Research Spotlight: Impact of Language Barriers on Education Outcomes

Language by virtue of being an integral determinant of social activity has often contributed significantly to issues of exclusion and marginalization. However, the ability of language to act as a discriminating factor in our education systems has seldom been highlighted.  The access and usage of language holds symbolic value in terms of privilege and the devaluation of the dominated classes. The policy brief that we are featuring this week is based on the findings of a 3-year RECOUP funded project that examined the impact such language biases and resulting education policies can have on the participation and empowerment of the marginalized classes. 

It is not surprising that international education achievement goals, such as the Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), are too broad to fully incorporate the localized aspects that affect educational outcomes. In countries like Pakistan the usual trend seems to demonstrate that the poorest segments of the population are often also the most linguistically marginalized, with the privileged groups restricting the poorer segment’s access to the dominant languages. However, it has also become more apparent that often these linguistically marginalized people restrict their own usage of dominant languages in efforts geared towards preserving their own culture and language. The overall impact of this limitation is that the marginalized groups are denied access to resources that have linguistic barriers. This inevitably impacts the levels of poverty, participation and inequality in society.

Pakistan has at the least 25 different languages, a national language Urdu and an official language English. The educational policy in the country remains passive on the difference between status of Urdu and English, but does have a strong commitment towards developing and promoting Urdu relative to other local languages. In reality, while Urdu remains the national language, English dominates all aspects of day to day life ranging from judiciary to business. It is the primary language in all private schools in urban areas with Urdu being merely taught as a subject. On the other hand, a complete reversal of the situation is seen in the free government schools. These schools that are the only access point to education for the poor masses use Urdu as the primary teaching language. The RECOUP policy brief examines the affect this configuration of language has on education outcomes, participation and empowerment.

The study highlights that the poorest people were also the most disadvantaged in terms of teaching and learning of dominant languages in schools. The results, that show students with 10 years of secondary education still having hardly any Urdu language proficiency, paint a dreary picture for Pakistan’s literacy status. At the same time their inability to use English, which is used dominantly in political, economic and social contexts, bodes ill for career and higher education options. Unable to use the two dominant languages, these segments get relegated from working class to manual labor or low paid jobs creating even greater inequality. For working class women these consequences have been more prominent due to them being restricted to teaching jobs which demand higher levels of proficiency in the English language. These adverse conditions have forced them to accept jobs with salaries even lower than those paid to the uneducated domestic help. The consequences of this are far-reaching and damage their decision making powers, financial stability as well as their status both with the household and in society.

Another important aspect brought to attention with the results is the fact that local languages proved to be an important factor not only for greater engagement but also uncovering “culturally embedded literacies” which can work to reduce the social network gaps. Students learning local languages also reported that knowledge of the languages facilitated the attainment of additional social and economic benefits by interacting with local uneducated but skilled people. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the language barrier where people could not speak local languages left them with the inability to understand the local context and issues of the poor; a serious concern when it comes to quality of health care services. Other problems of local languages, and hence cultures, being dismissed from educational systems included disempowerment, low-self esteem, limited participation and effects on the transformative outcome of education. However, despite these visible adverse affects teaching (and learning) local languages in schools remains as the lowest priority mostly due to lower status of these languages within and outside education systems. Furthermore, their use as well as the use of Urdu was a strongly discouraged practice, specifically in all private schools. 

A troubling trend identified by RECOUP is the assumption in government schools that students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds have limited learning capability. Increasingly, the kids from the linguistically marginalized group are put in low ability classes with a total of 70-80 pupils, which further damages their chances of learning. This class based assumption divide combined with intolerance towards local languages has had an impact on the linguistic and cultural diversity on schools. Teachers are seen to give no opportunities for participation in class activities and discussions to such students. Hence, for these children home and school become separate domains where the knowledge from one has no relevance in the other. A very effective example of the consequences of such practices emphasized in the brief is the inability of kids being able to identify symptoms of common diseases, which are taught in science courses, while witnessing illness in their household. 

The paper concludes by stating that for multi-lingual countries like Pakistan there is a dire need for policy measures to reflect the significance of local languages in improving learning achievements of students. However, these efforts should go hand-in-hand with efforts geared towards improving training of dominant languages. Only when both aspects are taken into account will the persistent problems of inequality be addressed. Some effective measures can be: better teacher training in terms of better proficiency as well as better language teaching skills; smoother transition for students from local language to subject studies and eventually to dominant language; language support classes even at the higher education levels to build capacity and using ‘capability approach’ evaluations that identify specific educational outcomes that reduce poverty and increase participation of the marginalized.

Click here to read paper.