Mercator Education: call for minimum standards for education in regional or minority languages, 14-05-2007 (A-EL)

Ljouwert, Monday, 14 May 2007 by Onno P. Falkena  

The European rules on the teaching of minority languages need to become much clearer according to the findings of a conference held in Ljouwert, Friesland, on Multilingualism and Language Learning, and organised by Mercator Education. The Frisian minister for education, Bertus Mulder, pleaded for clear European standards for education in minority languages as an addition to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

“Good education in minority languages means that the teachers have to be well trained and that the inspectorate for education also pays attention to the teaching of minority languages'', Mulder explains. “Clear standards and guidelines might help us to move forward.''

At the end of this month Mulder will present the report 'Development of Minimum Standards for Education in Regional or Minority Languages' at the plenary meeting of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities (CLRAE) of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. After this meeting the report will be forwarded to the Committee of Ministers of Council of Europe. If the report is accepted it will help to clarify what it takes to offer 'a substantial part' of the education in a minority language and what a state should do to meet the requirements after ratifying the charter.

At the conference in Ljouwert civil servants, scientists, politicians and language activists from 22 linguistic communities from across Europe discussed the findings in the report.

“We have been working with the Charter for ten years, and it is about time to make the articles on education more specific'', says Mulder. “Many states have ratified the article that 'a substantial part' of primary education should be given in the minority language. But what does that mean - a substantial part? And which are the problems we have to face in order to have a substantial part of our education in the minority language? When the Netherlands ratified the minister believed that the Netherlands fulfilled this demand, while many schools in Friesland only taught Frisian for one hour a week!'' One hour weekly is far from 'a substantial part' in the view of Mulder, one day a week would be better as a minimum standard. “There should be continuity in the teaching of minority languages and the language should also be used in the teaching of other subjects.''

At the conference it became clear that throughout Europe similar problems occur. In various countries minority language teacher training courses are scarce. For some languages the availability of teaching materials is very limited. Inspectors of public education are often not trained and sometimes even not informed about the education of minority languages. In some cases it is not clear whether minority language education is supervised at all.

At the conference the Basque minister of education, Tontxu Campos, signed a letter of intent for an agreement with the Mercator Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning. In the coming four years Mercator will carry out several projects for the Basque Autonomous Government. One of the plans is to investigate the added value of multilingual education. Added to this more Basque schools will participate in Mercator’s Network of Schools project. Mercator will also organise European seminars about Basque education in Friesland.

Durk Gorter of the Mercator Research Centre commented that he hopes that in future other regional governments with minority languages will follow the example of Basque educational practices. (Eurolang 2007)

Websites

Conference website
http://www.mercator-education.org/news/international-conference-on-10-11-may

Network of schools  http://www.networkofschools.org/

Boarne: Eurolang [www.eurolang.net], 14-05-2007

<< Werom nei 'Aktueel 2007'