Multilingual Calibration in Myanmar’s education systems. Why UNESCO’s MTB-MLE program will only perpetuate an asymmetrical State

Myanmar is home to a huge variety of languages and yet they are absent from central government schools. Minority ethnic organisations, many of whom are working within civil war areas have initiated their own education systems with unique calibrations of language in education. The UNESCO-supported MTB-MLE program aims to bring about a convergence between the various groups and the central government by promoting a transitional mother tongue program. However, this policy may end up restricting ethnic groups in developing their languages to higher levels. We find that language policy must see itself as more than just a technical fix but consider the lived experience of individuals and the way in which the state is conceptualised in relation to minority cultures.

Background and Context

There are at 135 recognised ethnic groups in Myanmar with distinct languages (Bradley, 1999, p.99), though it is Burmese, the language associated with the majority Bamar/Burman ethnicity, that is the sole official language of administration and education. Since independence from British rule, the national government, while offering some rhetorical support for ethnic languages in the classroom, has mostly downplayed and prohibited non-Burmese languages in government schools as part of a decades long assimilation program of ‘Burmanisation’ (Houtman, 1999, p.53, Thein Lwin, 2011; Walton 2013; Khin Khin Aye and Secombe, 2014).

One theory of postcolonial nation-states is that were built on a dialectic between the ‘inner’ domain of culture and the ‘outer’ imported institutions of the Westphalian state (Chatterjee, 1993). Myanmar’s independence in 1948 heralded a state composed of a state apparatus inherited from the British with a body almost entirely composed of Bamar/Burman cultural markers. In the 1960s, the concept of the Taingyintha, or national races, and the claimed unity between them became a fundamental political and rhetorical tool in attempts to build a multi-ethnic nation-state (Cheesman, 2017 p.466). True equality still seemed distant. President Ne Win saw minority ethnic groups such as the Kachin and Karen as simultaneously of ‘pure blood’ but also potentially disloyal to the larger nation owing to their ethnicity (Walton, 2013, p.13). Later, National League for Democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in contrast to the primordialist rhetoric of Ne Win, offered a more constructivist approach that appeared to paint ethnic categories as more fluid and only as strong as the discourse that built them: ‘If we divide ourselves ethnically, we shall not achieve democracy for a long time’ (Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991, p.231).

While Ne Win and Suu Kyi may come from different theoretical poles, but there is also a clear unchallenged assumption or ‘doxa’ (see Bourdieu, 1977) of a Bamar-centric State:

‘The dominant Bamas imagine ourselves as a historically cohesive nation, whose organisational integration with minority peripheries only needs to be completed democratically or by force.’ (Maung Zarni, 2009)

Taingyintha, then, became a cloak for what would become know as ‘Burmanization’, the assimilation of the ethnic minority cultures into a Bamar-centric culture (Houtman, 1999, p.53, Thein Lwin, 2011; Walton 2013;

Thus formal education systems would favour Bamar history to the detriment of other ethnic groups, and mainstream debates on the language of education were confined to the balance of English and Burmese rather than the place of minority languages in the government’s curriculum. Taingyintha became a cloak for what became known as Burmanization, the assimilation

Demands for ethnic languages to be recognised formed part of the large multi-ethnic student uprising of 2014–5 against the government’s planned national education law (Ei Shwe Phyu, 2018). The law was eventually amended to allow the National Education Strategic Plan (NESP) to recognise the need for ethnic languages to be utilised as ‘classroom languages’ throughout the curriculum, but not languages of instruction (MoE, 2016, p.14). Despite this limited recognition, there has been ‘little forward motion’ in realising comprehensive changes to the Burmese dominated system (Shee, 2018, p.5) and representatives of ethnicities felt that government moves were a poor compromise (Lall and South, 2018).

Yet away from the centralising state there are parallel and education systems. These ‘ethnic based education providers’ (EBEP) do not only include civil war participants but religious and community-based schools defined in relation to ethnicity (Joliffe and Speers Mears, 2016, p.2) and have existed in some form since the mid twentieth century (Lall and South 2014, p.304). This article looks at three of these ethnic groups and how their schooling systems calibrate the language of education.

Karen Education Department

Karen Education Department (KED) schools have developed their own S’gaw Karen curriculum (Joliffe and Speers Mears, 2016, p.46). At primary level the medium of instruction is S’gaw and at secondary school the curriculum uses English material while retaining Karen as a language of instruction (Shee, 2018, p.4).

Mon National Education Committee

The Mon National Education Committee (MNEC) have implemented a variant of MTB-MLE (see below), teaching a Mon language curriculum in primary before transitioning to Burmese and the State curriculum in secondary school (World Education, 2017).

KIO and Kachin Myusha Jawng

In parts of Kachinland1, an area that encompasses parts of Kachin and Shan State, the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) schools had previously aligned their secondary curriculums with the Burmese state, yet after the resumption of civil war violence, their school regimes have distanced themselves from state convergence and now teach a mostly Jinghpaw language curriculum (South and Lall, 2016a, p.v). There is also a network of Kachin community schools (Speers Mears et al 2016, p.36) that are developing their own curriculum, in which the language of instruction is Jinghpaw at primary before switching to English at secondary (with the expectation that Jingphaw will continue to be used as a classroom language for assistance similar to the KED system). In both the KED and Kachin community schools programs, Burmese is taught only as a subject language and not as a medium of instruction.

Policy Options

Within the context of decades long civil wars, the future of the EBEPs in unclear. The formal peace process in Myanmar, made up of high level actors, appears to lumber on without much progress and language and education issues rarely appear at the top of the agenda (Lall and South, 2018). Nevertheless, there is a developing policy discourse on how EPEPs might converge with the State.

MTB-MLE

Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual education (MTB-MLE) is a policy strongly associated with UNESCO in language programs in South East Asia. (Curaming and Kalidjernih, 2014 Tupas and Lorente, 2014). MTB-MLE is a transitional program where students begin formal schooling with their mother tongue (L1) as the medium of instruction and then eventually switch to learning in the state/dominant language around the time they enter secondary schooling (UNESCO, 2016). Myanma Civil society organisations such as The National Network for Education Reform and Ethnic Nationalities Affair Center support its implementation (Salem-Gervais, 2018, ENAC, 2018).

The MNEC’s Mon model’ which transitions to Burmese language at the secondary level, follows a broadly MTB-MLE calibration and there are practical advantages to this for Mon students including competence in the national language and receiving nationally recognised qualifications on graduation (South and Lall, 2016, p.37 AF). Researchers South and Lall favour the ‘Mon Model’ , describing it as a ‘positive conceptualization of the relationship between a locally owned and implemented education system that preserves and reproduces ethnic national identity and language, and linkages to the central government/Union education system’ (2016b p.138–139).

For the same reasons that the favour an MTB-MLE approach, Lall and South do not see a a normative future for the current Karen or Kachin systems. Due to a lack of official qualification and ability in Burmese, Karen graduates may have restricted opportunities and thus Karen leaders must ‘re-think the basis of their school system’ (Lall and South, 2014, p318). Indeed, the pressure for government qualifications has resulted in de facto MTB-MLE systems where students in EBEP regimes transfer to the State schooling in secondary school ( Joliffe and Speers Mears, 2016, p.83)

South and Lall argue that language in education policy in the EBEP a a proxy for political demand: schools which have a strong focus on mother tongue as the means of instruction are classified as ‘separatist’ while Burmese as means of instruction with some support for ethnic languages as subjects (which broadly aligns with the status quo of government schools) is classified as ‘weak federalism’ Somewhere in the middle is ‘strong federalism’ which advocates for a strong focus on both the national and ethnic languages. (South and Lall, 2016, p. vii). Thus, while acknowledging the dynamics of civil war, South and Lall characterise the KED and KIO education regimes as separatist (2016b, p.150), while arguing that the MNEC model mixes self-determination with practical and substantial links to the wider union of Myanmar (South and Lall, 2016, p. viii).

UNESCO (2016) and Alidou et al (2016) have given normative designs to Mtb-MLE. In their framework the difference between an “additive” (positive) and “subtractive” (negative) program is whether children stop learning in their mother tongue midway through primary or at the end of primary. In UNESCO’s formula then, the difference between so-called positive and negative applications is merely a few years (2016:7). While these few years are crucial for mother tongue learners to develop higher order thinking skills in their L1 (Nolasco, 2016), the MTB-MLE framework advanced by UNESCO does not appear to advocate for space for mother tongue instruction at secondary, let alone tertiary, education.

However MTB-MLE is not without its critics. Tove Skutnubb-Kangas has defined transition/exit programs such as MTB-MLE as fundamentally ‘weak’ models of bilingualism (2000, p.580). Ricardo Nolasco, writing in the Phillipines context, has written critically of certain MTB-MLE programs that promote a ‘fallacy of subtractive education’ as opposed to life long learning in mother tongues (2016).

Language Maintenance- an Alternative model

In Finland there is a ‘language maintenance’ mechanism for the minority Swedish-speaking Finns (Skutnubb-Kangas, 2000). Children from this group may attend Swedish speaking schools for the entire duration of their schooling life, including universities, while learning Finnish as a second language subject. The Finnish State goes further though, and accommodates itself to the language needs of Swedish speakers; government services, legal situations and dealing with healthcare can all be accessed in Swedish if needed (Prime Ministers Office, Finland, 2012, p.11). Language maintenance proceeds from a holistic understanding of education, society and culture, in that it recognises that supporting mother tongue education in schooling will not allow students to fully flourish unless other instititionas of the state also adapt themselves to the needs of the ethnic minorities. There are parallels with Young’s concept of ‘differentiated citizenship’ (1989) which calls not just for equal rights, but for the state to provide ‘institutionalised means for the explicit recognition and representation of oppressed groups’ (ibid, p.259).

Thirdspace through the Fractal Lens.

Recent theoretical work on social geography and history of the Kachins is useful for its insight into the relationship of individuals to the State. Karin Dean’s study of Kachinland borderworlds (2005) is an application of Soja’s ‘trialectics’ of space to the Kachin/Myanmar relationship. The three aspects of reality described are the perceived (the empirical and mundane), the conceived (the normative ‘mental images promoted by those at power.’ (Dean, 2005, p.810)), and the lived/thirdspace space (divergent and marginal and in opposition to conceived space (Allen, 1999, p.260)).

Dean (2005) shows that the Kachin communities who have been bisected by the China-Myanmar border have been territorially trapped (conceived space) and yet many individuals continue traditional pre-border practices such as attending rotating markets that occur on either side of the border. Dean argues that there are simultaneous realities at play, and that if we speak of these Kachin as ‘challenging’ or ‘defying’ the border, we are privileged an analysis that ‘adheres to the modernist State-centric view’. (ibid, p.827). Instead, a thirdspace perspective allows us to recognise the lived experiences of these Kachin: they cross the border not to challenge it, but simply to continue their preferred way of life.

A similarly useful analytical tool is found in Sadan’s study of Kachin identity and history (2013), which introduces the ‘fractal lens’. This approach does not elide or dispute centre-peripheral power relations, but instead makes the point that cultures on the periphery are no less complex that those at the centre of the mandala of power. It may seem somewhat obvious and yet sometimes we may need to be reminded to acknowledge, especially when discussing policy.

Both the concept of thirdspace and the fractal lens do not deny the normative arrangement of power structures, they merely ask us to set them aside for a time while we investigate lives and subjectivities on the margins or on the periphery with respect. Thus with a view to seeing the thirdspace we are challenged to see beyond the realm of methodological nationalism (see Wimmer and Glick Schiller, 2002) and instead look towards the meaningful cultural markers, lifestyles and aspirations of those who live on the periphery to the nation state project. We see through the fractal lens that the desires of the Kachins, Karens and Mons cannot simply be reduced to a separatist/convergent binary but are complex and multi-faceted. The choice of teachers and parents to educate children in Jinghpaw or S’gaw is not necessarily in defiance of the Myanma State nor a refutation of Myanma citizenship, but a pedagogical and cultural choice that reflects their wishes that their children reproduce Kachin or Karen culture. Indeed, the idea of choice was brought up by a Kachin activist interviewed by South and Lall (2016a, p.23).

Such a lens does not mean that we should reject MTB-MLE, indeed many ethnic groups may pragmatically favour such a program, but instead we should incorporate lived experience and thus choice into any policy application. Many ethnic groups may prefer a language maintenance approach to education, where their language is the language of instruction throughout education and is not merely used as a stepping stone to Burmese. Transitional language programs seem to orientate towards seeing minority languages as problems, yet a more positive outlook would see them as resources (Ruíz, 1984).

Conclusion

For historians of Myanmar, much of the general thrust of the arguments made in this essay should be familiar as they were already made over a century ago during the British colonial period. English dominated formal society and it wasn’t until the 1920s and 30s that Burmese language advocates began to organise; forming committees to develop technical vocabulary and pushing for universities to adopt courses in Burmese (Allot, 1985, p.140).

In twenty first century, ethnic groups are organising and advocating for the very same linguistic rights that the Bamar demanded from the British. The adoption of MTB-MLE I government schools would certainly be a step forward for recognition and possibly even a gateway to broader language reforms, but a worst case scenario could see that just as British colonialism ‘froze’ the territory of the modern nation state with no regard for the pre-existing diverse polities, then MTB-MLE would similarly freeze the development of ethnic languages and make them officially second-class without the capability to be used at anything higher than a primary level.

MTB-MLE is not simply a language policy, but represents a lens through which the idea of a nation and the peoples within it are seen. The lens of MTB-MLE sees nations as fundamentally monolingual and promotes minority languages only as so far as they allow a bridge to the single national language. The lens sees language in education as a distinct domain and minority languages as problems that need a singular solution. On the other hand a language maintenance approach sees policy more holistically, identifying that medium of instruction alone will not reproduce culture and language.

The Karen and the Kachin education systems represent aspiration. Teachers, leaders and students in these regions are developing systems that teach their Mother Tongue, English and Burmese in a calibration that suits them. If peace is to finally come to Myanmar, then it is not these systems that must dismantle, it is the State that must begin adapting itself to these vital aspirations.

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1‘Kachinland’ is not an official nomenclature of the Myanma State. Nevertheless, it is a phrase used by some English-speaking Kachins to denote a geographical region and I will use it here in order to be consistent with some of the normative conclusions of the essay that call for differentiated citizenship and respect for cultural norms.