Building Community Involvement in MTB-MLE

Mariam Smith and Srom Bunthy International Cooperation Cambodia (ICC), Mondulkiri

4th International Language and Education Conference

Bangkok, 6-8 November, 2013

An action research project: “How can the Bunong people be involved in

an education relevant to them?”

Our two main messages 1. Communities can construct their own concept

of education and actively get involved in making it happen.

2. Teachers from ethnolinguistic minorities, even if their own education levels are low, can engage in dialog about learner-centered methods, and creatively apply these in context.

A context of rapid change • There are environmental, political, and

social changes requiring new sets of skills.

• The Bunong are ill-equipped to cope with the changes and participate.

• There is a risk that people will reflect the agenda of the NGO when their knowledge is undervalued.

Educational Challenges • Few adult literates understand the value

of education and struggle to support student learning.

• Some teachers from other cultures have difficulties to live and teach regularly in the remote locations.

• Bunong families spend a large amount of their year on remote farms in the forest.

ICC Baseline 2013

The Provincial Office of Education

• has stepped up to the challenge (improving access, recruiting teachers from remote locations)

• has recognised the Bunong students’ lack of skills in the national language and the need for MTB-MLE and has cooperated with NGOs to provide these opportunities in the formal and non-formal sector.

Yet, in spite of these significant efforts, NGOs and government have struggled to build the community

involvement necessary to make programs successful.

We explored with communities the question:

“How can the Bunong people be involved in an education relevant to them?”

• 6 communities • Participatory tools • Small action-reflection cycles. • dialog: must use mother tongue

Findings

Communities need to formulate a local construct of education in order to see the school as part of the local community.

Communities need to explore their education priorities in relation to their cultural and development priorities. By placing value on local knowledge in education, community members are empowered to be involved at all levels of the program (envisioning, planning, acting, evaluating, etc). They are then able to support partnerships between education service providers and local communities.

Findings

Education needs to strongly connect to the Bunong people’s environment, livelihood, and identity.

We need to help communities to reinvent education on a community by community basis- integrating their own values into the school.

The challenge: Need for flexibility

How can we help this become reality?

Approaches and tools

4 Approaches

1. Reflection on Culture

2. Integrating Traditional Arts

3. Equipping Teachers to Work with the Communities

4. Catalysing Networks

1. Reflection on Culture

1. Reflection on Culture

• When communities reflect on cultural loss, they are inspired to action.

• They need new processes for transmission - how can schools be a part of cultural transmission?

• “What do we want for our own, and our children’s, future? What are our resources? What roles do each of us play?”

2. Integrating Traditional Arts

2. Integrating Traditional Arts

• Communities were encouraged to use traditional arts in creative ways- not only for preservation but for current Bunong culture and needs, including education.

• With the assistance of skilled community members, teachers incorporated basket weaving and songs into the class experience. This gave value to traditional knowledge and to the parents/elders, and helped to link these communities to the classroom.

2. Integrating Traditional Arts

3. Equipping teachers to work with the communities

3. Equipping teachers to work with the communities

• Cultural relevance is about starting with what the learner knows and relate to. This is of course also what learner-centered approaches are about.

3. Equipping teachers to work with the communities • One of the things we found, was that

NGOs, including ourselves in ICC, have focused on training learner-centered methodologies, through practice, but not engaged the teachers enough in dialog on why learner-centered methods are beneficial.

Some ways we equipped teachers to work with communities

• Exploring what knowledge and resources students already had.

• Teachers explored their own motivation for learning.

• Cooperation between teacher, students, and community.

• Helping teachers explore language as a tool and not an end.

• Critical reflection on the lesson, a need for flexibility

4. Catalysing Networks

4. Catalysing Networks

• It was difficult to predict who the key individuals in a village would be.

• The pioneers needed support from others with similar visions.

4. Catalysing Networks • ICC helped them to meet, share

experiences, and reflect together on effective strategies and ideas for continued work with their communities.

• This was one of the things that was highlighted by the community as one of the most significant results of the action research project.

• The provincial and district offices of education have been able to begin dialog with this network about strategies for the expansion and strengthening of MTB-MLE.

Story of Mae Noy

Conclusion Our two main messages again:

1.Communities can construct their own concept of education and actively get involved in making it happen.

2.Teachers from ethnolinguistic minorities, even if their own education levels are low, can engage in dialog about learner-centered methods, and creatively apply these in context.

but...

this requires us to work in learner-centered ways,

...engaging in dialog with communities about how education can connect with their knowledge and challenges.

...engaging with teachers to explore learner centered approaches using learner centered approaches!

\

Thank you!