Exploring the role of language for education and development

24-26 September
Bangkok, Thailand

The Inclusion, Mobility and Multilingual Education Conference represents an exciting opportunity to discuss, debate and develop critical issues around language and development facing the world in 2019.

Conference Background and Objectives

This year, for one year only, two major conference series have been brought together to focus on these important subjects

The Inclusion, Mobility and Multilingual Education Conference brings together:

We are all presently witnessing unprecedented levels of human mobility. Alongside an increasingly mobile workforce and increased mobility for higher education, we are also seeing the highest levels ever of involuntary displacement, with over 68.5 million people forced from their homes, including 25.4 million refugees, over half of whom are under 18.

In the Asia-Pacific region, huge populations are moving for work and higher education, with internal displacement and cross border migration due to conflict, poverty, climate change and social injustice creating increasingly complex ethnolinguistic landscapes. Challenges of inclusion, social cohesion and peace-building are raised, for mobile populations but also stable but linguistically marginalized populations, including issues of access to civic participation, justice, health and information.

At a time when many more children are in school, but many are still not learning, and in particular in the context of the declared United Nations Year of indigenous languages, fundamental questions remain about the balance of local, national and global languages in education.

Objectives

The overall aim of the conference is to provide a space for practitioners, NGO staff, researchers and government representatives to explore and exchange on issues of language, inclusion, and mobility in education and development.

The Conference aims to:

1. Explore how an open and inclusive multilingual approach, especially in the context of education and wider society, can maximise outcomes and well-being for different groups and for an increasingly mobile population;

2. Create linkages between policy, practice and research on how multilingual approaches can be used to advance (civic) participation, access, and learning for children and adults from marginalised and mobile communities;

3. Investigate the role of, and balance between, different languages – local, national, and international – in the context of diverse and mobile populations, and social and educational practice;

4. Identify policy priorities for advancing multilingual approaches to social and educational policy-making, learning and development;

5. Raise awareness among participants in key thematic areas.

Our Partners

The Conference is organised by a partnership:

  • The British Council, working on behalf of the Language and Development Conference Trustees
  • UNESCO, working on behalf of the Asia-Pacific Multilingual Education Working Group

Language and Development Trustees 

The Language and Development Conference Trustees have been working together since the early 1990s to organize the Language and Development Conference series, held every two years. The conference series provides an opportunity for policy-makers, researchers, development personnel, teachers and linguists to come together to share views and explore issues concerning language use in development contexts. Details of the Language and Development Conference Series can be found here.

UNESCO

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Bangkok promotes international cooperation, sets standards, and disseminates information in the fields of education, the natural sciences, the social and human sciences, culture, and communication. As the Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education covering 46 countries, it is the technical advisory body to all field offices and Member States in the region and the site of regional programs in most areas covered by the education sector. As a cluster office, UNESCO Bangkok is also the principal coordinator of UNESCO activities across sectors in the Mekong region, working directly with UNESCO National Commissions and other partners in Lao PDR, Myanmar, Singapore, and Thailand. For more information see here.

Asia-Pacific Multilingual Education Working Group

The Asia Multilingual Education Working Group (MLE WG) is co-chaired by the UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education (UNESCO Bangkok) and United Nations Children's Fund Regional Office for East Asia and the Pacific (UNICEF-EAPRO) and brings together a range of INGO, NGO and other partners with the aim of removing barriers of access to quality education for ethnolinguistic communities through coordination of technical and substantive support to multilingual education initiatives and related policy advocacy throughout the Asia region. For more information see here.

British Council

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. We do this by making a positive contribution to the UK and the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust.

We work with more than 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Last year, we reached more than 75 million people directly and 758 million people overall, including online, through broadcasts and publications. Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body.

The British Council collaborates with local, national and international stakeholders on language, education and development projects and initiatives around the world including language for resilience for displaced populations, language as a tool for conflict resolution and inclusive.

For more information about the conference, please visit https://www.asiapacificmle.net/conference/2019/

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