Indigenous Education in India and Nepal: A Comparative Study of Language Policy in Education

• In Event: National education policies vis-à-vis Indigenous student outcomes

Proposal

Indigenous languages are key to sustaining linguistic, cultural, and epistemic diversities (Green et al., 2011) and play a significant role for an equitable and inclusive education (Hornberger, 2005; Romaine, 2013). Research shows that indigenous languages embody a wide range of knowledge and worldviews about environment, agriculture, art, culture, history, worldviews, and places that contribute to sustainable development (Tom et al., 2019). Yet, Indigenous languages are increasingly displaced from schools, as policies and pedagogies continue to focus on the instrumental value of dominant languages in education. Research has shown that Indigenous languages are hardly given a space in the mainstream education, as national policies continue to focus on the importance of colonial and national languages (Phyak & De Costa, 2022). Although nation-states recognize the right to use mother tongues in education, school policies, plans and pedagogies continue to violate the language rights of Indigenous children (May, 2023). Krauss (1998) argues that “school programs can do more harm than good, insofar as they shift the responsibility for transmitting the language in the home, [. . .] to the school, at best such a poor alternative” (p. 17). Similarly, examining the contested role of schools, Edwards (2012) deliberates that “educational programs of language revitalization are the lamp-post in whose light we hope to recover things that were lost elsewhere” (p. 203).

The lack of policies and pedagogies for meaningful and sustainable integration of Indigenous languages contributes to the learning poverty, affecting the educational achievement of Indigenous students. The World Bank’s (2021) report shows that thirty seven percent of students in low- and middle-income countries are taught in languages they do not understand. Applied linguistic studies have illustrated that teaching students in their weak languages is detrimental to educational achievement and strong foundation of literacies (Cummins, 2020; UNESCO, 2016). Critical studies have discussed how the exclusion of Indigenous languages in education violates linguistic and cultural rights of Indigenous communities and people (Phyak & Des Costa, 2022). Drawing on a ‘historical-structural approach’ (Tollefson, 2014) to language policy, this paper examines the ‘ideological and implementational’ space (Hornberger, 2005) of Indigenous languages in the Ladakh region of India and Nepal. Both regions located in the Himalayan region share a rich linguistic heritage. Despite being multilingual countries, both India and Nepal have a long history of oppressive language policies that reproduce the symbolic power of national language (Hindi and Nepali) and English in education. By situating language policy in the historical-structural contexts of India and Nepal, our focus will be on analyzing the current status of Indigenous languages in the educational policies and practices, exploring how divergent language ideologies have contributed to their marginalization, ultimately affecting Indigenous students' identities and learning outcomes. More specifically, we address the following questions in our presentation:

How effectively are language policies addressing the importance of Indigenous language in Ladakh and Nepal? What ideologies shape such policies?
How are the policies and plans implemented for sustainable Indigenous language education?

We use ‘critical policy analysis’ (Taylor, 1997) to examine the text, contexts and consequences of education policies in both places. The major texts we analyze include medium of instruction policies, national education policies and national curriculum frameworks. We also discuss interview data from teachers and policymakers. The major findings of the study show that despite both countries being positive about the agenda of language rights of Indigenous people at the macro level, their educational policies for Indigenous languages are ideologically inconsistent and unequal. The national policies are not only inconsistent with curriculum frameworks, but also reproduce the power of dominant languages (Hindi and Nepali) and English through the optionality of Indigenous languages. Our analysis also reveals that educational policies in both countries disregard the integration of Indigenous knowledge in national curricula and fail to adopt a sustainable approach for utilizing Indigenous languages as a medium of teaching in school education. In this paper, we also discuss the major policy recommendations to promote Indigenous languages in both places.

Authors

• Tsewang Chuskit, Columbia University Teachers College

• Prem Phyak, Teachers College Columbia University