bilingual schooling in mozambique and bolivia: from experimentation to implementation

CAROL BENSON

BILINGUAL SCHOOLING IN MOZAMBIQUE AND BOLIVIA:FROM EXPERIMENTATION TO IMPLEMENTATION �

(Received 11 July 2003; accepted in revised form 30 November 2003)

ABSTRACT. While there is renewed interest in bilingual schooling in developing coun-tries, many systems have found it difficult to move from the experimental phase tomore generalized implementation. Highlighting educational development in the cases ofMozambique and Bolivia, while also providing examples from other countries in whichthe author has worked, this paper discusses steps taken toward implementing bilingualeducation, beginning with findings from research on bilingual schools, challenges toimplementation, strategies that may or may not lead to implementation, and finally whatcan be learned from an examination of the whole process.

KEY WORDS: bilingual education, Bolivia, Education for All, educational development,Mozambique, primary education

ABBREVIATIONS: EFA – Education for All; GTZ – German technical assistance agency;L1 – First language, mother tongue or familiar lingua franca; L2 – Second or officiallanguage; NGO – Non-governmental organization; PEBIMO – Experiment in bilingualteaching in Mozambique; PEIB – Experiment in bilingual intercultural education in Bolivia

INTRODUCTION

Bilingual schooling in many developing countries has been growing outof its historical roots in scattered missionary efforts, separate-but-unequalmother tongue schooling, or ragtag experimentation into better informedand more systematic programs. Positive results along with changes inpolitical climate have encouraged both government education minis-tries and donor agencies to reconsider the importance of the choice ofthe instructional language, particularly in primary and basic educationprograms. This puts a new focus on the use of mother tongues, or of linguafrancas such as creoles or widely spoken indigenous languages, to teachbasic literacy and curricular content in a more understandable way to bothchildren and adults.

� An earlier version of this paper appears under the title “Bilingual schooling as educa-tional development: From experimentation to implementation” in the proceedings of the4th International Symposium on Bilingualism, Tempe Arizona, USA, April 30–May 3,2003.

Language Policy 3: 47–66, 2004.© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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In contrast to traditional schooling in a former colonial language, whichputs all students at a disadvantage if they have not been exposed tothis language and further handicaps particular groups like ethnolinguisticminorities, rural dwellers and females, bilingual programs are potentiallymuch more accessible and inclusive. Pedagogically, use of the mothertongue or a strong lingua franca (both of which this paper will call theL1) provides the basis for comprehensible content instruction and literacyskills upon which competence in the second or foreign language (L2)can be built. Sociopolitically, use of previously marginalized languagesmeans not only providing people with access to information but alsohelping them develop a stronger sense of identity and self-worth. The samelanguages and cultures that colonialism made sources of shame becomemeans for empowerment and tools for promoting democratic participationand pluralism.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the challenges and suggest somelessons learned about implementing bilingual programs in the contextof educational development. The paper will use case studies from twocountries where the author has worked as a researcher and technicalconsultant, Mozambique and Bolivia, which are both working to imple-ment bilingual programs in an effort to create higher quality educationsystems. Mozambique is currently negotiating a critical stage betweenexperimentation and implementation of bilingual schooling, while Boliviahas been involved in a long process of implementation since passing areform law in 1994 promising bilingual intercultural education for all.These countries and others, some of which will be used to illustratecommonalities, have experienced a range of successes and failures alongthe way, experiences that may inform practice in similar contexts.

It is acknowledged that the relationship between public education andeconomic development is far from well defined, and global tendencies suchas pressure to reduce public spending on education, to say nothing of theelite demand for internationalized curriculums and languages, can nega-tively impact schooling for traditionally marginalized peoples (Carnoy,2000). There are also indications that grassroots organizing has producedsome alternative thinking about what people find important in terms ofschooling and sustainable community development (Esteva & Prakash,1998), and this thinking is supported by grassroots level indigenous move-ments in Latin America (see e.g. López, 1998; Muñoz, 1999; Widmark,2003) as well as more intellectual africanization ideology in Africa (seee.g. Mazrui, 1997; Ngugı, 1987; Prah, 1995). There is a contradictioninherent in education for development, according to Williams and Cooke(2002), and that is of definition: Is development seen as increased

