Language, Education and Social Cohesion (LESC) Initiative

UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office

Background

The Language, Education and Social Cohesion (LESC) initiative is a component of the UNICEF

Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy (PBEA) Programme, a four-year global project (2012-2015),

funded by the Government of the Netherlands. The PBEA programme aims ‘to strengthen resilience,

social cohesion and human security in conflict-affected contexts, including countries at risk of – or

experiencing and recovering from – conflict.’ As part of this broader goal, the LESC initiative will

address questions of language policy and planning, citizenship and ethnicity concerns in educational

contexts in order to strengthen policies and practices in education for peacebuilding.

In late 2012, UNICEF Regional Office for East Asia and the Pacific (EAPRO) commissioned a desk

review of existing documents related to the relations between ethnicity (especially ethnic minorities),

education (policies and practices related to minorities and minority languages) and social

cohesion/peacebuilding in three countries: Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand. This desk review included

work on multilingual and mother tongues based education (MLE and MTB MLE), policies and practices

related to ethnicity and education, as well as views and opinions of key stakeholders at national and local

levels.

Building on this initial work, UNICEF EAPRO has commissioned the University of Melbourne, under the

directorship of Prof. Joseph Lo Bianco, an expert facilitator and linguist, to carry out research to explore

how language policies and practices in education can promote or undermine social cohesion in Malaysia,

Myanmar and Thailand. The research activities has thus far included desk reviews, field visits and

facilitated dialogues and engagement with key stakeholders – including UNICEF Country Offices (COs),

senior government officials, education staff at all levels, headteachers, teachers and civil society

organisations.

Why language matters for peace and social cohesion

• Language is a factor in conflict in multiple ways because it is both a marker of ethnic identity and the

mediator of cultural, symbolic and material resources.

• It is in language that narratives of nation building are produced that include or exclude.

• Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) is critical to education success,

acquisition of literacy and languages, school persistence and concept development.

• MTB-MLE is key to language rights and ethnic identity and is vital for minority, poor, isolated,

female and disadvantaged children, acutely for those from low-literate homes.

Links between Language and Conflict

Source: Lo Bianco, 2014

Culturally as symbolEconomically as

mediator of opportunity

Educationally as instrument of curriculum

Politically as citizenship enfranchisement

Language &

Conflict

Overview of country-level activities

Malaysia:

Overall objective: To document the relationship between language and culture background, public

participation and education performance, with a focus on the theme of national integration and national

unity.

The scope of the project is to examine national policies and practices, giving particular attention to the

unique situation of immigrant and indigenous young people and the specific context of stateless children

in peninsular Malaysia as well as the eastern Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak. The aim is to produce a

comprehensive overview of the status and learning of the national language and its relationship to the

main vernacular language groups, especially Malay, Chinese and Tamil; the learning of national language

by indigenous pupils and its relationship with their own languages; language rights for minority language

speakers; and equitable and effective access to English.

Myanmar:

Overall objective: To foster an integrated, coordinated and comprehensive evidence-based policy on

language education with facilitated deliberations to gain stakeholder commitment to the aims and

requirements of full and effective implementation of inclusive national and state levels language policies.

LESC aims to take a comprehensive language planning approach, involving early childhood education,

primary schooling and post-primary education. It also aims to offer concrete methods of language

planning to support multilingual education in ethnic minority languages, Myanmar (national language)

and strategic foreign languages (English, primary grades, medium of instruction in grades 10 and 11). A

comprehensive approach has been prepared in consultation with all relevant policy, community and

research interests in the Myanmar context. A specific case study of Mon state will also be produced.

Thailand:

Overall objective: To implement a problem solving kind of language planning for the restive Southern

border provinces – namely Pattani, Narathiwa, Songkhla and Yala – and address communication, identity

and education questions associated with the conflict in the region.

Three main activities are recommended for Thailand: a public and credible language planning process,

concentrating on the Southern border provinces, with the aim to develop a ‘Patani Malay’ regional status

policy; design and trialing of a junior secondary school/upper primary school subject on Malayu/Muslim

culture and language for all pupils in the far south; and a scale up study to expand multilingual education

in the region.

A comprehensive dialogue on children’s language in the far south, with attention to all four languages

involved (Thai as national language, Patani Malay and other versions of Malay as mother tongue and

language of identity, English and Arabic as foreign and religious languages); and the three scripts (Thai,

Rumi, or Roman, and Jawi, or modified Arabic) is what is envisaged by the process described as language

planning.