabic, and perhaps it is due to this parallel that Arabic words are more readily accepted without much alteration into the Dhivehi lexicon, particularly in legal and religious domains. Other notable languages used in Maldivian society relate to the domain of leisure and entertainment. Indian cinema and television programmes have been popular among Maldivians since the 1970s (Romero-Frias, 2003). Children who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s were particularly exposed to this media and as a result many acquired Hindi implicitly, through watching Bollywood movies. Since the new millennium, and the widespread use of digital technology, East Asian languages such as Korean and Japanese have become popular among young people interested in anime. However, those exposed to these languages acquire mostly a receptive understanding of the language as they do not usually have opportunities to practice their productive skills in these languages since none of these languages are spoken within the mainstream Maldivian community. A growing linguistic influence in contemporary Maldives comes from the increasing expatriate population, a large proportion of whom are from the Indian subcontinent. Often employed in domestic service or as labourers, many expatriates come with no knowledge of either Dhivehi or English, and resort to using a simplified, substandard variety that is seen to particularly influence the younger generation of Maldivians.

1.4  Legal status of Dhivehi While the Constitution (2008) declared Dhivehi to be the official language of the Maldives, the subsequent Dhivehi Language Act (2011) elevated this legal status by stating that Dhivehi must be prioritised over other languages. Recognising the influence from other languages in a globalised world, the act was passed to protect the nation’s linguistic heritage for generations to come. It required Maldivians to give priority to communicating in Dhivehi, stipulating in particular that all official communication by the government must be conducted in Dhivehi, using Thaana script for written documents. It stated that Dhivehi must precede any other language in public signage; and that Dhivehi translations must be provided at public events where a foreign language speaker addresses the audience. The act also gives the legal responsibility of protecting and promoting the national language to the Dhivehi Language Academy. 416

From a monolingual to a multilingual nation

1.5  History of language education A significant demographic feature in the Maldives is that the population is very young, with nearly 23% of the total population aged 15 or below (National Bureau of Statistics, 2015). Since the introduction of formal schools in the 1920s, the demand for education has been strong and rising. Even before formal schools existed, children were taught to read and write basic Dhivehi and Arabic. The learning of Arabic was necessary to read the text of the Qur’an. But it must be noted that Arabic was not taught as a language. Rather, children learned the sounds of the letters and practiced recitation without understanding the meaning of the words. This rudimentary education traditionally took place at edhuruge – a form of one-to-one private tutoring organised by religious leaders and elders of each community (Shakir, 2006). The 1950s saw a remarkable change in the education system. For the first time in the country’s history, education came to be regarded as an agent for national development. The affluent families sent their children to boarding schools in Sri Lanka while the government provided local tutors in Dhivehi and Islam to ensure that even if students studied abroad, they grew up with a good understanding of their faith and skilled in their language. During this time, the government also aimed to establish educational facilities in islands outside of Malé. By the end of the decade, a school of some form was in existence in most inhabited islands of the country (Lutfi, 2011). These one room structures, referred to as makhthabs and later madhrasas, were basic in every respect, including the curriculum.

2  Earlier language education policies 2.1  The introduction of English As education gradually expanded, so did the curriculum. English was seen to be important for progress, and English language was introduced as a subject in the two schools of Malé. This was initially introduced at the lowest grades, but quickly expanded as a subject taught across all grade levels. Due to a shortage of adequately qualified teachers, the government recruited expatriate teachers and school principals for the Malé schools. In 1961, within a few years of introducing the teaching of English, the English language was adopted as the medium of instruction in these schools (Lutfi, 2011), following a full immersion model where children from kindergarten onwards were only exposed to English within the school environment. As this cohort progressed through school, the Ordinary Level General Certificate of Education exams offered by the University of London was selected as the formal end of school certification (Shakir, 2002). This sea change in the education in the capital island led to a sense of disparity between the schools in Malé and the schools in other islands. Whereas the Malé schools enjoyed English medium education from Grades 1–10, employed qualified expatriate teachers, and students followed the curriculum set by an international examination, schools in other islands used Dhivehi as the medium of instruction, taught only up to Grade 7 at best, using a curriculum that was still very basic and dependent on the quality of the teachers available in each individual school.

2.2  Nationwide literacy campaign The 1980s saw the introduction of a nationwide literacy campaign. With the aim of teaching basic arithmetic, literacy in Dhivehi and a fundamental understanding of Islam to all Maldivians, the government led initiative took six years to complete its first phase. It involved creating awareness of the importance of education and particularly literacy, combined with the teaching of the required knowledge and skills. Teams of educators travelled across the nation, island by 417

Naashia Mohamed

island, to complete this initiative (Shakir, 2006). This, together with increased access to education and improved quality of teaching, resulted in the Maldives attaining the highest literacy rates in the South and West Asian region (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2016). Despite these official statistics, the persistence of illiteracy among school children is acknowledged. For example, a circular sent by the Ministry of Education to all schools nationwide in July 2009 notes that despite the efforts to improve education, the quality of education provided is very poor, with a considerable number of students failing to achieve basic literacy by the end of Grade 1. The current official rate for mother tongue literacy in the Maldives is reported to be over 97% and the literacy rate for English language is over 75% (National Bureau of Statistics, 2015). The methodology used in obtaining these results is unclear.

2.3  The demand for English medium education English-medium education was gradually introduced to other islands with the introduction of the National Curriculum in 1984 (Lutfi, 2011). This new curriculum offered a structured plan for learning from Grades 1–7 in all subjects, together with centrally developed textbooks that were to be closely followed. At first, two sets of textbooks were published for subjects such as Social Studies, General Science and Mathematics. One set of books was prepared in English for those schools following an English medium education, and a second set of books was prepared in Dhivehi for the majority of schools where Dhivehi was still the language in which content subjects were taught. While the content remained the same, the only difference between the books was the language. This dual system of education further deepened the divide between the Malé schools and the rest of the schools in the country. The demand for expatriate teachers and a change to English medium instruction grew stronger. Eventually, individual schools began adopting English as the medium of instruction either through support from the ministry through the provision of teachers and textbooks, or on their own accord. By the beginning of the new millennium, all schools in the country offered instruction in English (Lutfi, 2011). This meant that from the time a child begins school at the age of six, the child is taught in a language that is not their home language. All subjects, except Islam and Dhivehi language, were taught in the medium of English (Shiuna and Sodiq, 2013). Many schools went beyond the use of English as a language of instruction, and practised a model of immersion whereby all communications with students within the school were expected to take place in English, including assemblies and extracurricular activities (Naashia Mohamed, 2013a). However, no official policy statement on the medium of instruction in schools was ever made public (Lutfi, 2011). Nevertheless, with instruction offered in English, textbooks prepared in English, examinations conducted in English, and English adopted as the preferred language of communication within the school, the nature of the language policy is evident from these tacit language practices of the educational culture, as Spolsky (2003) and Corson (1999) have argued. The medium of instruction is believed to be one of the factors that negatively affect student achievement, as students struggle to comprehend concepts taught in a language that is not their own (Yamada, Fujikawa and Pangeni, 2015). Although the pass percentage of students at the end of school examinations (IGCSE offered by CIE and the nationally assessed SSC examinations) has steadily increased over the years, this figure is just above the 50% mark (National Bureau of Statistics 2018). Saeed and Moreira (2010) also identify that even though English may be the medium of instruction throughout schooling, the majority of teachers, especially at lower grades, are not adequately qualified to teach in English and suggest that this may be another factor that contributes to the poor quality of teaching. 418

From a monolingual to a multilingual nation

The introduction and expansion of English as a medium of instruction in Maldivian schools was not limited to just the ten years of formal schooling. As education expanded, preschools catering to three- to five-year-olds and higher secondary schools for 16–18-year-olds increased, and these too adopted English as the medium of instruction. When tertiary education began in the 1990s, this too was mostly offered through the medium of English. Currently, there are two government-owned universities and several private colleges. English is the dominant medium of instruction at these institutions, with some courses offered in Arabic, while few courses identify Dhivehi as the language of instruction.

2.4  The introduction of Arabic medium schooling During the 1980s and 1990s, the government made increasing efforts to strengthen religious beliefs and spread awareness of Islamic practices (Romero-Frias, 2003). With Arabic necessary for the study of Islam in depth, the government established Mauhadhul Dhiraasaathul Islaamiyya, an Arabic medium school in Malé in 1980 (Shakir, 2002).While students in this school were taught Dhivehi and English as subjects of study, Arabic became the language of instruction for all other aspects of the curriculum which was largely faith-based. This school fulfilled a need to develop religious scholars and opened opportunities for higher education at universities located in the Arab region. In 1987, a second school that provided instruction in Arabic was established in Malé. This Arabic immersion school focused on primary Grades 1–7. Those who wished to continue on their education in the Arabic medium would then join the previously established Mauhadhul Dhiraasaathul Islaamiyya where they could continue their studies to college level. Due to the high demand for Islamic-based education in Arabic, a third Arabic medium school, this time in Addu, the southernmost atoll of the country, was opened in 2015.