BILINGUAL SCHOOLING IN MOZAMBIQUE AND BOLIVIA 49

prosperity, which involves the strengthening of official structures in low-income countries so that services will eventually reach those who needthem, or is it seen as the meeting of human needs, which involves moreequitable resource distribution and implies for example more democraticparticipation, higher levels of education and health, and improvementin the status of women? While most development agencies have statedgoals that would correspond to the latter definition, their actions tendto cater for the former. Meanwhile, few developing countries can resistthe combined forces of international organizations of the United Nations,bilateral assistance agencies, and development banks that push and pullthem into complying with international education policy goals such asEducation for All (EFA). It is in light of these policy goals that mothertongue-based bilingual education is meriting a new and more positiveappraisal on official levels, while meanwhile it can be seen to addressindigenous grassroots concerns. The fact that bilingual programs appeal todifferent sectors of society may hold the key to explaining how countriesare moving from experimentation to implementation.

THE NEED

Schooling in developing contexts is plagued by serious inequalitiesbetween urban and rural areas, between elite and subordinate socialgroups, and between boys and girls. Many of these inequalities correspondto ethnolinguistic heritage and conditions of language access, where thereare clear boundaries between the dominant group and the dominated. Theelite inevitably speak the prestige code, which is usually the language ofthe former colonizing power and the “official” language of governance andschooling; meanwhile, other groups speak languages that often lack formalrecognition, and their access to the prestige language is limited even if theythemselves make up a numerical majority of the population. The linguisticmismatch of schools and the communities they are supposed to serve isevident in the following linguistic and educational profiles of the two casestudy countries.

Mozambique is a southern African country of 15.5 million (WorldBank, 2001) in which about three-quarters of the population are mono-lingual in one of 24 indigenous languages, and about one-quarter speakPortuguese as a first, second or foreign language (Katupha, 1985).1

Up until recently, Portuguese has been the official language of primary1 When published, data from the 1998 census are expected to demonstrate growth of

overall Portuguese use; however, statistics are based on the adult population and do notnecessarily reflect the language skills of school-aged children (Benson, 2000).

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schooling, in which only about 50% of the school-aged population hasbeen enrolled (UNICEF, 1999).

Bolivia is a South American country of about eight million, of whichan estimated 70% belong to one of 33 indigenous groups (Albó, 1995;Muñoz, 1997). The largest of these groups speak Quechua (2.5 million)and Aymara (1.6 million) (MDH, 1995). About one-third of the populationis monolingual in Spanish, and another 20% speak Spanish as a secondlanguage (Albó, 1995). Until the educational reform law, Spanish wasthe official language of primary schooling, whose enrollment has beenestimated to be 60% in rural indigenous Andean regions (ETARE, 1993).

Schooling in both of these countries has traditionally been done through“submersion,” a term coined by Skutnabb-Kangas (1981), where the L2(Portuguese or Spanish in these cases) is the language of instructionbut is not explicitly taught, and teachers rarely have any strategies attheir disposal other than to “talk at” students and elicit rote responses.This classroom practice has been widely documented in post-colonialschooling; for example, Hornberger and Chick (2001) provide an illus-trative comparative view between South African and Peruvian classrooms,where interaction is limited to “safetalk” such as “Do you understand?”/“Yeeesss” exchanges that give the appearance of understanding and inter-action where there is neither. Prohibited since colonial times because theywere considered linguistically inferior, mother tongues have been used inthe classroom only illicitly, and rarely as part of a systematic strategy toteach skills in either language. Curricular content instruction has long beenbased on foreign concepts in foreign texts written in a foreign language,rendering primary education highly irrelevant to students’ daily lives.Further, parents with children in submersion programs often feel power-less to support their children’s schooling because they do not speak thelanguage of the school, making them reticent to approach the teacher,which in turn tends to be misinterpreted by teachers and school officials aslack of interest. All in all, submersion does not work for most students, andalthough there are undoubtedly many factors leading to the low enrollmentand high repetition and drop-out rates characterizing such systems, thefactor of language must be considered a significant one. Having reviewedthe research, Williams and Cooke have found that “It is abundantly clearthat education in a language that few learners, and not all teachers, havemastered detracts from quality and compounds the other problems ofeconomically impoverished contexts” (2002: 317).


