PUBLIC POLICIES FOR MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION USING ICT IN LATIN AMERICA

Susana Finquelievich, Patricio Feldman and Celina FischnallerNational Council for Scientific and Technical Research, CONICET, Argentina

3RD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN CYBERSPACE28 June - 3 July, 2014, Yakutsk, Russia 

Reduction of vernacular languages

The “conquest” of Latin America meant the dramatic reduction or disappearance of its indigenous peoples, their languages and cultures

War, genocide, slavery, and disease, reduced, absorbed or eliminated the native population in most of the Region

Native languages gave way to Spanish (Castilian) and Portuguese, the Region´s official languages

Scarce research about LA indigenous languages in cyberspace reveals a vacancy area which needs development, as well as attention and technical support from UNESCO and other international organizations.

Current major vernacular languages

Aymara: spoken in Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, and Peru (Speakers total population in all countries: 2,589,000).

Guaraní: Spoken in Paraguay and parts of northeastern Argentina, southeastern Bolivia and southwestern Brazil; it is a second official language of the Argentine province of Corrientes; it is also an official language of Mercosur

Vernacular languages across national borders

Quechua is a  spoken primarily in Perú, Bolivia,  Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina

It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous. Total speakers: 8.9 million 

The Mayan languages form a language family spoken primarily in Guatemala, México, Belize, and Honduras.

Spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya.

Few countries are officially multilingual

In Paraguay, 48% of its population is bilingual in Guaraní and Spanish (both official languages of the Republic) 

Bolivia is officially multilingual, supporting Spanish and 36 native languages

Ecuador defines Spanish as its official language. Spanish, Quechua and Shuar are considered as official languages of intercultural relations

Official multilingual countries

Peru's official languages are Spanish and, in the zones where they are predominant,  Quechua, Aymara, and other aboriginal languages.

In Mexico, the government recognizes 62 indigenous languages. There is no official language at the federal level, although Spanish is the de facto state language.

In Guatemala, 23 indigenous languages are co-official with Spanish.

Vernacular languages in South America

Public policies on intercultural bilingual education

Public policies on intercultural bilingual education date from the late 1960s

Since the 1970s the indigenous peoples started to claim the recognition of their cultural patrimony

They expressed the need to receive an education which included the contact between the multiple languages and cultures in the LA territory

Interculturalism

UNESCO Meeting in 1983 it was decided to replace the concept of biculturalism by interculturalism

Cultures were conceived as diachronic processes that develop and change with time and history, instead of synchronic entities which stay immutable through historic changes

Based on that conceptual change, Latin American countries started to implement bilingual intercultural education policies

Multilingual education

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, México, Perú, among other countries, have implemented multilingual education

Different degrees of implementation Diverse results

MULTILINGUALISM AND EDUCATION IN CYBERSPACE

LA countries are integrating educational efforts with ICT in order to reach the overall population, including small and remote communities

One Laptop Per Child Programs Specific training of indigenous and non-

indigenous teachers Production of multilingual educational contents Systematization of information about the

educational situation of indigenous peoples, educational research, and grants for indigenous students.

A Ranquel Public Digital School (San Luis, Argentina)

Latin American Network of Education Portals (RELPE – Red Latinoamericana Portales Educativos)

RELPE offers an open access search engine for contents within Education Portals of LAC

The initiative began in 2001 within the framework of bilateral cooperation agreements

Education Portals are full members designated as such by the respective Ministry of Education in each country

The Executive Secretariat of RELPE is currently the responsibility of Argentina

RELPE gathers and makes accessible multicultural and multilingual contents, resources, and dictionaries to be used both in in-person classrooms as well as in virtual education

http://www.relpe.org/

Conclusions:

The existence of public policies for intercultural and multilingual education in cyberspace in LA countries does not necessarily have a direct relation with the number of indigenous peoples and languages in the countries

While countries such as Argentina, where the indigenous population amounts to less than 3% are developing effective public policies with the participation of indigenous peoples, in other countries with a considerable proportion of indigenous population policies and actions do not come primarily from the National State, but from indigenous organizations.

Bottom-up efforts

The efforts for multilingual education in cyberspace cannot come only from State policies

It is desirable to promote bottom-up initiatives from indigenous communities

The goal: facilitating a constructive dialogue between governments and civil society, particularly the representative organizations of the diverse ethnic and cultural groups

There´s no lack of policies. They need to be enforced

Indigenous social movements have obtained some successes, achieving the recognition of indigenous rights by the National states

However, in many cases, the new national and international legislations regarding indigenous rights and languages do not go further than well intentioned declarations

One of the problems in LA is not the lack of good legislations regarding multilingual rights, but the lack or insufficiency of policies´ implementation, as a consequence of deep-rooted discriminatory practices

Overcoming these limitations would require more participative and democratic consultation policies with the indigenous peoples

Programs of digital education and literacy

Multilingual education in cyberspace is acquiring an increasing importance due to the programs of digital education and literacy, as the OLPC plans

More and more these plans are including contents about indigenous languages and cultures

However, this tendency is recent. The impacts on the educational community have not been studied in depth yet

Cultural diversity is not limited to rural areas

When planning multicultural and multilingual education in cyberspace it is necessary to consider BIE not only for rural areas, but also for urban and urban marginalized areas

BIE in urban marginalized areas is the new challenge in LA cities.

Intercultural and multilingual diversity should not be limited to primary education

In LA countries young indigenous students are accessing higher education

New indigenous and intercultural universities are being created

BIE should not only be “for all”, but also “for lifelong education and training”.

Fighting the access divide by providing free or low cost Internet access in schools, libraries and community centers

Supporting the digitization and preservation of content with anthropological or historical value

Small communities are holders of valuable cultural treasures that will be lost unless documented

Mobile technologies should be considered for multilingual use and education in cyberspace

Implementing an Observatory of Latin American linguistic and cultural diversity, with the direct participation of indigenous communities.

Creating indigenous universities Recent initiatives, such as creating indigenous

universities (i.e. the Intercultural Indigenous University (UII) in México, the Autonomous Intercultural Indigenous University, or the Universidad Autónoma Indígena Intercultural (UAII) in Colombia are enterprises which should be strongly supported to promote new articulations among indigenous peoples and the Academia

Provide online counseling to indigenous teachers and professors in conflictive situations with the national and regional educational systems

Supporting indigenous educators

Supporting the organizations of indigenous educators in cultural and educational activities (training of indigenous educators, congresses, virtual forums, etc.).

Using the Internet to gather updated information about schools of indigenous modality, number of indigenous and non-indigenous educators and students, etc.

Strengthening regional educational portals such as RELPE to disseminate multilingual and multicultural educational contents.

Digital scientific contents Encouraging the creation and processing of

and access to educational, cultural and scientific content in digital form in schools

Ensure that all cultures can express themselves and have access to the Internet in all languages, including indigenous ones

School teachers, computer technicians and librarians can be trained to become digitizing experts

Supporting capacity building for the production of local and indigenous content on the Internet

Promoting multilingualism in the Internet so that everyone can have access to the content in their own language

Means: electronic translators, dictionaries and language tools for indigenous languages, translation of useful software tools, multilingual contents in government sites, tax incentives and subsidies for the development of content and software tools in local languages, among other possible actions

Promoting and supporting plurinational education portals, such as RELPE, in order to provide access search engines for multicultural and multilingual contents within Education Portals of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Thank you!