Effectiveness of policy development and implementation of L1-based multilingual education in Cambodia

ABSTRACT

This article presents the current state of ongoing research on policy development and implementation of first language-based multilingual education in five northeastern provinces of Cambodia that are home to significant ethnolinguistic minority populations. This research, supported by CARE Cambodia in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, qualitatively investigates policy development and structural support for MLE implementation and analyzes learner achievement data. Pulling together the findings, we highlight lessons learned throughout the process about creating the conditions for MLE success and about assessing MLE student outcomes that could inform MLE policy and practice in similar low-income contexts and have important implications for quality and equity in educational development.

KEYWORDS:

• L1-based multilingual education
• ethnolinguistic minority
• language-in-education policy
• educational development

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Jan Noorlander and CARE Cambodia staff along with representatives of the national and provincial Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of Cambodia for facilitating our research. CARE Cambodia would like to thank Australian Aid and private donors for their ongoing funding of the MLE program that continues to produce such positive outcomes for Cambodian learners who speak non-dominant languages.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In official documents Indigenous is often used interchangeably with ethnic minority, making it difficult to establish whether policies apply only to groups deemed original peoples, or include cross-border communities or other non-dominant groups like the Cham. This question remains to be tackled, especially with the proposed addition of Jarai (spoken by people originating in Vietnam).

2 The Ministry of Education and Training in Hanoi is expanding on a UNICEF-sponsored pilot program in Hmong, Jarai and Khmer that began in 2008; see for example http://english.vov.vn/society/uniceffunded-bilingual-education-project-benefits-ethnic-pupils-331377.vov.

3 The research was conducted in collaboration with the Minnesota International Development Education Consortium and Australian Catholic University, and overseen by an Advisory Group including representatives of the Royal University of Phnom Penh, CARE USA, and CARE Cambodia.