2.5  The status of Dhivehi in schooling Although Dhivehi has always been taught as a subject in schools, it has in the past played second fiddle to English.The National Curriculum (Educational Development Centre 2000), stipulated that primary classes should be allocated eight periods (280 minutes) per week for teaching of English; but recommended only five periods (175 minutes) per week for teaching Dhivehi. At secondary level, the curriculum recommended seven periods per week (245 minutes) for English and only four (140 minutes) for Dhivehi. This imbalance in the attention that Dhivehi was given was also echoed by how it was introduced as a subject at secondary grades much later than English (Lutfi, 2011) and did not start to be assessed nationally at the end of schooling until the mid-1980s (Shakir, 2002). This lack of prominence given to Dhivehi was partly due to the quality of teachers (Saeed and Moreira, 2010).Teachers employed at schools could be categorised into local teachers and expatriate teachers. Expatriate teachers, recruited from South Asian countries, particularly Sri Lanka and India, were usually graduates from university with a degree level qualification (UNESCO-IBE, 2011). Local teachers on the other hand, were further distinguished by whether they had been trained in the Maldives or whether they had received their training overseas.The latter group were likely to have received a university degree in the subject they were assigned to teach and/or had a teacher training qualification. Local training for teachers was at certificate or diploma level until the early 2000s. The first locally designed bachelor’s degree was offered in 2001, when the (then) Maldives College of Higher Education started offering a BA in Dhivehi Language programme, which became very popular among existing teachers of Dhivehi as it helped to elevate them to the status their English language counterparts had been enjoying for many decades. 419

Naashia Mohamed

The critical attitude towards Dhivehi may also be attributed to the lack of resources available in the language, particularly for children. Whereas books written in English – whether fiction or specifically designed for the teaching of English – were widely available, such resources were scarce in Dhivehi. This meant that the materials for teaching Dhivehi needed to be specially designed for the purpose. It was not until 2011 that the first dictionary of Dhivehi was compiled and published. The place of Dhivehi in the National Curriculum was fiercely debated in the media and became a political controversy following the National Curriculum Symposium of 2009 (Lutfi, 2011). Two significant issues in relation to Dhivehi were discussed. Firstly, it related to the medium of instruction. During the symposium, a small group of participants, led by a key academic figure in higher education, proposed that the medium of instruction, at least for the first two key stages (i.e. kindergarten, Grades 1, 2 and 3) should be changed. They argued that students would benefit from a change in the language of instruction from English to Dhivehi, suggesting that the dependence on English from the onset of schooling was the main barrier to widespread academic success. The 200 strong audience at this symposium consisted of educators, school leaders, parents, politicians, academics, representatives from all major economic sectors and students. This proposal to change the medium of instruction for the first five years of schooling was met with indignation from most delegates and ultimately was not approved. Their reasoning was that without English there was no progress and if there was a change to Dhivehi as the medium of instruction it would be akin to stepping backwards into the past. Secondly, in the months that followed the symposium, it was proposed that for the two years of higher secondary education, there will be no compulsory subjects and students would be free to choose any five subjects of their choice.This meant that students would no longer be required to take Dhivehi and Islam (which had been compulsory subjects until then) at this level, unless they wished to do so. The subjects would still be offered, but they would be electives, just like the rest of the subjects in the curriculum. This proposal was met with uproar, and led to rallies and politician tension that continued for several weeks, as some sections of the population felt that the new curriculum was being designed to eliminate all traces of Maldivian culture and the Islamic faith from the education system. The passing of the Dhivehi Language Act in 2011 strengthened the status of Dhivehi as the national language of the Maldives, and required that Dhivehi be taught as a compulsory subject at all levels of schooling. Additionally, it also made it mandatory for Dhivehi language and/or Maldivian history to be included in the curriculum of every programme with a duration of three+ years offered at all colleges, universities and educational centres. In 2012, the Preschool Management Act stipulated that Dhivehi would be the language of instruction in all preschools of the country, and that any other languages included in the curriculum would be taught as second languages at this stage of schooling. Although proposals for making the teaching of Islam mandatory through all levels of education have also been widely discussed, there is currently no legal requirement to teach it. Nevertheless it continues to be taught as a compulsory subject across all grades.

3  Current language education policies 3.1  Changes to the National Curriculum Following a long period of reform efforts, the new National Curriculum (National Institute of Education, 2015) came into effect in January 2015. It stated the language instruction as Dhivehi 420

From a monolingual to a multilingual nation

at Foundation level (i.e. preschool), and that English (or Arabic if it was a specialist school) would be the language of instruction for Key Stages 1–5 of the curriculum. It recognised however, the important role of the mother tongue at the early stages: Schools are … discouraged from following a full immersion model of education where the mother tongue use is discouraged within the school environment. Instead, schools are recommended to gradually adopt a full English medium instruction model, which would allow them to encourage the use of Dhivehi alongside English, particularly in Key Stage 1. (National Institute of Education, 2015: 61) Despite this stated policy, the practice in schools is still different (Naashia Mohamed 2016), with a high dependence on English among teachers, who recognise that they lack the skills and language competence to adequately teach in Dhivehi. The slow efforts in language planning and teachers’ lack of knowledge of key vocabulary in Dhivehi meant that they resorted to English, which they also believed was easier for children to understand. A significant feature of the new curriculum is that it gave equal importance with regards to allocated time, to both English and Dhivehi at lower grades.The curriculum recommended 225 minutes per week of contact time for teaching each of the two languages up to Grade 8. The proportion of time recommended for teaching English and Dhivehi differs after that. In Key Stage 4 (Grades 9 and 10), when students are focused on their end of school qualifications, the curriculum recommends spending 225 minutes per week on English and 180 minutes per week on Dhivehi. In Key Stage 5 (Grades 11 and 12), Dhivehi is the only compulsory language, and the curriculum recommends a total of 100 minutes per week for it. If a student chooses to study English at this level, it would be by choice. But in such a case, they would spend 250 minutes per week of class time on English. The new National Curriculum also identifies the need to learn languages beyond the mother tongue and English. Arabic is noted to be a required foreign language between Grades 1–8, with a recommendation of 90 minutes for weekly teaching of the language.

3.2  Current situation in schools Despite official policy statements, what happens inside classrooms seems to be different, as observed by Naashia Mohamed (2013a, 2016), Zidhma (2014) and Jameel (2014). All four studies found teachers utilising both English and Dhivehi in the classroom, particularly in the early years. Preschool teachers were seen to heavily code switch between English and Dhivehi, with English used for most content words. They seemed unaware that Dhivehi was the language of instruction at preschool, by law (Zidhma, 2014). Teachers at preschool and lower primary grades reported finding it easier to use a mix of both languages (Naashia Mohamed, 2016; Zidhma, 2014).Teachers in these studies identified parental attitudes and the educational system as the main reasons for the constant code switching. They noted that having learned everything through English, they are simply not aware of many content words in Dhivehi, and that parents valued an increased focus on English. At secondary level, teachers were discouraged from resorting to Dhivehi during their teaching, but some instances of this were observed in Jameel’s (2014) study. There appears to be a discrepancy between teachers’ self confidence in using English exclusively and parents’ demand for instruction in English (Naashia Mohamed, 2016; Zidhma, 2014). Teachers at preschool felt that a dual language model would be more beneficial than one that 421

Naashia Mohamed

promoted only one language (Zidhma, 2014). This view that a dual language model would be more appropriate was shared by some preschool parents, but parents of primary and secondary students preferred the medium of instruction to be English (Naashia Mohamed, 2013b).

3.3  Views of policy makers Three senior policy makers within the Ministry of Education were interviewed to obtain information on current language education policy in schools and tertiary institutions. These key informants were selected due to the significant positions they held at the Ministry of Education, and their roles in policy making in the education sector. The interviews were semi structured in nature, were held one-to-one, and audio recorded. Each interview lasted between 40 and 50 minutes.

