Challenges in researching students’ access to instruction in the first language

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday V)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Language issues related to: student access, early literacy and virtual communication encounters

Proposal

Target 4.5 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calls for “equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and children in vulnerable situations”. A report by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS, 2017) shows that 617 million children and adolescents worldwide are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. It is surprising, however, that the UIS report does not reference language of instruction as a factor for the poor learning achievement.

On the other hand, the 2017/8 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report (UNESCO, 2017) focuses also on language as a factor in the poor progress in achieving the SDGs. For example, 264 million school-aged children are not in school, only 10% of children in sub-Saharan Africa has basic reading skills, and 100 million youth cannot read (UNESCO, 2017). Two GEMR background papers (Kosonen, 2017; Ramachandran, 2017) focus on language issues in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, respectively. Both papers argue that poor learning achievement is partly due to inappropriate languages of instruction. Thematic SDG indicator 4.5.2: “percentage of primary students whose first or home language is the language of instruction” is proposed as a way to remedy the lack of data on the language of instruction issues, as most countries do not yet collect data on this issue. Kosonen (2017) and Ramachandran (2017) attempted to assess the situation in their respective regions, but both faced several difficulties.

This round table paper discusses the challenges as well as potential means of alleviation of these challenges in assessing primary students’ access to education in their first language. The paper raises concerns about data collection and analysis particularly in Southeast Asia in terms 1) availability of data, 2) credibility and validity of the available data, and 3) used data collection methodologies. The challenges faced in such research include the following: 1) who speaks which language and to what extent; 2) what is people’ proficiency in L1, “L2”, and Lx; 3) data on language populations in general; 4) people’s functional L1s versus “heritage L1” / “common language of the ethnic group”; 5) ethnicity vs. language (ethnolinguistic classification not always matching linguistic reality); 6) macrolanguages, such as Arabic, Chinese, Malay, Chin, and 7) how can surveyors/language mappers be helped to better understand language issues, so that collection of good quality data can be ensured.

References:

Kosonen, Kimmo (2017) Language of instruction in Southeast Asia. Paper commissioned for the 2017/8 Global Education Monitoring Report, Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments. Paris: UNESCO http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0025/002595/259576e.pdf

Ramachandran, Rajesh (2017) Medium of instruction policies and efficacy of educational systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Paper commissioned for the 2017/8 Global Education Monitoring Report, Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments. Paris: UNESCO http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0025/002595/259578e.pdf

UIS (2017) UIS Fact Sheet No. 46 | September 2017. More Than One-Half of Children and Adolescents Are Not Learning Worldwide. UIS/FS/2017/ED/46. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

UNESCO (2017) Global Education Monitoring Report, Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments. Paris: UNESCO.

Author

• Kimmo Kosonen, SIL International