THE PROPOSAL

In the context of EFA, i.e. improving access to basic education, and theaccompanying goal of improving educational quality, the task now facingdeveloping countries is to develop non-exclusive schooling systems thatserve entire school-aged populations with relevant basic education. To doso, the language and culture of the students must be taken into considera-tion. There are some historical precedents for use of the L1, but notnecessarily for the purposes of equity. For example, some former Britishcolonies have long experience with mother tongue schooling as part ofseparate-and-unequal ideologies, like Bantu education in South Africa andNamibia under apartheid (see Heugh, 2003, for a description). Anotherexample from history is that of missionaries, who brought mother tongueinstruction to mission churches and schools in Latin America (Albó, 1995;Hyltenstam & Quick, 1996) and in many other parts of the world. Someinitiatives have come from within, such as Julius Nyerere’s historic promo-tion of Tanzanian public schooling in Kiswahili, the lingua franca, bringingbasic education to more citizens (Rubagumya, 1990).2 Other initiativeshave come from the outside, as donor agencies with experience in educa-tional development have begun to promote mother tongue instruction as ameans for improving educational quality and equity (see e.g. Sida, 2001). Itis in this context that both Mozambique and Bolivia have engaged in exper-imentation and further implementation of bilingual programs, as describednext.

In Mozambique, a bilingual experiment known as PEBIMO ran from1993 to 1997 with U.N. and World Bank sponsorship, monitored by theresearch branch of the Ministry of Education. The project worked withprimary education cohorts in two different regions with the correspondingBantu languages (Xichangana and Cinyanja) and a transition to Portugueseover primary grades 1 through 5 (Benson, 2000, 2001). Following theexperiment, 16 Mozambican languages were developed in preparation fortheir use in bilingual schooling, which was slated to begin on a small-scale, voluntary basis in 2000, but then postponed each year. Finally, afew months into the 2003 school year, ten of these languages have beenintroduced in individual classrooms spread throughout the provincesas part of the piloting of the new primary curriculum, which includes

2 While Kiswahili medium schooling is by now well established in Tanzania,Rubagumya has recently reported on the demand on the part of the elite for Englishmedium schools, which persists despite the lack of pedagogical success of many schoolsand the proliferation of bogus English schools (personal communication with CasimirRubagumya, September 19, 2003).

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bilingual schooling as one alternative (Chimbutane, 2003, and personalcommunication, November 10, 2003).

In Bolivia, after scattered efforts in piloting bilingual schooling, a large-scale experiment known as PEIB – which had strong international funding,technical support from the German organization GTZ, and counterpartprojects in Peru and Ecuador – operated from 1990 to 1994 in 140 schoolsusing three indigenous languages (Quechua, Aymara & Guaraní) andtransitioning to Spanish (UNICEF, 1998). Findings from the experimentfed into the Educational Reform Law of 1994, which calls for the intro-duction of all indigenous languages into primary bilingual schooling, andincludes indigenous language instruction for Spanish speakers and inter-culturalism as part of the curriculum to increase understanding and toler-ance between ethnolinguistic groups (Hornberger, 2000). Laws promotingpopular participation and decentralization were passed at the same timeto support implementation of this highly innovative reform policy. Theprocess of implementation has taken time and is still not complete, butfortunately the reform has survived to date despite a number of politicalchanges (see King & Benson, 2003).

THE FINDINGS

There is strong international evidence that bilingual schooling has thepotential to improve the quality of basic education in developing countries.Most studies (see reviews in Baker, 2001; Cummins, 1999, 2000; Dutcher,1995, 2001) demonstrate the clear pedagogical advantages of bilingualover traditional programs. As mentioned above, content area instructionin the L1 can be understood so that learning does not have to be postponeduntil children learn the L2. Further, initial literacy in the L1 means thatchildren can make the connection between spoken and written communi-cation, developing skills upon which they can build once they learn theL2, which is taught explicitly. Teachers and students can interact morenaturally in the L1 and negotiate meanings together, which greatly facili-tates participatory teaching and learning and has positive consequencesfor the affective domain (Baker, 2001). In addition, bringing the cultureand language of the home into the school is important for identity andfor personal as well as group empowerment (Cummins, 2000). These andrelated benefits of mother tongue instruction have been documented in bothof the case study countries.

In Mozambique, participatory evaluations of the PEBIMO experi-ment were conducted from 1997 to 1998, covering the final year of theexperiment and the year after (Benson, 2000, 2001; Benson & Patel,


TABLE 1

Most frequently mentioned reasons given by Mozambican parents for supportingbilingual education.