3.3.1  Role and status of languages All three policy makers noted the important role that language played in the successful educational attainment of students, and all three admitted that language education policy was often understood through practice rather than specified in official policy statements. Two of them recognised that Dhivehi has been given a prominent place in the curriculum by stipulating that it should be the medium of instruction at preschool level. Asked about their views on the fact that Maldives does not offer any options for education in the children’s mother tongue, none of the three interviewees felt that this was a notable issue. One interviewee noted the important role of English as a contributor to progress: All countries in the region offer English medium education. That is a significant indicator of educational progress. And if we want to continue to progress and succeed, then we will continue to focus on improving the quality of teaching, particularly that of English language. Another interviewee clarified that it was necessary to give English a place of prominence in school education as “80% of the curriculum is taught in English.” It was therefore crucial that this global language was taught well, not only at school level, but at tertiary institutions as well, as it was “essential for higher education and career success.” Asked about the role of Dhivehi for strengthening national identity and inculcating cultural pride in young people, one interviewee explained that language and culture are separate: “Language is a medium for communication. Culture is related to how we live.” He went on to explain that: Dhivehi as a language is very slow and unable to keep up with the vast developments we see day to day. If we are to teach some subjects in Dhivehi, those teachers would struggle to teach as there are no new Dhivehi words for many of the concepts we teach. … Dhivehi is too undeveloped to use as a medium of instruction. All three policy makers interviewed acknowledged that the public was not ready to accept a change in the medium of instruction at school level. One interviewee accepted the educational and cognitive benefits children gain from being taught in their mother tongue, but stated that it was only applicable to some languages. He suggested that “if a language is not developed enough to express certain thoughts, it would not be suitable as a medium of instruction.” 422

From a monolingual to a multilingual nation

3.3.2  Strengthening language education Two of the three policy makers highlighted that language education in schools needs to be strengthened by offering more options in the curriculum. They noted that Asian languages such as Korean, Chinese and Japanese as well as European languages such as French, Italian and German could be offered if there was sufficient demand from schools/parents. In fact, it was noted that since 2010, some selected schools were offering French classes but that this was being carried out as an extra-curricular activity. One interviewee explained that since there was no curriculum or standards in place for teaching and assessing French, it was being carried out in a more informal manner, and based on the availability of volunteer teachers. They recognised the importance of exposing students to foreign languages but that limited resources and “an already full curriculum” were reasons why new languages were difficult to introduce. Where Dhivehi was concerned, one of the interviewees felt that having been allocated equal teaching time as English in the curriculum was indicative of the importance given to Dhivehi by the current administration. Another interviewee noted that there wasn’t sufficient demand from either the public or academics to further strengthen the teaching of Dhivehi, despite student achievement in Dhivehi being “much lower than in English” in the end of school exams held every year. He explained that unless there was sufficient demand for it and unless the Dhivehi Language Academy or the Maldives National University were to propose alternatives to the current policy, it was likely to remain unchanged.

3.3.3  Overt and covert language policies Discussing the flexibility for schools to adapt official policy, one interviewee noted that the Ministry has not sent out any circulars stating which language to teach in; any changes brought about to the language of instruction were brought about on the school’s own accord, as a result of parental demand. Whether a school wishes to conduct school activities such as assemblies and clubs in English or Dhivehi, or indeed another language, was to be decided by the school. Indeed, if a school decided to teach some of the subjects using a combination of Dhivehi and English, the ministry would not obstruct such practice, he noted. He went on to explain that in inspection visits to schools by educational quality supervisors, such issues had been noted, but that if a school deviates from ministry policy but the result of such deviation was a positive one, the matter would be overlooked. Asked about whether they were aware of schools that punished children for not using English, one policy maker noted that if a school chooses to do so, it was within their authority to penalise students for using a particular language, and that the ministry would not interfere in such matters.

4  Future predictions Based on the identified issues, several implications that relate to language policy planning become evident. The increased attention given to English has prompted young people to use English in communicating with their peers both in and outside school (Naashia Mohamed, 2015), because many view Dhivehi to be a barrier to progress. As this generation of young people grow up, there is likely to be a marked language shift, with English becoming the language of choice in everyday communication. Unless increased efforts are made with regards to language planning at status, corpus and prestige levels (Baldauf, 2004), such a shift is most likely to occur. 423

Naashia Mohamed

A ­disaffiliation with the mother tongue will affect one’s ethnolinguistic identity and may lead to the loss of culture. Many policy changes observed within the last decade are evidence of an increased awareness regarding the protection of linguistic heritage and advocacy for linguistic rights. While it is important to establish legal status, it is equally important, if not more so, to ensure the mechanisms to implement the law. Unless the current law is enforced, it is not likely to be given due importance by the public. In order to strengthen the teaching of languages in the school system, three measures are required. Firstly, the teacher training programmes must ensure that regardless of the subject focus, all teachers trained locally must have a high level of bilingual competence in English and Dhivehi, to be able to successfully teach and positively translanguage in classroom settings (Garcia and Li Wei, 2014) as well as interact professionally with parents. This language development must focus on all four language skills as well as vocabulary development, since teachers have been noted to lack knowledge of Dhivehi content words. Secondly, the organisation of learning in the curriculum must match the suggested gradual shift from mother tongue-based education to English as the medium of instruction. Although the curriculum framework suggests that the change in the language of instruction would be gradual, the organisation of learning does not allow for this. Even from Key Stage 1, students are “submerged” (Skutnabb-Kangass, 2000) in English, with subjects such as Social Studies taught in English. Social Studies is the one of the most essential subjects in the school curriculum in teaching about one’s own history, environment and culture, and thereby to strengthen one’s identity. It needs to be taught by local teachers, and in the mother tongue, in order for it to be effective. Furthermore, the development of bilingual competence could be made a core focus even at curriculum design and materials development stages. Addressing language of instruction as a cross-curricular issue that is focused on at subject level from the design stage onwards, is likely to lead to a positive change in the way Dhivehi will be viewed and taught. Thirdly, a distinction must be made between Dhivehi and English in terms of curricular content, assessment requirements and expected level of attainment. The current syllabi for both languages are of the same level. If Dhivehi is the native language of the country and English is a second language, it seems remarkable that students are expected to perform at an equal level in both languages. Rather than the end of school examination of Dhivehi being modelled on the structure and level of an English as a Second Language international exam, it is not unreasonable to expect a higher standard of performance and an assessment of all four skills when it comes to assessing Dhivehi as a first language.

5 Conclusion The development of globalisation has been the driving force behind the spread and dominance of English across the world (Tsui and Tollefson, 2007), and countries in the periphery such as the Maldives struggle to ensure that its population and workforce are well equipped with technology and effectively skilled in the global language to meet the demands of the modern world. Although Dhivehi is the national language of the country, because it is unique to the Maldives, and thus a minority language in the global context, it has little functional utility beyond its immediate territorial zone. The task faced by policy makers and educators alike is reminiscent of the challenge that Cummins (2008: 1) identified: “mobilizing students’ desire to affiliate with and belong to this wider community of speakers of the minority language.” Without such a desire in young people to identify themselves with their linguistic communities, the language cannot be expected to enjoy a dominant status in the community for much longer.Well planned 424

From a monolingual to a multilingual nation

and implemented revitalisation efforts are urgently needed to elevate the status of Dhivehi, build its corpus and promote its prestige so as to maintain its pride of place in Maldivian identity and culture.

References Afeef, H. (2014). Vaahaka Dhekkumugai bas mas huni kurun [Code mixing in conversation: A study of Dhivehi-English code mixing among Maldivian university students]. Unpublished Masters Dissertation. Maldives National University. Baldauf Jr, R. B. (2005). Language planning and policy: Recent trends, future directions. Paper presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference, Portland, Oregon, USA. Available: https​ ://es​pace.​libra​r y.uq​.edu.​au/vi​ew/UQ​:2451​8. Constitution of the Republic of Maldives. (2008). Corson, D. (1999). Language policy in schools: A resource for teachers and administrators. London:Taylor & Francis. Cummins, J. (2008). Foreword. AILA Review, 21, 1–3. doi 10.1075/aila.21.01cum. Dhivehi Bahuge Academy. (30 January 2018). Basthoora. Retrieved from http://basthoora.mv/. Educational Development Centre. (2000). National Curriculum. Malé: Educational Development Centre. Fritz, S. (2002). The Dhivehi language: A descriptive and historical grammar of Maldivian and its dialects. Beitraige zur Südasienforschung: Heidelberg. Garcia, O. and Li Wei (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave. Habeeb, I. (2014). What are the attitudes of Maldivian youth towards Dhivehi language? Maldives National Journal of Research, 2(1), 73–94. Lutfi, M. (2011). Dhivehi raajjeyge school manhajaai thauleem [School curriculum and education in the Maldives]. (n.p.) Maumoon, Y. (2002). A general overview of the Dhivehi language. Malé: National Centre for Linguistic and Historical Research. Mohamed, N. [Naashia]. (2013a). The challenge of medium of instruction: A view from Maldivian classrooms. Current Issues in Language Planning, 14(1), 185–203. Mohamed, N. [Naashia]. (2013b). Exploring language attitudes through linguistic landscaping: A case study from the Maldives. Paper presented at the 4th International Conference on Language and Education, Bangkok, Thailand. Mohamed, N. [Naseema]. (2005). Maldivian seafaring in the pre-Portuguese period. Malé: The National Centre for Linguistic and Historical Research. Mohamed, N. [Naashia]. (2015). Bilingual and bicultural identity development in adolescents. Paper presented at CAES International Conference: Faces of English:Theory, Practice and Pedagogy. 11–13 June 2015, Hong Kong. Mohamed, N. [Naashia]. (2016). Language of instruction and the development of biliteracy skills in children: A case study of a pre-school in the Maldives. In V. Murphy and M. Evangelou (Eds.), Early childhood education in English for speakers of other languages (pp. 187–194). London: British Council. Ministry of Education. (2009). Grade ekeh nimenvaairah liyan kiyan dhaskoh dhinun [Be literate by the end of Grade 1]. Circular 6/2006. Malé: Ministry of Education. National Bureau of Statistics. (2018). Statistical yearbook of Maldives, 2018. Malé: Ministry of Finance and Treasury. National Bureau of Statistics. (2015). Maldives population and housing census 2014. Malé: Ministry of Finance and Treasury. National Institute of Education. (2015). National curriculum. Malé: National Institute of Education, Ministry of Education. National Language Act. (2011). [Dhivehi Bahah Iskan Dhinumuge Qaanoon]. Romero-Frias, X. (2003). The Maldive islanders: A study of the popular culture of an ancient ocean kingdom. Barcelon: Nova Ethnographia Indica. Saeed, S. and Moreira, M. A. (2010). Learning from first time e-learning experiences for continuous professional development of school leaders in the Maldives: A case study. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 11(4), 130–148. Shakir, A. (2002). Vihivana garunuge thereygaa Dhivehi Raajje, 1 [Maldives in the 20th Century, Volume 1]. Malé: National Centre for Linguistic and Historical Research.

