Learning to read in Ratanakiri: a case study from northeastern Cambodia

Abstract

In Ratanakiri province, northeastern Cambodia, the majority of the local people are native speakers of ethnic minority languages. Primarily subsistence farmers, they use their own language to communicate with others in their villages, and as they work in their rice fields. A baseline survey taken between 1996 and 1998 in five such villages showed that more than 95% of the people could not read and write any language. At the time a literacy program was initiated, there were no other Mother Tongue First literacy programs anywhere in Cambodia for speakers of indigenous ethnic minority languages. Between 1997 and 2002 educational materials were prepared in four of these languages and a village program was initiated. Community participation was the key to the success of the program. Students who complete the program in their own language may go on to more advanced classes to learn to read the national language, Khmer. This paper discusses how against a background in which all previous programs for ethnic minority people had been designed only for reading Khmer, this program was guided by a rationale of Mother Tongue First as the driving principle for acquiring literacy for speakers of indigenous minority languages.