Reasons given (in order of frequency) Number of respondees(percentage of total)

Child can read, write, and count in both languages. 73 (70)

Value of the local language/culture is increased. 52 (50)

Child can write letters in the L1 to family members 46 (44)

living abroad.

Using the L1 makes learning easier for the child. 36 (34)

Child can read the Bible in the L1 at religious services. 34 (32)

Source: Benson (2000).

1998; Machaul, 1997; Patel, Veloso, Benson, Soverano, da Barca, Bona,Muchave, Cabral & Pedro, 1997). The systemic results were greatlylowered rates of repetition and failure, but the qualitative results were evenmore impressive: highly participatory classroom interaction, observablybilingual and biliterate students, consistency of home and school values,valorization of the home culture and language, higher student self-esteem,increased participation of girls, and overall student, teacher and parentsatisfaction (Benson, 2000; Patel et al., 1997). Many of these results arecaptured in the responses of 105 parents, who were interviewed individu-ally in their languages, to an open question about why they said they werein favor of bilingual education (Table 1).

In Bolivia, the PEIB experiment was also found to have positive resultsin terms of classroom participation, academic achievement, and parentinvolvement (Muñoz, 1997; UNICEF, 1998). D’Emilio (2001) collectedthe testimonies of hundreds of parents, teachers and students regardingthe results of bilingual education, documenting the contrast with Spanishsubmersion in terms of better understanding of curricular content, less fearof the school, preservation of the home language and culture, resultingbilingualism, and improved relations between parents and teachers. Thechange in the relationship between parents and teachers is evident in thefollowing testimony of a Guaraní boy:

My mother asks how this thing and that thing are written in Guaraní, and I show her saying,‘This way, this way’ because they have taught me. My father goes to the school and chatsand laughs with the teacher. Other times the mburuvicha [traditional leader] goes and chatswith the teacher (Gottret, Del Granado, Soliz, Perez & Barreta, 1995: 188).

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The findings from PEIB contributed to bilingual education policy aspart of the education reform, whose expansion of bilingual schoolingbegan in 1994 in stages, beginning with schools selected by Ministry ofEducation officials in each department which were “in transformation”and later became “reform schools” (ETARE, 1993). A study done in twoQuechua-speaking departments of Bolivia five years after the Reformbegan reported the notable success of bilingual schools in improvingoverall attendance, and participants confirmed that bilingual schooling“strengthens student self-esteem [and] enables identification with theirculture, context and people” (Urzagaste, 1999: 157, my translation).

An interesting common finding is that bilingual schooling appears towork well in communities that have functioning L1 literacy programs, andvice-versa. Shared adult and child literacy in the L1 means shared values,skills, and abilities, higher valorization of the L1, and even mutual writingof materials which can be used to promote literacy skills across the gener-ations. In both Mozambique and in Bolivia, bilingual schools have beenmost popular and gotten the most support in communities where there arealso bilingual adult literacy programs. In Bolivia, the potential for cross-generational interaction with print is already being realized in communitiesof Chuquisaca and Potosí, two provinces with traditionally low levels ofliteracy (Salinas, Paca & Albó, 2001).

Another finding with positive implications for educational policy is theconnection between bilingual education and girls’ school participation. Inmany developing countries girls never get to school, or attend only betweenone and three years, due to a number of factors including family choicesgiven limited resources, public perception of girls as less able, and lackof trust in male teachers (see Chowdhury, 1993). However, our researchin Guinea-Bissau, Niger and Mozambique found that girls in bilingualprograms stayed in school longer, were more likely to be singled out asgood students, did better on achievement tests, and repeated less oftenthan girls in submersion classes (Benson, 1994, 2001, 2002a; Hovens,2002, 2003). While more in-depth research would be required to confirmmy hypotheses, I believe that when the teachers use the L1 they can seewhat students actually know, they can communicate with families, and theybecome more subject to social control, all of which counteract effects ofdiscrimination against girls (Benson, 2002a). Researchers in Bolivia havefound similar indications of positive effects for girls; for example, Sichra(1992) found that bilingual girls obtained comparatively better scores ontests of mathematics and reading and writing, and she has suggested thatthis might be the result of bilingual teachers’ training in encouraging theparticipation of all students, facilitated by the use of the L1. While there


are undoubtedly many factors involved, the possible connection betweenmother tongue use and improved girls’ participation may help demonstrateto policymakers how inclusive bilingual schooling can be.

