project, called “The Highlands Children Education Project” in four Tumpuen and Krung villages, usingthe RGC-approved orthography that ICC had already developed for these languages. In 2004, ICC alsostarted NFE classes among the Bunong people in Mondulkiri Province, south <strong>of</strong> Ratanakiri. To date, theMinistry <strong>of</strong> Education Youth and Sport has approved the orthographies <strong>of</strong> the Krung, Tumpuen, Brao,Kavet, and Bunong languages. Within the near future, the MoEYS is planning on implementing bilingualeducation programmes within the formal school system in the five northeastern provinces <strong>of</strong> Cambodia.This will include the Kuy and Kraol languages, which do not yet have approved orthographies.Project Pr<strong>of</strong>ileThe bilingual NFE project implemented by the ProvincialOffice <strong>of</strong> Education, Youth, and Sport (POEYS) is locatedin the eastern province <strong>of</strong> Mondulkiri, neighboring VietNam to the south and east. Newly graded roads makethe town accessible from the capital city <strong>of</strong> Phnom Penhwithin eight hours; a journey which formerly took threedays’ rough drive. Mondulkiri is covered by large areas <strong>of</strong>uninhabited dry forest, and has a population <strong>of</strong> just over40 000 people that is mainly concentrated in the highlandareas. Minority groups make up 80 percent <strong>of</strong> Mondulkiri’spopulation and, <strong>of</strong> this, the majority are ethnic Bunongand speakers <strong>of</strong> the Bunong language. The Bunong are© POEYSlargely dependent on swidden agriculture, in which theyclear a patch <strong>of</strong> land in the forest and plant rice for a fewyears before they move to a new location with fertile soil. The old farms grow back into forest, which theBunong depend on for their survival. Increasingly, however, these areas are becoming vulnerable to theeffects <strong>of</strong> hunting, logging, and mining.According to a baseline literacy survey by ICC in 2003, Mondulkiri Province has an estimated 4 percentfunctional literacy rate 1 in the national language, Khmer. Ten percent are semi-literate and the rest illiterate;making Mondulkiri the province with the lowest literacy rates in Cambodia. The survey also revealed that73 percent <strong>of</strong> Bunong women and 57 percent <strong>of</strong> Bunong, in general, consider themselves to have noor very poor ability to speak Khmer. These numbers are supported by similar figures from the MoEYS,which showed the literacy rate as 5.3 percent. 2 This is undoubtedly a huge impediment for the Bunongwhen trying to engage in national society. Insufficient literacy and numeracy skills put the Bunong at adisadvantage when accessing the market and education, as well as in knowing about their rights.The formal education system in the province is improving and the number <strong>of</strong> schools has increasedrapidly during the last few years. The formal school system uses the national language as the medium1 Functional literacy as defined by UNESCO: People are functionally literate when they can engage in all activitiesfor which literacy is required to function effectively within their group and community, and also for enablingthem to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for both their own and their community’s development.2 From the joint MoEYS/UNDP/UNESCO “Report on Assessment <strong>of</strong> the Functional <strong>Literacy</strong> Levels <strong>of</strong> the Adult Populationin Cambodia, May 2000”[ 57 ]
<strong>of</strong> instruction, but the Bunong children who attendschool know very little spoken Khmer. Bunong familiesdepend on their children to help on the fields, go to theforest, watch the animals and look after their youngersiblings. Failure in school and the pressure to help thefamily survive, result in high student attrition ratesand repetition. Despite the fact the Bunong are themajority group in the province, they only contributean estimated 20 percent to the student population inboth lower and upper secondary school combined.It is hoped that bilingual education will help Bunongstudents in school to be successful and, through NFEprogrammes, help those who have failed in schoolalready to acquire the education they have missed.Strategies andimplementation Process© POEYSThe POEYS in Mondulkiri had already for a couple <strong>of</strong> years strongly supported ICC’s bilingual NFEprogramme in the province. Seeing the success <strong>of</strong> the mother tongue-<strong>based</strong> programme, the POEYSdecided to use the materials and the programme developed by ICC in four Bunong communities thatneeded literacy classes.Selection <strong>of</strong> the Project Sites andFacilitatorsCareful consideration was taken in selecting the project sites. Twomain factors were taken into consideration: (1) the availability <strong>of</strong>Bunong-speaking teachers, and (2) the proximity to the provincialcapital for ease <strong>of</strong> monitoring and supervision.Four villages were chosen in three different districts, Bu Hyam(school area), Bu Loung, Srae Omboum, and Bu Tru villages. For thesecond phase <strong>of</strong> the project, two new locations have been chosen,Bu Hyam (Yesu village), and Bu Hyam (Bu Ntrong village). The newvillages were chosen using the same criteria as the original fourvillages from the first phase.© POEYSFor each village, trained teachers who graduated from teacherstraining colleges were chosen to pair up with community teachersto teach in the classes. An added intention was also to see whattype <strong>of</strong> teacher would work best in this type <strong>of</strong> setting. Two <strong>of</strong> thecommunity teachers already had responsibilities in the village.One was a village chief and the other was the leader for a smallerpart <strong>of</strong> a village. These persons were specifically chosen for their[ 58 ]
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Mother Tongue-basedLiteracy Program
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Mother Tongue-based Literacy Progra
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ContentsAcronymsviPartI 1Mother Ton
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AcronymsIndiaZSSTLCPLPCEIPCLGZSSSRC
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PartI
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Mother TongueLiteracy Programmesin
- Page 14 and 15: Entrenchment of the common (majorit
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- Page 22 and 23: their normal lives and communicatio
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- Page 37 and 38: BackgroundBangladesh is a delta lan
- Page 39 and 40: As a consequence, literacy rates am
- Page 41 and 42: Orthography DevelopmentDuring early
- Page 43 and 44: and discussion in the plenary, age-
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- Page 55 and 56: Awareness Creation and Opinion Form
- Page 57 and 58: Table 2: At-a-Glance Status of MT S
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- Page 63: BackgroundCurrent Situation of Mino
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- Page 69 and 70: vocabulary, containing only sounds
- Page 71 and 72: Impact of the ProjectImpact on Educ
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- Page 75 and 76: Komly Boek: Bilingual NFE TeacherMy
- Page 77 and 78: © Norman Geary
- Page 79 and 80: BackgroundThe Kam 1 of south centra
- Page 81 and 82: ‘Rice feeds the body, songs feed
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- Page 103 and 104: BackgroundIndia is home to a large
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[ 108 ]© BP-PLSP
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In attempting to meet one of the go
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Indonesian Policies on Mother Tongu
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Nature and LivelihoodCommunity peop
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No. Material Time1. The Policy of S
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Networking with CommunityMembers, G
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BP-PLSP Region II has distributed a
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Impact of theProgrammeThe KFBI prog
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Phase II. Learning activities inclu
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After learning some skills, learner
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© BASE
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© BASEBackground‘If we stop usin
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een forced into bonded labor. Cultu
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cows, bulls, sheep, and goats) kept
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Most of the NFE programmes implemen
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The Key Word Approach was used whil
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how to read and write which helps t
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In short, the Tharu mother tongue l
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© ONFEC
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In 2006, Thailand celebrated an aus
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Minister of Education Chaturong Cha
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All of the NPKOM teachers have asso
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simple sentence structures and much
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Teaching Plan: Bridging to the Nati
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Impact of the ProjectImpact on Educ
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een minimal, as books developed by
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Annexes
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Annex 2: ReferencesMother Tongue Li
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Lindholm-Leary, K. 2001. Dual Langu