Multilingual Education Works : From the Periphery to the Centre

Contents: Preface Adama Ouane. Acknowledgments. Notes on terminology. Who Am I   Dainess Maganda. Introduction - Why this book? Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and Kathleen Heugh. 1. Carol Benson, Kathleen Heugh, Berhanu Bogale, and Mekonnen Alemu Gebre Yohannes: The medium of instruction in the primary schools in Ethiopia: a study and its implications for multilingual education. 2. Teresa McCarty: Native American Language Education in Light of the Ethiopian Case - Challenging the Either-Or Paradigm. 3. Susanne Perez Jacobsen and Lucy Trapnell Forero: Language and culture in education: comparing policies and practices in Peru and Ethiopia. 4. Carol Benson and Kimmo Kosonen: Language-in-education policy and practice in Southeast Asia in light of the findings from Ethiopia. 5. Ajit Mohanty:Language Policy and Practice in Education: Negotiating the Double Divide in Multilingual Societies. 6. Iina Nurmela, Lava Deo Awasthi, and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas:Enhancing quality education for all in Nepal through indigenised MLE: the challenge to teach in over a hundred languages. 7. Shelley Taylor: MLE policy and practice in Nepal: Identifying the glitches and making it work. 8. Jeylan Wolyie Hussein: English supremacy in Ethiopia autoethnographic reflections. 9. Paul Taryam Ilboudo and Norbert Nikiema: Implementing a multilingual model of education in Burkina Faso: successes, issues and challenges. 10. Ahmed Kabel: “There is no such thing as keeping out of politics”: medium of instruction and mother tongue education in Morocco. 11. Kathleen Heugh, Carol Benson, Mekonnen Alemu Gebre Yohannes and Berhanu Bogale:Multilingual education in Ethiopia: what assessment shows us about what works and what doesn’t. 12. Kathleen Heugh and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas: Multilingual education works when ‘peripheries’ take the centre stage.

For the last century or more, Western and Northern models of education have dominated countries of the South/South-East. These have seldom borne fruit in Africa, South America, South and South-East Asia because linguistic diversity and indigenous or organically developed educational practices have been largely overlooked. Such models have not met the needs of linguistically diverse communities on the margins. This volume responds to that challenge. It demonstrates successful practices in multilingual education, responsive to local conditions and with community participation, in low-income countries, even within limited budgetary investment. The examples in this volume foreground the systematic use of the mother tongue/local language, alongside an international language of wider communication and possibly a third language with regional or national significance. The case studies identify what works, as well as the risks and vulnerabilities. The West and North have much to learn from the practices presented and what the research contributes towards current theories in linguistics and education.