425

Naashia Mohamed Shakir, A. (2006). Vihivana garunuge thereygaa Dhivehi Raajje, 2 [Maldives in the 20th Century, Volume 2]. Malé: National Centre for Linguistic and Historical Research. Shiuna, M. and Sodiq, A. (2013). Improving education in the Maldives: Stakeholder perspectives on the Maldivian education. International Journal of Small Economies, 4(1), 23–38. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000). Linguistic genocide in education – or worldwide diversity and human rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Spolsky, B. (2003). Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. UNESCO-IBE. (2011). World data on education:VII Ed, 2010/2011. Geneva, Switzerland.

Further reading Fritz, S. (2002). The Dhivehi language: A descriptive and historical grammar of Maldivian and its dialects. Beitraige zur Südasienforschung: Heidelberg. Mohamed, N. (2013). The challenge of medium of instruction: A view from Maldivian classrooms. Current Issues in Language Planning, 14(1), 185–203. Mohamed, N. (2016). Language of instruction and the development of biliteracy skills in children: A case study of a pre-school in the Maldives. In V. Murphy and M. Evangelou (Eds.), Early childhood education in English for speakers of other languages. London: British Council. Yamada, S., Fujikawa, K. and Pangeni, K. P. (2015). Islanders’ educational choice: Determinants of the students’ performance in the Cambridge International Certificate Exams in the Republic of Maldives. International Journal of Educational Development, 41, 60–69.

426

PART V

Central Asia

30 LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN AFGHANISTAN Brian Spooner and Senzil Nawid

1  Background explaining the linguistic make-up of the country and the history of languages currently spoken Afghanistan lies at the historical crossroads of Central Asia, where before the Colonial Period the trade route into South Asia connected with the inter-urban trade route from the Mediterranean to China (along which Islam had spread in the 7th century). Since the middle of the first millennium BCE, most of this territory had been under the administration of Persian empires: the Achaemenians 550–330 BCE, the Parthians 247 BCE–224 CE, and the Sasanians 224–651). From 651 onwards under Islamic civilization the Caliphate continued the Sasanian court model of government—in Damascus under the Umayyads until 750, followed by the Abbasids in Baghdad. Although Arabic was the language that came with Islam, Persian was the language that came with the Sasanian court model, and Persian gradually replaced Arabic in the 8th century as the language of administration and all writing for non-religious purposes. As the size and complexity of the Islamic world increased and the Caliphate failed to maintain control, the same court model of government emerged in the urban centers that began to fill the power vacuums to the east, and continued to be the normative style of government in the eastern Islamic world, from Baghdad to China and India, including the territory that later became Afghanistan, until the Colonial Period. Persian was the language of administration and court poetry for the Samanid rulers in Samarqand and Bukhara (819–999), the Saffarids in Zaranj (861–1003), the Turkic Mamluks in Ghazni (975–1187), and the Seljuqs in various cities from the 11th to the 13th centuries. After the Seljuqs, came the larger empires of the Mongols centered in Karakorum (1206–1368), the Timurids in Samarqand (1370–1507), the Safavids in Isfahan (1501–1722), and the Mughals in Delhi (1526–1857), all following the same model, with Persian as the language of administration. As a result the whole of the Islamic world, to the east, west, north, and south of what is now Afghanistan, became Persianate, in the sense that the language of public affairs was New Persian (Persian as written in the Arabic script since the 8th century, with a large addition of Arabic vocabulary, comparable to the addition of Latin and Greek vocabulary of Western languages), known as dari, “the language of the court,” and later farsi, “the language of Fars,” or Pars, where the Sasanian Empire had been centered, from which the English “Persian.” As the language of administration, trade, belles lettres, and all public affairs, Persian became the koine, in 429

Brian Spooner and Senzil Nawid

speech and writing, irrespective of the variety of Iranian,Turkic, Dardic, and other languages that were spoken in local communities (cf. Edelman 1983, and Morgenstierne 1929 and 1975). In Afghanistan today, although Persian has never been the first language of the majority, it has been and continues to be the main language of public affairs, and the preferred second language of non-native speakers (cf. Schiffman and Spooner 2012: 1–28 and Spooner and Hanaway 2012). Afghanistan means “land of the Afghans.”The name “Afghan” has been used since pre-Islamic times as a Persian exonym for Pashtuns (also known as Pakhtuns or, in India, Pathans), most of whom live between the Hindu Kush mountains that stretch east–west from the Himalayas through the middle of Afghanistan and the Sulaiman mountains that mark the south-eastern edge of the Iranian Plateau in the center of Pakistan. Historically the Pashtuns lived by a mixed rural economy of pastoralism and small-scale agriculture, partly nomadic or transhumant, partly settled. Like other non-urban societies in the arid zone of the northern hemisphere, such as the Baluch, the Kurds, and the Bedouin, they are tribal. That is, they are organized in clusters of relatively small communities with separate identities based on patrilineal descent, and recognizing each other in terms of filiation and affinity, rather than property and occupation, or positions of authority. Afghanistan became a political entity in the middle of the 18th century. In 1747, the generals of Nader Shah Afshar (who had established a new empire in 1736, following the fall of the Safavids in 1722), after assassinating him near the city of Mashhad in what is now north-eastern Iran, each returned to their home community to fill the resulting power vacuum. One of the generals was a Pashtun, Ahmad Abdali, who returned to his home community in Qandahar (now in southern Afghanistan), where his tribal peers agreed to follow him with the title of Ahmad Shah Durrani in pursuit of a new empire. By the mid-1750s the new Afghan empire stretched from the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea to the shores of the Aral Sea, covering the territory that is now Afghanistan, plus most of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, parts of northeastern Iran, and the part of British India that later became Pakistan (including Kashmir). In 1773 Ahmad Shah’s son and successor, Timur, moved his capital away from his father’s tribal center of Qandahar to Kabul, which is situated at an altitude of 5,900 ft. in the southern foothills of the Hindu Kush on the extension of the Central Asian trade route into India. Although it was a Pashtun empire, as it expanded it was not the Pashtun language, Pashto, but Persian that became established as its language of administration, following the model of the empires it replaced. When the British began to expand their Indian empire from Bengal to the northwest at the beginning of the 19th century, they found the Afghan empire to be the largest in Central Asia, and sought to ally themselves with it against a possible overland attack from Napoleon in alliance with the Russian Czar. But it was not stable. The territory that is now the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, which had been a self-governing state since the middle of the 17th century, had reclaimed its independence in 1756. Kashmir was lost in 1820. In the next 60 years dynastic rivalries increased the instability. At the same time the expansion of both the British and the Russian Empires and their pursuit of conflicting interests in Central Asia (which came to be known as the Great Game) not only disrupted the historic trade routes, but fragmented the economic and political life of the Islamic world east of the Ottoman Empire. The British and the Russians defined the territories under their control in terms of what they saw as the dominant ethnic identities, and drew political boundaries according to the European model of the nation-state, replacing the Persianate urban power centers with a new political system, based on the Western concept of a territorial nation. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War “national” borders were similarly imposed by the British and the French on the Islamic territories west of Iran, with unforeseen consequences down to current times. 430

