FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR AN INTERNATIONAL EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BILINGUAL APPROACHES IN EDUCATING RURAL POOR LINGUISTIC MINORITIES

Since its inception in 1959, the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) has been concerned with the role of language in the growth of LDC"s. For purposes of this study, seven countries were selected; they include: India, Philippines, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Mexico, and Peru. The choice was based on CAL"s awareness of the existence of bilingual education activities, contacts with potential cooperating centers, and the desire to include a wide range of contextual situations. The feasibility study consisted of three parts: a literature review; an on-site visit to each of the selected countries; and the development of a final research design. An examination of the country profiles in Chapter 2 reveals the complexity of the language situation in these countries. The profiles include a 1977 estimate of the population, a general overview of the language situation, the patterns of urban and rural school populations, educational research and innovation, and local resources and interest. The subsequent chapter addresses the feasibility of a study of an international evaluation and includes a research design. In all of the countries surveyed, the expansion of educational opportunity implies the need for strategies to cope with children who do not speak the official or national language. This presents the dilemma of how to engineer two contradictory goals: student comprehension and rural development, and national identity and preparation for economic survival in a state controlled by agro-business or industrial interests. There is much evidence of continuing compromise between these two philosophical poles. However, little attention is directed to the premise that rural education can be designed to make rural citizens more effective in a rural, rather than urban, setting.