The 7th International Conference On Language And Education: Multilingual Education For Transformative Education Systems And Resilient Futures (#7MLE) was organised by the Asia-Pacific Multilingual Education Working Group (MLE WG) of UNESCO. The conference was organised as a bid to unite educators, linguists, researchers, policymakers, and language enthusiasts from around the world. The event was held from 4-6th October 2023 at Bangkok, Thailand.
Ranjani and Faisal from the People and Nature Collectives programme at Keystone participated in this programme. They supported the setting up of a small exhibition on activities of the networks they were representing : The Global Indigenous-led Education Network (ILED). In addition, they also presented their experiences of engaging indigenous youth in multilingual multimedia education in Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve (NBR), enabled through multiple projects at Keystone Foundation. The panel was titled ‘Celebrating Indigenous Resilliance and Innovation in Thailand, India and the Phillipines’ and the speakers elaborated on their respective contexts, communities and grassroots initiatives.
There were rich discussions from audience members too on the importance of retaining language diversity and looking at asset-based approaches with language inclusiveness in education, especially amongst indigenous communities. Another panel on Language Friendly Schools, which is allied to the ILED network, further elucidated the possibilities on language inclusive approaches within the classroom and the dilemmas of MTB (mother tongue based education), the imperative of translanguation as a pedagogical approach and the necessity to look at language and identity as a complex framework that inhibits or extends learning abilities. The participants of both panels subsequently also held a small group roundtable discussion on possibilities of cross learning and collaborating across continents & communities with similar work. The participants had a chance to attend other parallel sessions and engage with ongoing work on Multilingual Education (MLE) approaches with indigenous and other marignalised communities. The conference also helped in building perspectives, approaches and plugging in to the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032), declared by the United Nations General Assembly. Learn more about this conference here.
