On the 25th anniversary of International Mother Language Day, a report was compiled to commemorate a quarter-century of committed efforts aimed at preserving and promoting the use of mother tongues.
UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) team reports that almost 40% of the worldwide population lacks access to education in a language they speak or comprehend.
In certain low- and middle-income countries, this percentage increases to 90%. “Over 250 million learners are impacted,” stated a senior member of the GEM team.
In a report titled ‘Languages matter: Global guidance on multilingual education’, the team recommended that nations adopt multilingual education policies and practices to develop educational systems that benefit all learners.
The report indicated that although countries are increasingly recognizing the importance of home language, the adoption of policies related to it remains constrained. Challenges to implementation encompass a lack of teacher capacity for utilizing home languages, the absence of materials in home languages, and resistance from the community.
On the 25th anniversary of International Mother Language Day, a report was compiled to commemorate a quarter-century of committed efforts aimed at preserving and promoting the use of mother tongues.
This coincides with India’s implementation of the new National Education Policy (NEP), which promotes multilingual education. Some states have opposed the three-language policy in school education
The team observed that due to rising migration, linguistic diversity is increasingly becoming a global phenomenon, resulting in classrooms with students from various language backgrounds being more frequent. More than 31 million displaced young people are encountering language obstacles in education.
“Countries encounter a variety of linguistic challenges in education, originating from both historical and contemporary factors. “In the first category, languages have often been imposed on local populations as a legacy of colonialism, preventing their use for instruction and creating educational disparities,” the report stated. “Concurrently, in countries with high levels of linguistic diversity, education systems face difficulties due to the scarcity of resources available for establishing multilingual education initiatives.”
Immigration introduces new languages into classrooms in affluent nations, enhancing linguistic diversity while also creating difficulties for teaching and evaluation.
These nations frequently contend with challenges including providing language acquisition assistance to immigrant students, crafting inclusive curricula that embody diversity, and guaranteeing fair access to high-quality education for all students, irrespective of their linguistic background. The report added, “The policy solutions required differ due to the unique contexts faced by each country.”
The GEM team has advised that educational language policies should focus on context-specific strategies, and that language transition should be reinforced by curriculum modifications and teaching and learning resources tailored to that grade.
It stated: “In nations with considerable numbers of immigrants, policies ought to promote the creation and execution of effective bridging language initiatives, ensure the presence of qualified educators, and foster inclusive educational settings that address the varied linguistic needs of everyone.”
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