THE CHALLENGES

The pedagogical reasoning behind bilingual programs is clear: in contrastto use of an exogenous language to which few children beginning primaryschool have been exposed, use of a familiar language provides newopportunities for children to understand, participate, and be empoweredby their schooling. Unfortunately, official decisions do not always reflectwhat research demonstrates to be most advisable, as the complex relation-ship between language, education and society influences decision-makingat many levels. This section explores a range of macro- and micro-levelchallenges to implementation of bilingual programs.

Underlying the difficulties in both case study countries, and probablymuch of the rest of the world as well, are widely held attitudes aboutlanguage. Though difficulty in implementing bilingual education is oftenblamed on the cost, this is not likely to be a deciding factor due todonor assistance and to the fact that any educational improvements requireinvestment. (There is also good evidence that the high start-up costs forbilingual programs incurred by teacher training and materials developmentare balanced after only a few years by lowered per pupil expenditure dueto drastically diminished repetition and dropout rates; see e.g. Chiswick,Patrinos & Tamayo, 1996.) I believe that more serious obstacles are createdby long-standing attitudes toward language. For example, elite decisionmakers as well as peasant farmers believe unconditionally in the powerof exogenous “official” languages, as characterized by comments like,“If you want a good job you must speak X” [insert Spanish, Portuguese,etc.]. D’Emilio (1995) has discussed the tension between cultural identityand modernity apparent in comments like, “Children already learn themother tongue at home, so why should they learn it in school?” Despitethis near-religious belief in the economic power of global languages,Bruthiaux (2002) has pointed out that they are relatively useless formost people, since the informal economy of most low-income coun-tries involves 50% or more of the population and is growing rather thanshrinking. Participation in the informal economy may require skills inlingua francas but not in European languages, meaning that the latter serveonly to perpetuate inequality in these countries, and policymakers shouldbe asking themselves whether precious school resources should be spentto teach European languages at all.

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Other myths that have influenced policymaking are the idea thatone nation should have one unifying language, and the belief thatEuropean languages are inherently better than non-European languages,the latter still being called “dialects” or “vernaculars,” stigmatizing boththe languages and their speakers as being somehow insufficient or incom-plete. The one nation-one language concept can be traced to colonialdiscourses, but the irony is that colonizers suppressed their own linguisticdiversity, which they are now being forced to tolerate and even celebrate(see for example the cases of Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic in the UnitedKingdom; Euskara, Gallego and Catalán in Spain; and others in Salminen,1999). And while it is true that many non-European languages are stillbeing developed in written form, this makes them no less able to expresspeople’s thoughts and experiences; in fact, many intellectuals have decriedthe fact that colonized peoples have been robbed of the opportunity toexpress themselves clearly in their own languages (Mazrui, 1997; Ngugı,1987; Prah, 1995). Léopold Senghor, a literary scholar and the first presi-dent of Senegal, once translated Einstein’s Theory of Relativity into Wolofto show that it could be done. Unfortunately, few such influential leadershave recognized that the colonizers were responsible for marginalizinglanguages and cultures along with their speakers. The issue here is themaintenance of power in the hands of a few. As Williams and Cookepoint out, the “standard” European variety has since colonial times beenthe language to which the dominant group has had access, which iswhy decolonization failed to bring about any significant language policychanges (Williams & Cooke, 2002: 300). Hornberger would agree; shefeels that to “transform a standardizing education into a diversifying one”represents an ideological paradox that challenges implementation of moreculturally and linguistically relevant programs (2002: 30). This paradox isreflected in the slow and inconsistent progress of educational transitions inlow-income countries such as Namibia, about which Callewaert (1998) haswritten under the expressive title, “Which way Namibia – to decolonize thecolonized mind of the anticolonial teacher?”

