Building Back Better: Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education for Ethnic Minority Children
ยฉ UNESCO 2022
Side Event for 2nd Asia-Pacific Regional Education Ministerโs Conference (APREMC-II)
Global research has demonstrated that children who speak ethnic minority languages at home yet study in majority languages at school exhibit lower levels of literacy and numeracy than their peers. More recently, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic these ethnolinguistic minority children have fallen even further behind, partly due to their inability to access distance learning materials in languages they understand. In addition, many of these children are representative of a โdigital divideโ in their lacking electronic devices or internet access in low socioeconomic or geographically remote communities.
The side event, โBuilding Back Better: Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education for Ethnic Minority Childrenโ will discuss how mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB MLE) can significantly help such learners. Our expert panel will address fundamental issues with guiding questions, such as:
- What is MTB MLE and how does it improve studentsโ learning outcomes?
- How does MTB MLE help students learn other languages, including English?
- What digital learning tools are most helpful for children who donโt speak the school language and have limited internet access?
- How does MTB MLE engage local communities and promote social harmony and inclusion?
- How would endorsing UNESCOโs Bangkok Statement on Language and Inclusion help a country achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4)?
Target Audience
The target audience for this side event consists of regional and national level education stakeholders, especially policy-makers and practitioners, to enhance their understanding of how multilingual education can play a role in the post-pandemic process of โbuilding back betterโ and achieving SDG 4 for all, especially ethnolinguistic minority children.
Working Language
English; no additional language accommodations provided.
Date, Time and Format
Sun, 5 June 2022
12.45 โ 13.45 (Bangkok time; GMT+7)
Zoom Conferencing (Hybrid)
Registration
Registration is free but required in advance; upon registering, you will receive a unique join URL via email: https://unesco-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUtceGgrzgtHNFKglDpoHF88tFDnBA7dMHi
For more Information
Asia-Pacific Multilingual Education Working Group Secretariat
E-mail: mlewg@unesco.org
URL: