Publication
Girls, Educational Equity and Mother Tongue-based Teaching
Few doubt the power of basic education to improve conditions for marginalized groups of poor and rural populations, subordinated social groups, and females, in general. At the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000, one of the main agreed goals was "to ensure that by 2015 all children, especially girls, children in difficult circumstances, and children from ethnic minorities, have access to complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality" (UNESCO, 2000a). Another of the goals involved improving levels of literacy, particularly among women. Most countries, along with the bilateral, governmental or non-governmental organizations that support them, believe that they are working toward expanding educational access, improving efficiency, enhancing quality, and achieving equity of opportunity. Yet one of the biggest challenges to achieving all of these goals may be schooling systems, themselves, which continue to reproduce the inequalities found in society. This paper argues that one of the principal mechanism through which inequality is reproduced is language, specifically the language used as the medium of instruction. It shows how the learner's mother tongue holds the key to making schooling more inclusive for all disadvantaged groups, especially for girls and women.
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Bangkok: UNESCO Bangkok, 2005, 14p.
ISBN 92-9223-060-3
#MotherTongue #MotherLanguage #InclusiveEducation #Equity&InclusionInEducation