Similarly, bilingual teachers may be ambivalent themselves regardingthe place of the L1 in formal schooling, which can lead to difficulties inimplementing appropriate bilingual models. As I have discussed previ-ously (Benson, 2002b), there is a tendency for developing countries tocircumvent established models and attempt “short cuts” by transitioningto the higher status ex-colonial language after one or two years. This ten-dency is bolstered by the language myths mentioned above and a wish to“save time” (Stroud, 2002). In Niger, Hovens (2002, 2003) discovered thata combination of lack of technical supervision, competition with higher-


status Arabic- and French-medium primary schools, and parental pressurewas responsible for effectively shortening the period of mother tongue usein some experimental schools to about two years. The problem with “shortcut” models is that they do not allow for optimal development of eitherlanguage, making it difficult to transition to L2 instruction, so that timespent in the L1 is seen as a problem (see Benson, 2000, 2002) instead ofsomething that should be more developed (as established by Cummins,1999; Thomas & Collier, 2002).

Schools in both Mozambique and Bolivia have attempted to transitionstudents to the L2 after relatively short periods, but for different reasons.In Mozambique, the experiment suffered from lack of adequate technicalinput from the outset, as well as from interruptions in year two when L2instruction was to begin (Benson, 2001). Designers of the new bilingualcurriculum decided to begin L2 instruction from the first year, but thecurrent proposal is still to transition to Portuguese after three years, thoughthe potential exists to expand the role of the L1 since it is to be studied asa discipline throughout the primary grades. The reform model in Boliviais called “maintenance and development” and also involves L1 instructionthoughout primary, but the limits of teacher supply, teacher training andmaterials development have restricted bilingual programs to the first threeor four years in most schools (King & Benson, 2003; Salinas, Paca & Albó,2001). Even with these constraints, however, these programs and otherslike them (such as those of Malawi and Zambia in Williams, 1998) lookextremely effective compared to L2 submersion. For example, our studyin Guinea-Bissau found that submersion students’ average Portuguesecompetence remained below “survival” level even after four or moreyears of schooling through that language (Benson, 1994), which raises thequestion of whether or not any learning is taking place.

One of the macro-level challenges to bilingual programs is related tohow educational experimentation is perceived. While more qualitative andprocess-oriented research methods are certainly available, many decision-makers still have a positivistic view of school research and believe itshould include random samples, differential treatments and control groupswith an orientation toward “provability.” Indeed, test scores are oftenused to document the pedagogical results of bilingual programs in devel-oping countries (see e.g. Elley, 1994; Dutcher, 1995; Williams, 1998), yetthey tend to provide mixed results. The typical method is to use the L2to test both bilingual and non-bilingual groups; this is a method manyhave used including myself (Benson, 1994, 2001; Hovens, 1994; Dialló,1996) but find unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. First, at the timeof testing bilingual students have not typically developed L1 skills to

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their fullest, nor have they been exposed to the language of testing asmuch as “control” students have, and since tests are based on the L2curriculum, non-bilingual students often have an advantage. Thomas andCollier (2002) have shown that all-L2 programs have similar results tobilingual ones during the first three to four years, and that the advantagesof bilingualism do not become clear until years five to seven or beyond, yetbilingual experiments in low-income countries often stop after three yearsand rarely continue past grades 4 or 5. In addition, as I found in Guinea-Bissau (Benson, 1994) and later in Mozambique, “control” groups are notalways very comparable, given that children in all-L2 programs tend torepeat and fail more often than those in bilingual programs (see Benson,2001, for a description of the difficulties of the Mozambique comparison).Hovens (2002, 2003) came up with an innovative solution by testing bothbilingual and submersion groups in Niger in both languages, despite thefact that submersion students had never been taught L1 literacy. He wasable to establish that the highest scores were attained by bilingual studentstested in the L1, then by bilingual students tested in the L2, followed bysubmersion students tested in the L1, and in last place submersion studentstested in the L2 (Hovens, 2002, 2003).

Another macro-level challenge to implementation is the lack of will-ingness on the part of officials to make decisions, which can stallimplementation even when many practical obstacles have been over-come through experimentation. Writing about education reform in Africa,Obanya (2002) says that many post-colonial governments have taken an“ad hoc” approach, addressing one issue at a time without looking atthe larger picture or at related factors or actors who should be involved.This has resulted in a “culture of pilot projects,” including not surprisingly“piloting on the use of African languages in education which have lastedindefinitely (e.g. Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroun)” (Obanya, 2002: 20).My colleagues and I witnessed this approach in Guinea-Bissau in the early1990s when we followed an innovative and highly successful experimentinvolving an indigenized, ruralized curriculum that used Kiriol, the linguafranca, for beginning literacy and instruction to facilitate the learning ofPortuguese, the official language. Despite our best efforts to documentthe results of such schooling (Augel, 1995; Benson, 1994; Dialló, 1996;Hovens, 1994, 2002), it was discontinued when funding ended in 1994and no decisions were made to implement. When a colleague later becameMinister of Education, and Hovens questioned him regarding whether hewould support Kiriol use in the schools, the response was, “As a scientistI’m in favor of it, but as a politician I’m against it” (personal communi-cation with Mart Hovens, September 2002). Hovens went on to work in


Niger, where his task was to help revitalize a bilingual schooling programthat had been considered experimental for over 20 years (Hovens, 2003).

