Language Education Policy and English in Multilingual Countries

The resource implications of mandating multiple languages in language policy and especially language education policy are inescapable. They include the need to train thousands of multilingual teachers for primary and secondary levels, to develop strongly grounded bodies of education, and help those growing up in multilingual postcolonial environments to use their language repertoires to access local and world knowledge. Dynamic approaches are needed to build multilingual educational content to meet the needs of students in developing countries. These will be discussed below with particular reference to the Philippines and South Africa, as well as the social and economic issues that are interconnected with them.