カザフスタンの多言語教育政策に関する一考察

─「言語の三位一体」政策に焦点を当てて─

抄録

  Personal multilingualism is required as a response to changing social and cultural realities associated with globalization. Governments have therefore focused on multilingual education policy for their peoples. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the characteristics and challenges of multilingual education policy in Kazakhstan, focusing on the policy of “Trinity of Languages”.

  Firstly, this paper provides an overview of the historical background of multilingual education policy in Kazakhstan, dating back to the Soviet era, and then shows the main principles of multilingual education policy established after gaining independence. Although not reflected in daily reality, multilingual education based on the principle of “education in the mother tongue” was pursued during the Soviet era. My primary sources on the history of Soviet language education policy will be language and education policies adopted during this period, such as the 1938 “Decree on compulsory Russian learning in schools of national republics and autonomies”, the 1959 “Regulations for 8-year schools” and the 1973 “Law on Education”. An examination of post-independence multilingual education policies will be conducted based on official statements concerning language and education, such as the Constitution (1995), the Law on Languages (1997), the Law on Education (1999) and the National Obligatory Educational Standard (2002), as well as on education policy papers such as the “Conception of general secondary school educational contents” (1993), the “Conception of ethnocultural education” (1996) and others.

  An analysis of the above mentioned documents reveals that succession of the Soviet idea of guaranteeing “education in the mother tongue” entails understanding the wide social recognition and use of the Kazakh language. On the other hand, the necessity to rise to the challenges of globalization requires the fostering of multilingual competency. This problem is addressed by emphasizing the importance of Kazakh, Russian and English language skills and appeared in 2007 in the form of the “Trinity of languages” policy.

  The emergence of Kazakhstan’s “Trinity of Languages” policy in the beginning of 2007 led to significant change as reflected in current multilingual education policy. This paper describes the background of the policy’s rationale and adoption. The strategic paper of this policy, the “Conception of the Development of Multilingual Education in Kazakhstan”, was prepared by Karaganda National University as the leading institution for the implementation of the “Trinity of Languages” policy and was approved by Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan in fall of 2008. According to this conception, Kazakh, Russian and English will serve as languages of instruction for different subjects: Kazakh for subjects in the Kazakh language and literature, Kazakh history and geography; Russian for the Russian language and literature, and English for world history and the sciences. The shift to those three medium of instructions is planned to take effect in 2012.

  An existing gap between the ideas of the “Trinity of Languages” policy and the realities of multilingual education is brought to light. This gap results from a shortage of teachers with multilingual abilities and the severe conditions of teaching foreign languages in the rural areas of Kazakhstan. At the same time, the challenge for the “Trinity of Languages” policy also includes the linguistic problems of ethnic Kazakh returnees, the descendants of Kazakhs who fled from famine and forced collectivization in the 1930s. These citizens have little or no knowledge of written Kazakh and, what makes them more vulnerable, of oral or written Russian. The shift to three media of instruction might hold negative consequences for returnees’ successful social reintegration into Kazakhstan. (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)