Seen in this context, Bolivia would seem to be a success case, becauseafter many years of experimentation bilingual education was made officialin the Educational Reform Law of 1994. As mentioned above, this highlyinnovative policy guarantees mother tongue schooling for non-Spanishspeakers, includes indigenous language study for monolingual Spanishspeakers, and incorporates an intercultural component designed to promotemutual understanding between groups (ETARE, 1993). Unfortunately, thiscase may also be used to demonstrate that even when policy is made,implementation is not guaranteed. Because the reform was legislated andimplemented in a top-down fashion, it met with resistence from many sidesincluding communities and teachers’ unions, and concerted efforts muststill be undertaken to defend bilingual schooling. This is being done atthe community level by indigenous groups known as Consejos Educativosde Pueblos Originarios (Education Councils of Original Peoples) repre-senting each ethnolinguistic group (see King & Benson, 2003), and atthe national level through a donor-supported public relations campaign(personal communication with Rodolfo García, September 24, 2003). Inaddition, logistical constraints such as the deployment of non-trainedteachers in remote regions, along with lack of decision concerning aspectslike indigenous language study for elite students, have meant that mothertongue schooling is not yet reaching those who are most marginalized,and that the intercultural and indigenous language study components havenot yet been operationalized after nearly 10 years (for a description of thelimitations and the potential of this reform, see King & Benson, 2003).

Mozambique is a case to watch, since it appears to be negotiatingits own path between experimentation and implementation. In the late1990s my colleagues and I worked to document the successes of theexperiment and disseminate the results through meetings with represen-tatives of the Ministry of Education, the national university, linguists,linguistic and cultural groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs),and communities. We recommended that implementation be gradual andvoluntary community by community, that it begin as soon as possiblewith the two languages already developed (to build on the momentum oflocal support generated by the experiment), that the bilingual model berefined to allow for a more gradual transition to Portuguese, and that otherlanguages be prepared for use as time and personnel allowed (Benson,2001; Patel et al., 1997). It appears that many of these recommendationswere considered, even though start-up was delayed until 2003. This delaymay have been propitious, however, as it has allowed for the development

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of 16 languages and the introduction of bilingual education within thestructure of an overall primary curriculum reform, which as mentionedabove includes bilingual schooling as one alternative. In addition, thereis evidence that public support is on the rise: at a recent meeting of theGeneral Assembly, Patel received a standing ovation after describing thebilingual component of the new curriculum (personal communication withSamima Patel, November 13, 2003). As mentioned above, the pilotingof 10 languages began during the 2003 school year, though admittedlythese pilot bilingual classrooms began three months late and have experi-enced logistical difficulties in terms of teacher training in L1 literacy andtimely materials development (Chimbutane, 2003; personal communica-tion with Feliciano Chimbutane, November 10, 2003, and Samima Patel,November 13, 2003). The bilingual model is still unclear, but the potentialremains to refine it as materials are developed gradually year by year. Inaddition, an influential NGO that has experience with Bantu languages inadult bilingual literacy has taken on the support and monitoring of theseclassrooms in two provinces; while such an organization clearly does nothave the power to make official policy or bring about implementation, itmay facilitate implementation where official support is lacking.

THE LESSONS LEARNED

There are some basic lessons to be learned from the examples of Boliviaand Mozambique concerning experimentation and implementation ofbilingual schooling. These lessons reinforce the ideas of Neville Alexander(1992), a scholar who has been instrumental in the development of Africanlanguage policy not only in South Africa but internationally, who hasproposed that language planning should not just be top-down but alsobottom-up. The case study countries provide clues to some mechanismsby which top-down and bottom-up decision-making can meet in ways thatimprove access to quality basic schooling.

