Human Rights and Language Policy in Education
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HUMAN RIGHTS AND LANGUAGE POLICY
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HUMAN RIGHTS AND LANGUAGE POLICY IN EDUCATION
INTRODUCTION
The United Nation’s 2004 Human Development Report (http://hdr. undp.org/reports/global/2004/) links cultural liberty to language rights and human development and argues that there is . . . no more powerful means of ‘encouraging’ individuals to assimilate to a dominant culture than having the economic, social and political returns stacked against their mother tongue. Such assimilation is not freely chosen if the choice is between one’s mother tongue and one’s future. (p. 33) The press release about the UN report (see web address provided earlier) exemplifies the role of language as an exclusionary tool: Limitations on people’s ability to use their native language— and limited facility in speaking the dominant or official national language—can exclude people from education, political life and access to justice. Sub-Saharan Africa has more than 2,500 languages, but the ability of many people to use their language in education and in dealing with the state is particularly limited. In more than 30 countries in the region, the official language is different from the one most commonly used. Only 13 percent of the children who receive primary education do so in their native language. One might expect that the report would suggest a positive solution, which not only respects human rights (HRs), but is also based on solid research. Sadly, this is not the case. The report suggests that: Multilingual countries often need a three-language formula 1. A national or official state language. 2. A lingua franca to facilitate communications among different groups (in some cases the official language serves this purpose). 3. Official recognition of the mother tongue or of indigenous languages for those without full command of the official language or lingua franca (ibid.; emphasis added). The first two, enabling children through education to become fully competent in one or two languages of wider communication, is what a human rights-oriented educational language policy should include. The third suggestion is clearly based on deficit theories and either/or S. May and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 1: Language Policy and Political Issues in Education, 107–119. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
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TOVE SKUTNABB-KANGAS
thinking, characteristic of much of language policy today in indigenous and minority education (see also Kelly Hall, Language Education and Culture, Volume 1). Schools often see the mother tongues of minorities as necessary but negative temporary tools while the minority child is learning a dominant language. As soon as he or she is deemed in some way competent in the dominant language, the mother tongue can be left behind, and the child has no right to maintain it and develop it further in the educational system. This can be seen as a serious HRs violation. It violates the right to education (see Magga, Nicolaisen, Trask, Dunbar and Skutnabb-Kangas, 2004; Tomaševski
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