Milestones in language planning and development aid

ABSTRACT

This paper tracks the changing relationships between language planning and development aid over a period of 70 years from the end of the Second World War to the present day. Drawing on documentary resources – in particular, the published proceedings of the Language and Development Conferences (LDCs) – the paper identifies a number of significant milestones. It is argued that the period under review can usefully be analysed in terms of three “development phases”. The paper pays particular attention to English and it demonstrates that contributors to the LDCs have become more questioning about the role of English in development as awareness of multilingualism has grown.

KEYWORDS:

• Language planning
• development aid
• English language
• human development
• development goals
• vernacular languages

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the editors for inviting me to prepare this overview paper and for their detailed editing. Thanks to Geoffrey Crewes, Denise Finney, John Knagg, William Savage, Richard Smith and the Warwick ELT Archive for help with accessing documentation and to John Knagg, Robert Phillipson and William Savage for feedback on an earlier version. I am also grateful to Margaret Deuchar for introducing me to the field of Language Planning in 1979. The views expressed here are my own and are not necessarily representative of the Trustees of the Language and Development Conferences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Hywel Coleman is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School of Education, University of Leeds. He is also a Trustee of the Language and Development Conference Series. His work critiques policy concerning English in the education systems of countries in the developing world. He is a permanent resident of Indonesia.

ORCID

Hywel Coleman http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3996-1514

Notes

1 Robert Phillipson (personal communication, May 9, 2017) suggests that the aid activity of Scandinavian countries has tended to be “more naively idealistic” than that provided by other Western nations.

2 In 1963 the associate official status of English was extended indefinitely (Meganathan, 2017, p. 232; LDC 11). The Indian Constitution also recognises a number of regional languages.

3 My first job, in the early 1970s, was to provide short courses in English in seven regions of Indonesia for medical doctors who needed to pass the Davies Test so that they could take up scholarships provided by the World Health Organisation. With these scholarships they were to pursue postgraduate qualifications in public health and related subjects at universities in the UK. My post was arranged by Voluntary Service Overseas and funded by the UK government as part of its aid programme for Indonesia.

4 However, as Taylor-Leech and Benson, in their introduction to this issue, point out, missionaries were also active during this period, helping communities write their languages for religious purposes and to develop adult literacy.

5 It is important to recognise the visionary roles played by Brian Kenny and William Savage in identifying the need for a conference on language in development contexts in the first place. They organised the first LDC at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok in 1993 and edited the proceedings volume from that event (Kenny & Savage, 1997a; LDC 1). William Savage continues to be an active member of the LDC Trustees and he also edited the proceedings of the 8th LDC held in Dhaka in 2009 (Savage, 2015; LDC 8).

6 I was not immune to this infectious enthusiasm myself. For example, in the early 1980s I was employed under the “Key English Language Teaching” (KELT) scheme as an adviser to a university in Indonesia. The KELT scheme was funded by the UK government’s aid programme and was managed by the British Council.

7 For instance, a panel discussion “Linguistic Imperialism: Still Alive and Kicking?” was held during the 47th IATEFL Conference in Liverpool in 2013. Phillipson was a member of the panel.

8 Not long after ending its support for ELT projects in the 1990s DFID initiated a number of very large scale English language projects, including the English Teaching Improvement Project in Bangladesh in the early 2000s (Power, Deane, & Hedges, 2015; LDC 8) and the massive English in Action Project, also in Bangladesh, which aimed to help “25 million people improve English for social and economic purposes” between 2008 and 2017 (Power & Srestha, 2015; LDC 8).

9 There is still scope for further new nations to achieve independence. Several permanent members of the United Nations Security Council continue to occupy territories beyond their national boundaries.

10 The role of John Knagg - formerly Head of Research and Consultancy at the British Council and more recently its Senior Adviser – in bringing this policy to fruition and integrating it into the practices of the BC has to be acknowledged. Knagg himself admits that there are challenges in implementing a policy which promotes English (as the BC’s Charter requires) while respecting linguistic diversity (Knagg, 2017).

11 Robert Phillipson (personal communication, May 9, 2017) points out that, like the Juba Declaration, Lord Curzon’s Education Policy for India of 1904 also insisted on the use of vernacular languages as the medium of instruction in primary and middle schools (Naik & Nurullah, 1974).