The bilingual education for children
Cambodia’s indigenous minorities are increasingly gaining across to primary education in their own language, as bilingual education is expanding and being incorporated into government schools, the UN said. Adding that Cambodia had become a regional leader in bilingual education.
“Cambodia is recognized as a role model in the Asia-Pacific region for its mother tounge-based bilingual education program, which has enabled children and adults from minority populations, who do not speak the national language at home, to access quality basic education,” Unesco and Unicef said in a joint statement yesterday to mark World Mother Tongue Day.
About 4 percent of Cambodians belong to indigenous minority groups that speak about 20 different languages. Most indigenous minorities belong to hill tribes living in the northeastern provinces of Stung Treng, Ratanakkiri, Mondolkiri, Kratie and Preah Vihear.
The statue sign for Ratanakkiri province
Unicef early childhood development specialist Natalie Mufel said bilingual education had expanded from a few NGO-run community preschools a decade ago to a total of 20 community preschools in five provinces.
Ms. Mufel said the introduction of bilingual education at government schools marked a very important shift from community to state.
Cambodia’s approach was unique in the region, she said, as other government do not take the lead on bilingual education, they leave it up to NOGs to do something, while some countries such as Laos and Vietnam insisted on providing education in the national language only.
Bilingual teaching in Cambodia currently provides children of Brao, Banong, Kreung, and Tampuon hill tribes classes in their own language, which are taught during the first three years with 80 percent of the teaching conducted in the local language in fi8rst grade until it is gradually replace by Khmer in fourth grade, according to Unesco.
As these language are oral languages only, teaching material is written up in Khmer-script phonetic rendition of the local language, Ms. Mufel explained.
The children in Ratanakkiri province
This bilingual teaching approach was sharply reducing school dropout rates in indigenous communities where dropout rates and other social and health indicators are generally among the worst in the country.
“Before, only a few children went to school. Now all the children in the community go to school,” she said.
Bilingual teachers are recruited in local villages and trained, which also creates new job opportunities for minorities, Ms. Mufel added.
A girl holding her brother in Ratanakkiri
Pa Satha, director of Ratanakkiri province’s education department, said that out of the province’s 185 primary schools, seven had begun bilingual classes last December and another five would join this year.
“The program is very important, since it helps students prevent repeating classes and it reduces the number of students dropping out of school,” he said.
Thun Pun, a Tampuon minority villager and chief of Ratanakkiri’s Lung Khung commune, said a bilingual school in his constituency was helping people in the community to protect their languages and culture and improve the community.
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