Language education policy in Afghanistan

The British and the Russians agreed on the current northern border of Afghanistan in 1871. The British drew the southern border in 1893, known as the Durand Line (after Sir Mortimer Durand, the English bureaucrat who was commissioned to draw it). It has never been accepted by Afghanistan, because it excluded over half the Pashto-speaking population, which was left in British India (the part that was to become Pakistan). This geo-political change was particularly transformative for Afghanistan, and for the subject-matter of this chapter, because of the consequences for the relative socio-political status of each of the languages used within the new borders. In the new nation-state of Afghanistan, the Pashtuns, though now somewhat less than half the total population (no census has been conducted), remembered their status in the earlier empire, and knowing that their Shah was a Pashtun, assumed that the national language should be Pashto. But most of them were not literate, and the remainder of the population did not know Pashto. Despite the linguistic heterogeneity and universally low literacy rate all remembered the historical status of written Persian, which was the most important, and most useful, second language for all non-Persian speakers. Almost all who were literate, which included only a small proportion of Pashtuns, were literate in Persian only. The irony of the survival of Afghanistan into the 20th century, despite the instability of the 19th century, was that it had resulted from the need of the expanding Russian and British Empires to maintain a buffer state between them in order to avoid conflict. But as a result of the way these borders were drawn, Afghanistan had become a mainly non-urban country with a mainly tribal population, cut off from the rest of the Islamic world, and from the historical trade routes of Central Asia. It now contained less than half the total population of Pashtuns, and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan saw the majority of all Pashtuns as a minority in the neighbouring state of Pakistan across a border that they did not recognize. In less than a hundred years Afghanistan had been reduced from a powerful empire on the model of earlier empires to a situation in which the relationship between the identity of the state and the role of Persian was much less clear. When the British withdrew from India in 1947, leaving Pakistan as a new state, Afghanistan contested the border. Since not only the Pashtuns of Pakistan but also most of Pakistan’s territory had been part of the Afghan empire before the arrival of the British, there was an assumption that it should be returned to Afghanistan when the British left. In order to make this case the Afghan government advanced a claim for a new state of Pashtunistan, which would include Pakistan’s provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly the North West Frontier Province, or NWFP), leaving most of its other two provinces, Panjab and Sindh, to Pakistan. The campaign was unsuccessful, and the boundary continues to be a source of problems between the two countries. It is in this historical context that the Pashtuns of Afghanistan have become progressively more sensitive to the national status of their language, especially in relation to Persian, since the latter part of the 19th century.The agreement between the Russians and the British, which created this situation, was sealed in 1880 when the British were able to place a descendant of the Durrani dynasty (`Abdu’r-Rahman Khan) on the throne in Kabul with a mandate to manage Afghanistan as a Protectorate State: the British agreed to withdraw all troops, pay an annual subsidy, and recognize Afghanistan’s internal autonomy in exchange for Abdu’r-Rahman’s agreement to accept the British government’s control over its foreign policy—a situation different from but reminiscent of the status of the so-called “Princely States” of British India. But the British did not understand the inter-ethnic (and linguistic) difficulties entailed in this mandate (many of which are described in graphic detail in Lee 1996). `Abdu’r-Rahman Khan was ruthless in his efforts to break up the patchwork of Afghanistan’s multiple ethno-linguistic communities, and create an integrated Afghan national community within the new borders in accordance with his mandate. 431

Brian Spooner and Senzil Nawid

The process is not yet complete, and `Abdu’r-Rahman Khan’s methods may have been counter-productive, in that they exacerbated existing ethnic and linguistic rivalries, which have become more active under his successors.What had been known since 1747 as another instance in the long list of empires within the Persianate Islamic world, beginning with the Samanids in the list above, had been reduced in size, changed in ethnolinguistic composition, and sandwiched between two colonial empires, but without any of the benefits (or otherwise) of a Western colonial administration. The replacement of the Russian Empire by the Soviet Union after 1917 rigidified Afghanistan’s northern border and its separation from the Islamic territories of Central Asia. As a result of the Third Anglo–Afghan War in 1919 it won back from the British the right to manage its own foreign policy and become fully independent. Since then successive governments have promoted national unity and Afghan national identity by means of government-controlled media and the expansion of a unified system of education. This policy was for the most part successful until the emergence of an ethnically oriented political party, Setam-i Milli (“National Oppression”), in 1968, which strongly opposed the rule of the Pashtuns and the importance accorded in the latest constitution (1964) to Pashto as Afghanistan’s national language.Then in 1978 the communist regime’s policy of dividing the population into distinct ethnic and linguistic entities (according to the Soviet model of natsional’nosti, or “nationalities”) and the resulting formation of ethnically based mujahidin resistance groups against the communist regime, reinforced ethnic and linguistic divisions, which have continued until today. However, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union on its northern border in 1991 Afghanistan has been able to develop a policy for relations with the newly independent Central Asian Islamic states: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, with which it shares ethnolinguistic communities. Each of these changes, all within 100 years, has had implications for the inter-ethnolinguistic relations within the modern state, and for language policy.

2  Review and critical discussion of earlier language education policies Until the latter part of the 19th century, the cultural value of Persian, which had been anchored in its standard written form by the interests of a social class of professional writers (monshi), for all public interaction, irrespective of the native languages of the people involved, was the unquestioned basis of an informal language policy. However, there are no census data or any other reliable information on the size of each ethnolinguistic community, which included a variety of different Iranian, Indo-Aryan (including Dardic and Nuristani in the east), and TurkoMongol languages (in the north), plus Arabic (in a few northern villages), and a Dravidian language, Brahui, in a few communities along the southern and south-western borders. As a result of Afghanistan’s “crossroads” location, when Babur (a descendent of Tamerlane), who founded the Mughal dynasty (1526–1857) in India, captured Kabul in 1504, he found a dozen languages being spoken: Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Mongol, Hindi, Pashto, Pashai, Parachi, Gabri, Birki, and Lamghani (Farhadi 1955 and 2003: 722; Kieffer 1982; Babur 1922). The political history of the last 500 years has not reduced this linguistic diversity. Such diversity generates multilingualism, and with the growth of national institutions and public education, despite the linguistic freedom written into the constitution, provides opportunities for language choice which can be expected to lead to a gradual reduction in the number of languages spoken. However, despite the disappearance of a number of small local non-written languages, the diversity continues to be considerable. It is the result of a history in which most communities were small, isolated by the topography in mountain valleys, with little to bring them into contact with the inter-urban trade networks of Central Asia. With the growth of state institutions over the past century many parts of the country (but still not all) have come 432

Language education policy in Afghanistan

into closer contact with the national bureaucracy. Persian remains the main language of writing, both for administration and for literature and scholarship, and is the most widely spoken. In Afghanistan (since 1964) it has been known again as dari, as distinct from the Persian which is known as farsi in Iran and tojiki (since 1927) in Tajikistan, though the differences are no greater than the differences between the English of different Anglo-phone countries (cf. Spooner 2012a). It is the native language of people who identify ethnically as Tajiks (mostly in the northern half of the country), as Hazara (in Hazarajat, which is the west-central part of the central Hindu Kush/Paropamisus/Koh-i Baba mountains, cf. Dulling 1973), as Aimaq (in the northwest), and others in the Badghis, Farah, Ghur, Herat, and Laghman regions, but is also the most common second language of others. Although written Persian is the same throughout the Persianate region, spoken Persian differs not only between the various Perso-phone countries but also within Afghanistan, though not beyond mutual intelligibility. Probably half of the population speaks one or another dialect of Persian as a first language, and another 25% speak it as a second language. The next most widely used language, both spoken and written, is Pashto, which is the native language of over 40% of the population (estimates vary). Although Pashto and Persian are both now understood to be official languages, the literacy rate is much lower in Pashto than in Persian, and while literacy provides a standard form of Pashto for the whole country, this standard form, which was defined by the Pashto Academy in Kabul (now in the Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan) in 1978, is not universally accepted, and spoken Pashto varies from community to community (cf. Hakala 2012). After Persian and Pashto, other Afghan languages in order of importance are, first: Uzbek, which is the national language of Uzbekistan. Uzbek (formerly known as Chaghatai) has the longest history of literacy among the various Turkic languages of Central Asia, and is spoken in the north of Afghanistan (cf. Miran 1977). The next is Balochi, a northwest Iranian language closely related to Kurdish, which is spoken in the southwest (cf. Elfenbein 1966, and Spooner 2012b). Other languages spoken by smaller communities in various parts of the country include Pashai and other Dardic (Indo-Aryan) languages including Gawarbai, Sawi, and Tirahi in the Himalayan foothills on either side of the eastern border with Pakistan; and Ormuri and Parachi, Iranian languages, in the same general area (cf. Redard 1971). There are also Gujuri-speaking nomads and Jat-speaking gypsies from Pakistan moving about in this part of the country in the summer. Several thousand Hindus and Sikhs, who appear to have begun moving north into Central Asia and Russia as traders as early as the 17th century are still to be found speaking Panjabi in Kabul and Jalalabad, and Sindhi in Qandahar. According to Morgenstierne (1929, 1975, 1979), there were still pockets of other Indo-Iranian languages in the eastern province of Nuristan. With regard to non-Indo-European languages, an archaic form of Mongolian was still spoken in villages near Herat, and a Mongolian–Persian glossary in verse was discovered in a village by the name of Zirni and published in Japan (Iwamura 1961). There are also smaller subgroups of speakers of other eastern Turkic languages in the north, such as Kazakhi, Uyghur, and Kyrghyzi (in the Pamir mountains, where a few Pamiri languages are also still found in isolated villages). The western Turkic languages are also represented by Turkmeni and Afshari. Arabic was still spoken in a few northern villages in the middle of the 20th century, presumably left over from the Arab-Islamic conquest of the 7th century or brought in by Tamerlane at the end of the 14th century. Finally, Brahui, a Dravidian language found mainly among the Baloch in the Kalat area of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, was found among some Baloch communities along the borders with Pakistan and Iran. While there is no official count of the number of languages spoken, and no formal statistics on the number of speakers of each, a senior scholar in Kabul before the 1978 revolution, Dr. A. G. Rawan Farhadi (2003), pronounced the latest count to be 48. 433