In general, bilingual schooling appears to meet the demands of commu-nities and grassroots movements as well as governments and donors.Parents and communities who see the results of mother tongue-basedprimary schooling, especially in terms of useful skills and the facility theirchildren have in learning, are highly supportive. Parents also seem to bemore inclined to send and support their daughters if schooling is bilingual.In addition, those involved in grassroots organizations and/or mother-tongue literacy programs are usually supportive of bilingual programs.Clearly there can be resistence if bilingual programs are forced uponcommunities without their understanding or consent, as the case of


Bolivia’s top-down reform has demonstrated. Even there, however, exper-ience with bilingual schooling combined with indigenous group aware-ness campaigns have helped to assuage concerns. Decentralization ofschool decision-making following the gradual and optional approach thatMozambique has chosen seems most likely to facilitate implementation,and there it is even possible that grassroots support along with local NGOactivity will help fill in the gaps where official support is lacking.

Top-down concerns of government officials relate to improving educa-tional access and quality, with a special donor-promoted concern forincreasing participation of females and traditionally marginalized peoples.Of course, decision-makers want to reach their goals at the lowest costpossible both economically and politically. Researchers may be able tofacilitate the process if studies can demonstrate results in an understand-able and fair way, balancing the costs particularly of start-up (i.e. teachereducation and materials development) with the costs of NOT implementingan effective basic education program in an understandable language. Inaddition, pressure from below may give politicians the push they need tomake decisions supporting implementation of bilingual programs.

As mentioned above, some important advantages of bilingual programsdefy quantification, making them less easy to package in ways economistsand other decision-makers prefer, but this does not mean they are notworthy of serious consideration. Some very positive qualities are morelikely to appear in descriptions of participatory classrooms and interviewswith students, parents and teachers. Taken together, they point to the needfor further exploration into the social mechanisms at work and the potentialfor L1 use in the classroom to effect change more directly than might bepresumed. One condition for demonstrating this potential seems to be theadoption of models that fully develop the L1 and do not attempt to transi-tion too quickly to the official language. In turn, adoption of appropriatemodels seems to depend on the degree to which myths about languagecan be dispelled and better understanding can be built of the pedagogicalprinciples involved.

Power relationships are not easily changed, but parent involvementis undoubtedly a key factor. Cummins has pointed out that the agendafor educational reforms in the United States as late as the 1990s was“largely determined by the concerns of dominant group educators,” while“the voices of culturally diverse educators and parents were rarely heard”(1996: 171). In developing countries where power relations are even moreasymmetrical, the situation can be acute. Referring to the inferiority ofeducational provision for indigenous peoples throughout Latin America,D’Emilio says that fundamental changes in education policies require

62 CAROL BENSON

greater community participation: “This means more than taking parents’opinions into account – it means respecting and accepting their decisions”(D’Emilio, 1995: 79).

Taken together, these findings from around the world suggest thatpeople of developing countries benefit significantly from the use oftheir languages in schooling. That bilingual programs reach the mostmarginalized is a point not to be missed by policymakers on any continent.

CONCLUSIONS

While experimentation is still the norm and implementation continues topresent challenges, there is a great deal of evidence that bilingual schoolingoffers developing countries a way to improve delivery of quality basiceducation to linguistically diverse populations. The pedagogical benefits –comprehensible content area instruction and mother tongue language andliteracy competence upon which to build L2 skills – have been demon-strated repeatedly even in difficult contexts. Likewise, there is evidence ofother benefits such as increased pride in the home language and culture,higher self-esteem, improved girls’ participation, greater classroom inter-action, and many other desirable schooling outcomes. These outcomeshave been documented in many cases, but have yet to convince everyone,as evidenced by the case countries’ negotiation of irregular paths betweenexperimentation and implementation. In countries that still run bilingualexperiments, the task is to put into practice what has been learned world-wide regarding effective models and methods, so that more support maybe gained through achievement of promised outcomes. In countries likeMozambique, the question seems to be whether public opinion and agrowing body of scholars and practitioners can influence policymakers toprovide the support needed for more widespread implementation throughthe curriculum reform. In countries like Bolivia, the challenge may actuallybe to mobilize resources at the grassroots level so that the policy dreamcan become a practical reality. What this means to children in developingcountries is the chance to receive quality basic education and to becomeparticipating members of society, things they have been denied for muchtoo long.

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Centre for Research on BilingualismStockholm University106 91 StockholmSwedenE-mail: [email protected]