ANGEL JOY D.

GABRES, LYCA FRANCISCO, CHERYL RAMIREZ

CHAPTER SEVEN
MULTILINGUALISM AND EDUCATION IN INDIA AND NIGERIA AND THE ROLE OF UNESCO

In this section, UNESCO’s role in ELP processes has evolved as an organization since its
establishment in 1945, and in India and Nigeria (not simply as Member States but as highly populated
complex multilingual societies with strikingly similar educational needs).

I. UNESCO and Multilingual Education Policies in Multilingual Societies.

UNESCO and indeed other international organizations like the United Nations, the Word
Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) were established in mid twentieth century.
a) Vernacular Language in Education
b) UNESCO’s Contribution to the Promotion of Mother Tongue as an Instrument of Education
and Culture.
c) Diplomatic and Symbolic
II. Vignettes of Education Language Policy Process at UNESCO
The organizations role in ELP processes can be examined using the same set of question
around which previous vignettes were framed. There are three (3) summative questions.
“RUBY”

(Academic expert and international ELP consultant)

a. What Constitutes Education Language Policymaking?

 On Actors, Behavior, People, and Conditions: Ruby points out the “UNESCO is
nothing but the aggregation of representatives from its member states supported by
a handful of staff at the secretariat.
 On means, Decision-Making Process, Ends and Effects: “UNESCO draws most of its
credibility from the UN and the member states.
b. What are the Operational Dynamics of ELP Elements?
 Apart from the official procedures of formulating consensuses, there is a lot pf
internal negotiations and lobbying going on between representatives of countries.
The organization itself does not have the capacity or mechanism to enforce
compliance to normative consensuses: their influence is only moral and intellectual.
c. Changes and Stability in ELP Outcomes
 Ruby argues that in addition to its internal organizational issue, UNESCO’s capacity
to act on its positions on language is limited by the fact that language issues are
highly explosive politically. Taking normative position on language rights in
education will never happen at UNESCO; if does, member states will most likely
neglect them and continue their current policy practices.
ANGEL JOY D. GABRES, LYCA FRANCISCO, CHERYL RAMIREZ
“SANDERS”

(Academic expert and UNESCO consultant with national-level ELP experience In Africa)

a. What Constitutes Education Language Policymaking?

 On Actors, Behaviors, People, and Conditions, Decision-Making Process, Ends and
Effects: Sanders concedes that education language policymaking comprises a host of
international, national and grassroots actors who typically do not speak to each
other.
b. What are the Operational Dynamics of ELP Elements?
 Sanders argue that operationally, UNESCO’s impact on national-level ELP process
occur along two interrelated channels that rely heavily on academics who provide
evidenced-based research for policymaking; one is very formal, the other informal.
c. Changes and Stability in ELP Outcomes
 Sanders notices that although there have been major changes in the academic world
since its establishment, UNESCO’s overall framework on ELPs have remained the
same.

Issues from Vignettes of Interviews at UNESCO

1. UNESCO’s organizational structure (as an entity comprised of distinct political units with
self-interests) mirrors sectional (i.e., ethnic, linguistic, cultural and political) divides that
make up India and Nigeria as multilingual nations.
2. Corollary issues has to do with the absence of enforcement mechanism in organizations
whose main commitment is the formation of consensuses through networks.

III. Multilingualism and Education in India and Nigeria: A Comparative Overview

1. The international mobility of India’s population has produced an inherently multilingual
polity whose students are typically proficient in multiple indigenous languages.
2. Governments ambivalence to a comprehensive language planning, unwillingness to
challenge the dominance of English, and promotion of language policies and linguistic
practices that marginalize most native languages, plays into citizens popular demand for
foreign languages, especially English.

Precipitated Paradoxical Effects

1. Redrawing political boundaries to create new amalgam nations worked to erase or at least
restructure the cultural, economic, political and linguistic configurations of earlier societies.
2. Corollary effect is that new nations required a new and previously nonexistence collective
national identity that essentially supplants “old” ethnic ones, but the logic of national unity
offers strong rationale against which advocates of ethnic purity strove.
ANGEL JOY D. GABRES, LYCA FRANCISCO, CHERYL RAMIREZ
3. Contacts with the Muslim world and Europe has worked to destabilize and reinvigorate
ethnic units by introducing a religious trichotomy of Christianity and Islam to indigenous
religions in ways that distorts and retools political, economic and cultural developments.