Brian Spooner and Senzil Nawid

Language began to become a policy issue in Afghanistan towards the end of the 19th century (cf. Nawid 2012). But the way it has developed since then is a product of Afghanistan’s earlier history, and the earlier historical value of each of the languages.The changing international context since the 19th century has affected both Western approaches to the languages and Afghan concerns about language in relation to their need for a clear national identity, separate from Iran (cf.Yarshater 1971). However, whereas all the neighboring countries (except Iran) were entirely formed by the British or the Russians (Imperial or Soviet), Afghanistan and Iran, which were not divided by any political boundaries before 1747 are now each successor states to a significant historical empire. In the two and a half centuries since its foundation in the middle of the 18th century, what we know today as Afghanistan progressed from being an intermediate territory, frequently a battleground, between the political centers of Iran to the west, the Uzbek Khanates of Khwarazm and Bukhara in Central Asia to the north, and the Mughals in India (Delhi) to the south, to being the most powerful empire in central and southwest Asia under the early Durrani Shahs (1747–1820), with territory extending into Central Asia and South Asia, from capitals first in Qandahar (until 1776), then Kabul.Then it became sandwiched between the expanding Russian and British Empires in the 19th century, the recipient of American aid starting in 1948 after the British had left India, a constitutional monarchy in 1964, and a Presidency in 1973. The communist takeover in 1978 led to civil war and Soviet-Russian occupation in 1979. The aftermath of Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to Taliban rule in 1996, which was terminated by American occupation in 2001. Afghanistan finally became the nation-state of today with a new constitution in 2004. Each stage of this process has increased the complexity of the relationship between the languages spoken by the people included within its current borders—from a situation in which Persian was the only important language, to the emergence of the movement to make Pashto the national language in the late 19th century, to the recognition of the need to recognize the language of every community. The process began to intensify with the beginning of the formal movement for making Pashto the national language in the 1870s—a movement that would clarify the country’s Afghan (Pashtun) cultural identity within its Persianate heritage. The first stage in the process was to change all official titles from their Persian form (mostly coined in the Iranian form of New Persian, or farsi, and adopted from Iran) to Pashto forms, for use in all Afghan languages. Amir Shir `Ali Khan (reg. 1863–1879) changed all military titles, and gave instructions for the military to use Pashto for all commands. He also introduced a Pashto title (loynab) for “prime minister,” but that was later dropped.The problem was that since Persian had been the language of administration in the region since the pre-Islamic Persian empires, all administrative vocabulary was Persian, while Pashto and other languages had no such vocabulary. The language issue became important again during the reign of Amir Habibullah (reg. 1901– 1919), when Mahmud Tarzi, a well-known writer and nationalist, and editor of a Kabul newspaper, Seraju’l-Akhbar (“The Lantern of the News”), published an article (September 12, 1915) declaring that Persian was the official language and Pashto the national language of Afghanistan. He was not opposed to the designation of Persian as Afghanistan’s official language, because of its historical and continued international importance in the Persianate region, and he continued to write in Persian. But he considered that “Islam, Afghan history, and Pashto together formed the mortar that would permit the country’s ethnic mosaic to be molded into a single nation” (Gregorian 1969: 175). Literary activity increased in the following decade, under King Amanullah (reg. 1919–1929). Some newspapers began to publish in Pashto, and a “Pashto Society” (Pashto Maraka), was established in Qandahar with government support. At the loya jirga (“Grand Assembly”) in 1924, 434

Language education policy in Afghanistan

which ratified Afghanistan’s first constitution, a Pashto title (tolwak or “sole authority”) was adopted for the King, and not only the constitution but all government regulations were translated into Pashto. However, the Constitution did not include any statement on language. The following king, Nadir Shah (reg. 1930–1933) used the Academie Francaise (which he had learned about while living in exile in France during the reign of the previous shah) as a model for the development of a greater degree of national awareness, including the relationship of language to national identity. He established Afghanistan’s Literary Society (with the Persian title: Anjoman-i Adabi), which published an historical and literary journal, the Kabul Gazette (Majalla-i Kabul), and a yearbook (Salnama-i Kabul). The Society “pursued four aims: to study and clarify the Afghan historical heritage; to study and promote Afghan literature and folklore; to study and promote the Pashto language; and to spread knowledge about Afghanistan and its culture” (Gregorian 1969: 348). Growing national awareness in the 1930s was accompanied by increasing emphasis on learning Pashto. Since Persian was either the official language or an important language in all neighboring countries and all Afghanistan’s major ethno-linguistic communities overlapped into one or another of these countries, learning Pashto would help Afghans to increase their sense of a distinctive Afghan identity. It was decided to change the medium of instruction in public schools to Pashto. But non-Pashto speakers, who were used to learning Persian if they did not grow up with it, resented the idea of learning Pashto as a third language (Shahrani 1984: 55). There was also a shortage of trained Pashto teachers in the non-Pashto-speaking areas.The effort failed, but both Persian and Pashto remained “official” languages. In 1936 Pashto was declared the official language of Afghanistan, and two major newspapers, Anis (Comrade) and Islah (Reform), became bilingual dailies. Other publications in the provinces as well as the capital began to publish articles in Pashto. In 1937 the Advisory Board of Education introduced regulations making Pashto the medium of instruction in elementary schools throughout Afghanistan. The name of the Literary Society, which was now under the Ministry of Education, was changed to the Pashto Academy (in Pashto: Pashto Tolena) and expanded for the purpose of producing Pashto dictionaries and standardizing Pashto grammar and pronunciation. The name of the Kabul Gazette and Yearbook were changed to Pashto (De Kabul Mojalla and De Kabul Kalanai; later in 1941 it became De Afghanistan Kalanai). But despite the Pashto titles most of the content continued to be in Persian, because despite government encouragement, Pashto literacy was not catching up with Persian literacy, and Persian was restored as an official language. Rishtiya, the newly appointed Minister of Press, writes in his memoir that the new Minister of Education, Najibullah Torwayana, a Pashtun related to the royal family, believed that changing the medium of instruction from Persian to Pashto was a big mistake that was causing irreparable harm to Afghanistan’s educational system. On the basis of his recommendation educational instruction became bilingual. In Pashto-speaking areas, Pashto remained the medium of instruction, but students were required to study Persian as a second language. In all other regions, instruction was in Persian, and students were required to study Pashto as a second language. The Pashto Academy continued the effort to create Pashto equivalents for all Persian titles of all the modern institutions, public positions, honorifics, and forms of address. The creation of Pakistan in 1947 provided a new incentive for Afghanistan’s Pashtun nationalists. Having never accepted the Durand Line as their southern border, they now saw more than half of their entire community handed over to a new state.This coincided with the formation in Afghanistan of a new organization of Pashtun intellectuals calling for a “constitutional monarchy, separation of powers, free elections and civil liberties” (Ruttig 2006: 4). As part of their effort to promote the Pashto language they supported the call for a new state of Pashtunistan, that 435

