PROMISE WITHOUT PLANNING: A CRITICAL POLICY ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN PAKISTAN’S EDUCATION POLICIES, 1947–2010

Abstract

Pakistan has over sixty languages, but a primary concern in education policies has been Urdu, English and, up until 1971, Bengali. This study aims to look at linguistic diversity in the context of nine national education policies (1947-2009), language provisions in the Constitution of 1973 and the 18th amendment in 2010. It has a qualitative document analysis design. The data refer to the provisions of the policies in policy documents and as reported by Torwali (2016) during his review of education policies in Pakistan. The provisions were deductively coded into a framework of Spolsky's (2004) model of language policy and the orientations of language as problem, right and resource of Ruiz's (1984) model, which were linked with the concept of linguistic capital of Bourdieu (1991). Simple frequency counting is provided to aid the qualitative reading. There is evidence of the ideological framing of Islam in all nine Policies. Urdu has six, English has five and four are for the provincial languages and two are for Bengali. The nine federal policies do not mention the other mother tongues of the countries. The deadline to replace English with Urdu (1959, 1969 and 1973) has not been fulfilled and by 2009 the English had been replaced as a subject and became a main medium for science and mathematics. A rights view is used in 6 of the 9 policies, either as a theme for solving the problem of diversity through a common language or is not mentioned; the rights view is found primarily in provincial legislation as well as the Constitution. The 18th amendment provided an opportunity for mother tongue education in the province but the time of the source, it had been used only in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The study finds that not much planning has been done in the Pakistan language-in-education policy, and that English and Urdu have been the ones losing their capitals while the mother tongues have been losing theirs. It suggests a mother-tongue based multilingual model, which is to be led at the provincial level and a stand-alone national language policy.