The actors on the ‘side’ in the development of supportive policies for multilingual education: Evidence from Cambodia, the Philippines, and Thailand

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Problematizing Education Reform: Implementing Multilingual Education as Change from Above, from Below, from the Side — or a Combination?

Proposal

Over the past two decades, a movement towards multilingual education (MLE) has arisen in Southeast Asia. With the goal of providing more equal access to education, a range of pilot projects, policy development, and institutionalization of MLE are bringing non-dominant languages (NDLs)—people’s first languages (L1s)—into instructional use. Cambodia, the Philippines, and Thailand have gone further than other Southeast Asian nations in using NDLs as languages of instruction, even in government systems of education. The comparison of these cases provides interesting insights into the policy development processes and subsequent implementation of new policies.

This paper compares the processes in Cambodia, the Philippines, and Thailand towards language-in-education policies that support MLE. The paper pays a particular attention to the role of the actors on the side. These actors function between the grassroots and the government, and in Southeast Asia they include academics, mid-level civil servants, language and education activists, INGOs, multilateral agencies, as well as some bilateral donor agencies.

The paper argues that in theoretical terms, these three cases demonstrate a process of change in language-in-education policies and practices mainly from the side with a close collaboration from below (i.e. local NDL communities). In all three the process that has taken over a decade, but has eventually culminated in major policy changes and also effective educational practice in some NDL communities. Key factors that have contributed to pluralistic policy formation include: 1) long-term commitment of actors on the side (to awareness raising, advocacy, and NDL corpus planning); 2) fruitful partnership between local communities and actors on the side; 3) persistent advocacy by actors on the side on the importance of L1-based education; and 4) a mutually beneficial relationship between the actors on the side and relevant government authorities.

The paper is based on the author’s long-term research in Asia. The data sources include published research and newspaper articles as well as unpublished reports on language-in-education issues. A major conference on multilingual education in Bangkok in October 2016 includes dozens of presentations on MLE in the three countries discussed here, and the author has access to all of the papers. These written sources are complemented with key informant interviews and the author’s personal observations in Southeast Asia since 1998. The main mode of inquiry is a historical comparative analysis of language policies.

Author

• Kimmo Kosonen, SIL International