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local Thursday 23 February 2023

In commemoration of International Mother Language Day:

Multilingual education, a necessity for transforming education

(Oranjestad)—Multilingual- longer speak their native
ism is an essential factor of tongue.
communication between
the public and a multilat- However, one cannot deny
eral diplomatic facilitator; their native language; one
something extremely im- will always think in their na-
portant for the United Na- tive tongue. This is why it is
tions who favors dialogue, very important that the lan-
tolerance and understand- guage is celebrated and
ing. Multilingualism ensures preserved, so that we can
effective participation and promote, respect and take
mayor transparency with our language with us ev-
efficiency in better results. erywhere we go.

On February 21st, the world Aruba is a small island and
celebrated International its dependence on tour-
Mother Language Day. For ism is very important. This
this day, Unesco celebrates is a perfect opportunity to
each year with a different promote Papiamento to
theme as to highlight the foreign visitors, so that they
importance of a mother may appreciate the rich-
tongue within communities. ness and complexity of the
According to the organi- language.
zation, 40% of the world’s
population does not re- According to the Central
ceive an education in a Bureau for Statistics Aruba
language they speak and guage at home are 30% highlighted. The Decade of Indigenous (CBS) in preparations for
understand. Nevertheless, more likely to understand Unesco also believes in Languages 2022-2032, Census 2020, they have
thanks to the efforts made what they read at the end the importance of cultural which includes an 10-year- organized a prototypi-
for the importance of of their primary education and linguistic diversity for long initiative to garner at- cal Census survey in 2019,
mother languages, prog- compared to those who sustainable societies. In tention around the world where they discovered
ress is being made in terms do not use their mother lan- regards to its mandate to on the loss of indigenous that Papiamento is the
of multilingual education, guage as the language of promote peace, the orga- languages and the urgen- dominant language on the
especially for children. Fur- instruction. nization works to preserve cy to preserve, revitalize island, followed by Spanish,
thermore, the commitment cultural and language dif- and celebrate them. English and lastly Dutch.
to further develop multilin- Audrey Azoulay, general ferences, which can lead Aruba should be thankful
gualism in the public sector director at Unesco points to tolerance and respect On Aruba, for example, the to the pioneers that have
is becoming more popular. out that “to help fight the for each other. Papiamento language is maintained their mission
Language and multilin- current crisis of misunder- very valuable. It has been to preserve Papiamento
gualism can promote in- standing, diversity in linguis- The multilingual and mul- noted a few times that where many people say
clusion. This correlates with tics must also be preserved, ticultural society exists be- people within the commu- that the language disturbs
one of the Sustainable De- because this is an essential cause of their languages, nity underestimate the val- the children’s education.
velopment Goals from the cultural aspect. Unesco which is transmits and pre- ue of the language, espe- Seeing as Papiamento is
UN, which states that no are asking governments serve awareness and cul- cially when a young person considered an official lan-
one must be left behind. to adopt plurilingual edu- tural tradition in a sustain- moves to a foreign country guage nowadays, we must
Unesco promotes multilin- cation based on mother able way. On average, a to pursue a higher educa- value this as a symbol of
gual education based on languages for the first few language goes extinct ev- tion for which they will no the Aruban identity.q
mother languages. This is years a child’s educational ery 2 weeks, taking with it
a type of education that career. We know it works; the cultural and intellectual
begins in the native tongue there is empirical evidence patrimony.
of the student. Later, other that shows that this does The idea to celebrate In-
languages are gradually indeed help kids learn bet- ternational Mother Lan-
introduced. This method ter.” guage Day was started by
ensures that students can Bangladesh in 1999 during
fill the gap that foreign Multilingualism contributes the Unesco General Con-
languages may leave be- to the development of in- ference. By the year 2000,
hind in the home. Students clusive societies, which al- this day was celebrated
would be able to discover low different cultures to ex- around the world.
the school’s atmosphere ist side by side. The theme
in a familiar language and for this year’s International For this day, Unesco also re-
therefore learn better. Mother Language Day is minds the world the impor-
“Multilingual Education, a tance of preserving indig-
It is for this reason that Unes- necessity for transforming enous languages. At least
co calls on other countries education” and this ad- 40% of over 6700 languages
to apply an multilingual ed- heres to the recommen- that are spoken around the
ucation policy. The global dations made during the world are at risk of extinc-
database on Inequality in Transforming Education tion, because of the lack of
Education shows that on Summit, where education preservation.
a global scale, children for and languages of in- For this reason, Unesco
who learn their mother lan- digenous populations were leads the project called