finquelievich, feldman and fischnaller, public policies for multilingual education using ict in la
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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!