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

It may be noted that there is no reference explicitly made to the issue of minority languages. Indeed, thecountry essentially adopts Thai as the main language for all educational transactions in formal schools.This is despite the fact that there are more than 70 living languages that a sizeable number of people inthe country use as their mother tongue.The 1945 Constitution of Indonesia encourages people to use, develop, and preserve local languages.Nonetheless, the formal learning system in Indonesia generally uses only the national language forinstruction in schools. However, a legislation muatan lokal (local content curriculum) was enacted in1996. Use of the local language was among the topics included in the Act. This law opened the door toencourage bilingual curriculum development in the national language and the local language when acommunity wants to use the mother tongue. This acceptance got further momentum with the passageof another law in 2003, which states: “Local language can be used as the medium of instructon in theearly stages of education, if needed, in the delivery of particular knowledge and/or skills.”The above summary statements on the policy situation in different countries highlight the varyingcontexts in which the mother tongue literacy experiments have been launched. Needless to say, thegoal of providing learning opportunities for all in their mother tongue cannot be fulfilled without strongbacking through national policies. Yet, local initiatives have a significant place in influencing the policyenvironment of any country. It is certain that well-demonstrated local initiatives can go a long way inbuilding community support and demand for mother tongue education and thereby carve out a placein government policies. The value of the seven action research studies in Part II have to be viewed in thisperspective.Country-Specific Contexts of Bilingual/Mother Tongue Literacy ProgrammesAt the theoretical level, it is an accepted fact that learning to read and write in the mother tongue isat the core of all literacy initiatives, and bilingualism (or multi-lingualism) confers definite cognitiveadvantages to learners in the long run. However, in reality, the minority child speaks his/her mothertongue at home, but learns to read and write in the dominant regional/national language. This was truefor all seven countries under consideration. Also, it is important to note that non-dominant languagesof a country cannot be considered in one basket. The actual geographical spread of language users andtheir size in terms of numbers are critical elements to be examined in designing any programme formother tongue-based education.With a population of 14 million people speaking an estimated 19 languages, Cambodia encompassesalmost 30-40 ethnic minority groups (Gordon, 2005). The majority of this population is Khmer whospeak the national language, Khmer. A significant number of indigenous minority groups, however, livein Cambodia’s remote highland provinces. They are entrenched in widespread illiteracy, which restrictstheir access to the various development resources that are available to the dominant language group.The literacy rate among the adult population in the highlands is alarmingly low, at only 5.3 percent.Keeping this in view, the Government of Cambodia has supported several mother tongue and bilingualeducation programmes. Non-formal education programmes have also been undertaken by severalNGOs over the last decade. The Highlands Children Education Project is one such effort focused oneducating children in the Bunong language in four Tumpuen and Krung villages. The project has alsoset up non-formal education classes for Bunong people of Mondulkiri Province. In order to give official[ 10 ]