Posted on October 9, 2015
There is overwhelming evidence that children perform better, gain more self-confidence and learn the school language faster when their mother tongues are included in the classroom. The UN has encouraged mother tongue based instruction as best practice since the 1950s. Yet, implementation is rare. The result is lost opportunities, wasted talent, marginalisation, ignorance, as well as massive and growing inequality.
Generations of people grow up failed by their education systems from day one. A systematic human rights failure which is likely to continue unabated unless we act now.
We believe that it is time for mother tongue based multilingual education becoming the norm, rather than the exception. We have formulated a roadmap how to achieve this mission. You are welcome to view and share this roadmap with peers.
Kick start event
On 6 November 2015, we are partnering with the University of Utrecht to host an event to formally announce the plan and begin fostering support behind it. More details are found here. We will host a webinar in early December to outline the plan.
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Posted on June 16, 2015
Suriname is characterised by great ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity. In a population of less than 500,000 people, more than 20 languages are spoken. The Sranan language is the closest to a lingua franca. Most children speak Dutch as a second or foreign language. Yet only Dutch is officially recognized, in this former…
Posted on May 17, 2015
The example of the Negrito shows how relatively small projects can have a big impact (read more here). The Rutu Foundation supports the work of Jenne de Beer with the Negrito in the Philippines. Would you like to help? With your contribution (monthly or one-off), we can achieve the following: 1) Printing ‘Negrito…