Mother Tongue-based Literacy Programmes: Case Studies of Good ...

In 2006, Thailand celebrated an auspicious milestone: the 60th anniversary of King Bhumibol Adulyadej’sascension to the throne. Not only is His Majesty the world’s longest reigning monarch, he is also one ofthe most loved. This stems in large measure from His Majesty’s years of dedicated service to the “least ofthe least” — the poor, the marginalized, and the economically and socially disadvantaged. Generationsof Thai have been raised on images of His Majesty journeying to the most remote regions of theKingdom, talking with the humblest villagers and working to empower them through economic andsocial development. The situation of ethnic minorities, such as the northern hilltribes and the southernMuslims, has been of particular concern to His Majesty — an ethos which extends to the efforts of hisdaughter, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the “Empowermentof Minority Children through Education and through the Preservation of Their Intangible CulturalHeritage.”Recent years have seen a growing awareness of Thailand’s ethnic diversity. While most Thais assumethere are only a handful of ethnic minorities (the northern hilltribes, with their exotic costumes), formerPrime Minister Anand Panyarachun recently proclaimed on national television that Thailand is home tomore than 60 ethnic groups. He boasted that he, himself, is “an ethnic Mon who is Thai.” 1 A new term,chatiphan or ‘ethnic group,’ is surfacing in Thai academic and political discourse.The Northern Pwo Karen Bilingual Education Project at Omkoi Dis trict (NPKOM) in the northern provinceof Chiang Mai has thus emerged at a crucial time in the history of Thailand’s ethnic minority groups. Itrepresents the first time the Thai Ministry of Education has supported bilingual education in a minoritylanguage. The project has received much attention from the Thai media. Numerous delegations fromThai government agencies, Thai educators from other regions, and UNESCO’s Bangkok office have madethe journey to see for themselves what Minister of Education Chaturon Chaisang termed a “miracle”-- Northern Pwo Karen children ethusiastically reading and writing both their language and Thai in astudent-centered programme. Thai educators see the Omkoi project as the model for future bilingualprogrammes in the numerous ethnic communities, and local schools have volunteered to host newprojects.This case study provides a brief historical overview of the Omkoi project, placing it in the larger contextof Thai education and analyzing the lessons learned.BackgroundCurrent Situation of Ethnic MinoritiesThe Ethnologue (2005) documents the use of 74 languages within Thailand. 2 Extrapolating theEthnologue figures, Kosonen (2005) found that 13.8 percent of Thailand’s 65 million people speak ethniclanguages not related to the national language (and thus, the language of education), Central Thai. Anadditional 48.5 percent of the population speak languages closely related to Thai, including NorthernThai (Kammuang), Northeastern Thai (Isaan), and Southern Thai (Tai). Speakers of these languages are1 July 28, 20052 Unless otherwise noted, all language population figures are from Ethnologue (2005).[ 146 ]