Brian Spooner and Senzil Nawid

would include all the Pashtuns (and all the Baloch, the neighboring tribal community, culturally similar, but speaking a different language, who had been included earlier in the Afghan empire) of what was now Pakistan—a return to the political situation of Ahmad Shah Durrani in the mid-18th century. The idea of Pashtunistan (but not of constitutional monarchy) was aggressively promoted by Muhammad Daoud, a cousin of Zahir Shah, who became prime minister in 1953. Muhammad Daoud demanded the separation of Pashtun territory from Pakistan. Pashto became the medium for radio propaganda against Pakistan, and the use of Pashto in Afghanistan increased. But Persian continued to be the main language of public business throughout the country. The Pashtunistan campaign was unsuccessful and Daoud was obliged to resign in 1963 in order to allow diplomatic relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan to be restored. In 1964 Zahir Shah introduced a new constitution, making Afghanistan a constitutional monarchy that no longer reserved ministerial positions for members of the royal family, and changing the name of the Persian language as used in Afghanistan from Farsi to the original Dari to distinguish it from the language of Iran. (In Tajikistan it had been renamed Tojiki, the language of the Tajiks, under Stalin, for similar reasons, to distinguish it from the language of non-Soviet neighboring countries.) The new constitution was approved by the newly constituted representative assembly, and the conflicting demands for a national language seemed to be settled. Article 3 of the new constitution stated that from among the languages of Afghanistan, Pashto and Dari shall be the official languages. It also declared Pashto as the national language, while Article 35 announced that the state would prepare and implement an effective program for strengthening the national language. Subsequent to the announcement of the constitution, the government introduced specific measures to achieve this objective. The Ministries of Education and Press were instructed to work out a practicable plan for promotion of the Pashto language in cooperation with other governmental departments. New regulations were passed requiring Dari-speaking civil servants to attend after-hour Pashto classes. Failure to attend resulted in the reduction of monthly pay. A Pashto literacy campaign was also launched in 1968 under the Ministry of Education and the Pashto Academy, with some assistance from UNESCO, and the representation of Pashto in Kabul University was strengthened. Pashto and Dari have remained the two official languages, and since the majority of civil servants were not Pashto speakers they continued to be offered a financial incentive to learn Pashto under Zahir Shah. But there continued to be some anxiety in the Pashtun community about the status of their language. Under the constitutional monarchy the rate of social change in Afghanistan accelerated, increasing the linguistic awareness of several of the smaller ethnic communities. Several political organizations emerged, including a communist party, and the names of people who were to play significant parts in the more violent change of the late 1970s began to be heard. Although ethnicity and language continued to be significant factors, ideological factors were also emerging. Noticing this, Mohammad Daoud took advantage of Zahir Shah’s absence from the country in 1973 to oust him and take over the government as President. But he was unable to manage the new political forces. In April 1978, as he was preparing to arrest the leaders of the communist party, they were able to use the air force to bomb his palace, kill him and his family, and form a new, communist, government. Fearing an Islam-inspired reaction to the atheistic reputation of communism, the new government declared that it had nothing to do with communism, and announced its commitment to the equality of all ethno-linguistic communities. In 1980 it made the languages of seven ethnic groups national languages: Pashto, Dari, Uzbeki, Turkmani, Nuristani, Pashai, and Balochi. Radio Kabul began to broadcast regular news bulletins in each language. Newspapers were printed in each language, and the Ministry of Public Education began planning for the 436

Language education policy in Afghanistan

p­ roduction of classroom texts in each language for use in elementary schools. But the majority of active members in the new government were Pashtuns, some of whom had played a part in the earlier movements to promote Pashto and Pashtunistan, and their real intention was simply to weaken Dari in order to facilitate the promotion of Pashto. However, the party (the People’s Democratic party of Afghanistan, or PDPA) was split into two factions known as Khalq (meaning “masses” or “common people”) and Parcham (meaning “flag”), which were at odds with each other—because of tribal rivalries as well as ideological differences. The dominant faction, Khalq, wanted to legislate a transformation of Afghan society according to the Marxist-Leninist model. This strategy was not supported by Parcham, with the result that when the inevitable Islamic reaction began in the following year the government was too weak to manage it, and in December 1979 the Soviet army invaded in order to preserve the communist system. During the remainder of the communist period, until the Soviet army withdrew in 1989, the recognition of the seven languages of all the major ethno-linguistic groups continued (albeit with the recognition of Dari and Pashto as the official languages), and was included in another new constitution that was introduced in 1987, in the following terms: From among the languages of Pashto, Dari, Uzbeki, Turkmani, Balochi, Pashai, Nuristani, Pamiri, Arabic and other languages spoken in the country, Pashto and Dari are the official languages of the state… “The Turkic languages (Uzbeki and Turkmani), and Balochi, Pashai, Nuristani and Pamiri are—in addition to Pashto and Dari—the third official language in areas where the majority speaks them.The practical modalities for implementation of this provision shall be specified by law…” “The state adopts and implements effective plans for strengthening, and developing all the languages of Afghanistan…” “Publications and radio and television broadcasting are allowed in all languages spoken in the country. (Article 16 of Chapter One) The state is also required to provide the opportunity to teach native languages in the areas where they are spoken. (Chapter 2, Article 22) If parties involved in a case do not know the language in which the trial is conducted, they have the right to understand the material and documents related to the case through an interpreter and the right to speak in their mother language in the court. (Chapter 7, Article 20) But the most tangible result of this legislation, rather than the weakening of Dari, was that it formalized awareness of the divisions between the different communities, and this was reflected in the organization of the resistance fighters (mujahidin), and in the later rise of regional ethnic warlords. The Soviet-backed regime with this new constitution survived after the Soviet withdrawal until 1992, when the Mujahidin took over the capital, Kabul, and the government, which they re-formed as “the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.” But Kabul dissolved into civil war between ethnic factions and warlords, each of whom took over one of the major ethnic regions of the country. The President, Burhanu’d-Din Rabbani, elected by a “Religious Leadership Council,” was supported mainly by Persian- and Turkic-speaking communities in the north of the country, and Pashto lost all support in the administration. Even the language of the national anthem was changed back from Pashto to Dari. 437

Brian Spooner and Senzil Nawid

In 1996 the situation was reversed again, when the capital, Kabul, was taken by the Taliban (the name means “students of a madrasa” or religious school, and it was in the madrasas of refugee camps along the Pakistan border during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that the movement had begun), who were mostly Pashtuns. In spite of support from Pakistan, the Taliban leader, Mulla Omar, would not give in to Pakistan’s pressure to accept the Durand Line as the official boundary between the two countries. The Taliban did not announce a language policy, but during their time in power, from 1996 until the American invasion in 2001, Pashto was the only language in use for any administrative activity in the capital, and non-Pashtuns were at a severe disadvantage. However, this situation was due not to ideology or explicit policy but to the fact that most of the leaders were not urban, educated Pashtuns, but from rural communities where Dari was not known. The Taliban were removed from power by the American invasion in October 2001, and another new constitution was accepted three years later in 2004, which remains in force in 2017. This current constitution does not include any designation of a national language. But Article 4 includes a statement that: The nation of Afghanistan is composed of all individuals who possess the citizenship of Afghanistan. The nation of Afghanistan shall be comprised of Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmans, Balochis, Pachais, Nuristanis, Aymaqs, Arabs, Qirghiz, Qizilbash, Gujurs, and Brahuis. Article 16, however, states that: From amongst Pashto, Dari, Uzbeki, Turkmani, Balochi, Pachai, Nuristani, Pamiri and other current languages in the country, Pashto and Dari shall be the official languages of the state. In areas where the majority of the people speak in any one of Uzbeki, Turkmani, Pachai, Nuristani, Balochi or Pamiri languages, any of the aforementioned languages, in addition to Pashto and Dari, shall be the third official language, the usage of which shall be regulated by law. The state shall design and apply effective programs to foster and develop all languages of Afghanistan. Usage of all current languages in the country shall be permissible in press publications and mass media. Past academic and national administrative terminology and usage in the country shall be preserved.

3  Review and critical discussion of current language education policy The constitution of 2004 declared that the state shall adopt necessary measures to foster education at all levels, develop religious teachings, and regulate and improve the conditions of mosques, religious schools, as well as religious centers (Article 17). It called for free education for all citizens up to the BA level, and mandatory intermediate education throughout Afghanistan. Article 40 maintains that “the state shall design and implement effective programs and prepare the ground for teaching mother tongues in areas where they are spoken”. As in the pre-war period, Dari remains the medium of instruction in all non-Pashto-speaking areas, but teaching of Pashto is mandatory in all non-Pashto-speaking schools. In Pashto-speaking regions, Pashto is the medium of instruction, but students are required to study Dari, as one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. Unlike the Constitution of 1964 under King Zahir Shah, the Constitution of 2004 does not designate Pashto as Afghanistan’s national language. However, in Article 20 it designates a 438

Language education policy in Afghanistan

national anthem in Pashto. The new anthem was introduced shortly after the ratification of the Constitution of 2004. It names all of Afghanistan’s “tribes,” and emphasizes their allegiance to Islam and the unity among all the various ethnic groups that call Afghanistan their home: This land is Afghanistan. It is the pride of every Afghan, The land of peace, the land of the sword. Its sons are all brave. This is the country of every Afghan. Land of Balochis and Uzbeks, Pashtuns and Hazaras, Turkmans and Tajiks, With them Arabs and Gojars, Pamiris, Nuristanis, Brahuis and Qizilbash, Also Aimaqs and Pashais. This Land will shine forever, Like the sun in the blue sky. In the chest of Asia. It will remain its heart forever. We will follow the One God. We all say, God is Great. We all say, God is Great. After the fall of the Taliban, the Karzai administration received substantial international aid to restore the education system of Afghanistan, which had been destroyed during three decades of war and political turmoil. A large segment of the Afghan population, children and adults alike, had no access to basic education and training. As a result of international aid, by the end of 2003, around 7,000 schools were operating in 20 of the 32 provinces. In addition to the two main languages, English is taught as second language in schools throughout the country. English courses are also offered by independent institutions. The US Embassy in Kabul, with support from the State Department’s Office of English Language Programs, assists a host of programs across the country to make the study of English more accessible to students and teachers. English Language Specialists are US academics and professionals in the field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).

