Is bilingual education desirable in multilingual countries?

Kazuhiro Yuki

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Many developing countries are populated by multiple ethnic groups who use their own language in daily life and in local business, but have to use a common language in national business and in communications with other groups. In these countries, how much weights should be placed on teaching a local ethnic language and teaching a common language is a critical issue. A similar conflict arises in low-income countries in general between teaching skills that are "practical" and directly useful in local jobs, and teaching academic skills that are important in modern sector jobs. This paper develops a model to examine these questions theoretically. It is shown that balanced education of the two languages/skills is critical for skill development of those with limited wealth for education. It is also found that the balanced education brings higher earnings net of educational expenditure, only when a country has favorable conditions (TFP is reasonably high, and education, in particular, common language education [academic education] is reasonably e¤ective) and only for those with adequate wealth. Common-language-only (academic-only) education maximizes net earnings of those with little wealth, and, when the country's conditions are not good, maximizes net earnings of all. This implies that there exists a trade-off between educational and economic outcomes for those with little wealth, and, when the conditions are not good, the trade-off exists for everyone without adequate wealth. Policy implications derived from the results too are discussed.

Keywords: language policy; bilingual education; vocational education; human capital; economic development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 I28 J24 O15 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-03-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Is Bilingual Education Desirable in Multilingual countries? (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:85034

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