Introduction
This is the third of five booklets in the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education( MTB MLE) Resource Kit. The first booklet provides an overview of the major issues relating to MTB MLE from an international perspective. The second one identifies the role of policy makers whose support is essential if MTB MLE is to be implemented and sustained within formal education systems. This third booklet presents insights for the people who will be responsible for implementing MTB MLE programmes. It describes the essential features of strong programmes in which students’ mother tongue( MT) is the foundation for learning the official school language( s) and other subjects in school. The fourth booklet describes the actions that community members can take to ensure that the local programme affirms their heritage language and culture and provides a good education for their children. The fifth booklet presents case studies of MTB MLE programs in five Asian countries.
Questions that people often ask about MTB MLE are used as headings for each section of this booklet. Answers to the questions are based on lessons learned from MTB MLE programmes around the world. Examples from a variety of programmes demonstrate the creative ways that people are working together to plan, implement and sustain MTB MLE programmes that help students learn successfully and achieve their educational goals.
Q1
Why is MTB MLE needed? What problem is it meant to solve?
The purpose of education is to help children gain the knowledge, skills and attitudes they will need to be productive members of their community and responsible citizens of their country. To be successful in school, students must achieve the learning competencies prescribed in the government curriculum for each subject and each grade. But students cannot achieve those competencies if they cannot understand the language their teachers use in the classroom.
For students who do not learn or use the official school language at home, school is frightening at first, then frustrating, and finally discouraging. This explains why so many children in minority language communities are not in school. In 2005, the World Bank reported that,“ Fifty percent of the world’ s out-of-school children live in communities where the language of schooling is rarely, if ever, used at home”( World Bank, 2005, p. 1). That percentage has not decreased and, in fact, has grown, in spite of efforts by UNESCO, UNICEF, other international agencies and organizations, some governments and many minority language communities to improve the situation.
Booklet for Programme Implementers
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