4  The future place, status, and roles of the relevant languages While problems of insecurity and political uncertainty continue to complicate the situation both in Afghanistan and in the Pashtun areas of Pakistan, it is unlikely that there will be any further changes in language policy in the foreseeable future, that more non-Pashto-speakers in Afghanistan will become proficient in Pashto, or that the national status of any of the other languages will change. In recent years, however, Pashto has gained increased prominence through the media with several television channels broadcasting primarily in Pashto.

5 Conclusion The history of language policy in Afghanistan is an interesting example of the effects of two common processes that have been experienced in most parts of the world in recent centuries: 439

Brian Spooner and Senzil Nawid

vernacularization and printing. These processes began in Europe. Dante’s Divine Comedy, which was written in Italian instead of Latin in the 13th century, is an early example of vernacularization. French, English, and German followed in the succeeding centuries. As printing facilitated the mass production of books after the Reformation, and other forms of political and economic change generated a demand for literacy, the written languages that had been used over large areas for trade, administration, and belles lettres from the Ancient into the Mediaeval World (Chinese, Greek, Latin, Persian, and Prakrit) were increasingly replaced by written forms of the local spoken languages (cf. Anderson 1983). They began later in the Islamic world, where literacy was controlled not by the religious authority of an institution like the Church, but by a social class of scribes and literati that was jealous of its privileges which were vulnerable to the spread of literacy. Pashto began to develop a tradition of literacy only in the 17th century. Printing did not become common anywhere in the Persianate region until after 1900.The history of Afghanistan and the effects of the Colonial Period, followed by the Neo-colonial Period, produced a different process, the final result of which will be unclear until the problems of political change that began with the communist takeover in 1978 are finally resolved, and the disagreement with Pakistan about its southern border along the Durand Line is settled—factors that will affect the longer-term relationship between Pashto and Persian in Afghan national language policy.

References Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London:Verso. Babur, Z. al-D. M. (1922). The Babur-nama in English (Memoirs of Babur). (Trans. A. Su. Beveridge), (2 vols.). London: Luzac & Co. Dulling, G. K. (1973). The Hazaragi dialect of Afghan Persian. London: Central Asian Research Centre. Edelman, D. I. (1983). The Dardic and Nuristani languages. (Trans. E.H. Tsipan). Moscow: Nauka, Central Dept. of Oriental Literature. Elfenbein, J. H. (1966). The Balochi language. A dialectology with texts. London: Royal Asiatic Society. Gregorian,V. (1969). The emergence of modern Afghanistan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hakala, W. (2012). Locating ‘Pashto’ in Afghanistan: A survey of secondary sources. In H. F. Schiffman and B. Spooner (Eds.), Language policy and language conflict in Afghanistan and its neighbours (pp. 53–88). Leiden: Brill. Iwamura, S. (1961). The Zirni manuscripts: A Persian-Mongolian glossary and grammar. Kyoto: Kyoto University. Kieffer, C. M. (1982). Afghanistan v. languages. In Encyclopaedia Iranica, online edition. Available at http:// www.iranicaonline.org/articles/afghanistan-v-languages Lee, J. L. (1996). The ancient supremacy. Leiden: Brill. Miran, M. A. (1977). The functions of national languages in Afghanistan. New York: Afghanistan Council, Asia Society. Morgenstierne, G. (1929). Indo-Iranian frontier languages. Oslo: H. Aschehoug Co. Morgenstierne, G. (1975). Irano-Dardica, Beitraege zur Iranistik, Book V. Wiesbaden: Dr Ludwig Reichert Verlag. Morgenstierne, G. (1979). The linguistic stratification of Afghanistan. Afghan Studies, 2, 23–33. Nawid. S. (2012). Language policy in Afghanistan: Linguistic diversity and national unity. In H. F. Schiffman and B. Spooner (Eds.), Language policy and language conflict in Afghanistan and its neighbours (pp. 31–52). Leiden: Brill. Redard, G. (1971). Other Iranian languages. In T. Sebeok (Ed.), Current trends in linguistics (Vol. 6, pp. 99–135). The Hague: De Gruyter. Rawan Farhadi, A. G. (2003). The languages of Afghanistan. In C. Adle, I. Habib and K. M. Baipakov (Eds.), History of civilizations of Central Asia (Vol.V, Development in contrast: from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century) (pp. 711–715). Paris: UNESCO. Ruttig,T. (2006). Islamists, leftists—and a void in the center: Afghanistan’s political parties and where they come from (1902–2006). Kabul; Berlin: Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

440

Language education policy in Afghanistan Schiffman, H. F. and Spooner, B. (2012). Afghan languages in the larger context of Central and South Asia. In H. F. Schiffman and B. Spooner (Eds.), Language policy and language conflict in Afghanistan and its neighbours (pp. 1–28). Leiden: Brill. Shahrani, N. (1984). Marxist revolution and Islamic resistance in Afghanistan. In Na. Shahrani and R. Canfield (Eds.), Revolutions and rebellions in Afghanistan: Anthropological perspectives (pp. 94–118). Berkeley: University of California Press. Spooner, B. (2012a). Persian, Farsi, Dari, Tajiki: Language names and language policies. In H. F. Schiffman and B. Spooner (Eds.), Language policy and language conflict in Afghanistan and its neighbours (pp. 89–117). Leiden: Brill. Spooner, B. (2012b). Balochi: Towards a biography of the language. In H. F. Schiffman and B. Spooner (Eds.), Language policy and language conflict in Afghanistan and its neighbours (pp. 319–336). Leiden: Brill. Spooner, B. and Hanaway, W. L. (2012). Persian as koine: Written Persian in world-historical perspective. In B. Spooner and W. L. Hanaway (Eds.), Literacy in the Persianate world:Writing and the social order (pp. 1–68). Museum Publications, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Wheeler, S. (1895). The Amir Abdur Rahman. London: Bliss, Sands and Foster. Yarshater, E. (1971). Iran and Afghanistan. In T. Sebeok (Ed.), Current trends in linguistics (Vol. 6, pp. 669– 689). The Hague: De Gruyter.

Further reading Kieffer, C. M. (1982). Afghanistan v. languages. In Encyclopaedia Iranica, online edition. Available at http:// www.iranicaonline.org/articles/afghanistan-v-languages. This is a long article with special sections on the languages of Afghanistan, on Pashto, on Parachi, and on political history, administration and ethnography. Schiffman, H. F. and Spooner, B. (2012). Afghan languages in the larger context of Central and South Asia. In H. F. Schiffman and B. Spooner (Eds.), Language policy and language conflict in Afghanistan and its neighbours (pp. 1–28). Leiden: Brill.

441

31 LANGUAGE PLANNING AND LANGUAGE POLICY IN KAZAKHSTAN Timothy Reagan

1 Introduction The independent countries which emerged in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union offer a fascinating series of case studies of language planning and language policy in multilingual settings, and Kazakhstan has been no exception to this. Language policy and planning matters have proven to be exceptionally controversial in many post-Soviet nations, and while in Kazakhstan language policy has been an important focus of a number of government policies and programs, what is especially interesting in the Kazakhstani case is that such matters have been, by and large, far less contentious than elsewhere in post-Soviet states. The Republic of Kazakhstan is a land-locked country spread across a huge geographic expanse in Central Asia, bordering Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and in the west the Caspian Sea. The ninth largest country in the world by size, but with a population of only some 18 million people, Kazakhstan is a nation rich in natural resources, with a relatively stable political and economic system.1 Linguistically, it is a multilingual society in which two languages – Kazakh, the official language of the country, and Russian – play socially, politically, economically, and educationally dominant roles. In this chapter, I will discuss the historical tensions and challenges with respect to language policies in Kazakhstan, and explore the ideological issues which have framed these policies.

2  The demographic reality In the case of Kazakhstan, the country displays ethnolinguistic diversity, including some 69 languages (Arenov & Kalmykov, 1997) (see Table 31.1). Only two of these languages (Kazakh and Russian) have more than 500,000 speakers, however, with more than half having fewer than 5,000 speakers. According to the 2009 census, of a total population at that time of approximately 16.6 million, 63.1% were ethnically Kazakh, while 23.7% were ethnically Russian – but only 64% of the population claimed to speak Kazakh as either a first or second language, while 97% indicated that they spoke Russian as either their native language or as a second language. In other words, although native speakers of Kazakh outnumber native speakers of Russian by a margin of roughly 5:2, there are nearly 12 million second language speakers of Russian in Kazakhstan while there are only about 770,000 second language speakers of Kazakh (see Table 31.2). 442

Language policy in Kazakhstan Table 31.1 Language diversity in Kazakhstan Number of native speakers of language

Number of Languages languages this size

>1,000,000 500,000 to 1,000,000 250,000 to 499,999 100,000 to 124,999 50,000 to 99,999 25,000 to 49,999 10,000 to 24,999 5,000 to 9,999

2 0 4 3 3 6 7 7

1,000 to 4,999

13