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.)

  It has been argued in Francophone West Africa that mother languages should be used for the medium of instruction or that bilingual education should be introduced in education system. To date much research has been done by the international organizations (UNICEF and UNESCO, for example), NGOs and other aid agencies. This research has supported the promotion of bilingual education in Francophone West Africa.

  In some West African regions, bilingual education has been put into practice a number of times on an experimental basis. In this kind of trial exercise, French and an African language have been used as the media of instruction. In cases where results are successful, bilingual programs are aimed to extend througout entire nations. While bilingual education programs have been introduced in numerous instance upon achieving independence from France, many of these efforts represented ‘short term projects’ or mere ‘experimental’ program. Many of the experiments have not brought the expected results that bilingual education would attract students to school and improve student test scores. Despite the efforts of international organizations and other agencies, experimental bilingual education rarely have the official approval of government, and have not been succesful in being introduced as a part of formal education policy. It can be inferred from this situation that there are specific contextual factors to prevent official bilingual education in the area.

  The purpose of this essay is to analyze and interpret the situation of bilingual education in Francophone West Africa, departing from the focus of previous studies by looking primarily at the discordance among advocate aid agencies and the small need for bilingual education within respective countries.

  This essay is composed of five parts. The first part introduces the diversity of languages and the multilingual situation in the Francophone West Africa. The languages in the area can be classified into three categories according to its role: official language (langue officielle), vehicular languages （langue[s] véhiculaire[s]), and gregarious languages（langues grégaires). Among these functions, vehicular languages tended to be used as media of instruction at the first step in experimental bilingual education.

  The second part focuses on ‘medium’ languages in education which were affected by French colonial policies. Medium languages had changed from African languages, which proceed by the catholic mission, to french language as the educational policies had changed to exclude religious education in France. The evolution of official language policies in education is therefore explained from a historical point of view.

  In the third part, official positions in regards to bilingual education are introduced by referring to arguments of administrators and the laws of each country. This part analyses from the following two points of view: the African elites aiming to continue the use of the French language, and the rivalries between African languages groups after independence.

  The fourth part explains the situation of bilingual education in Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. In Niger, bilingual education started from 1973 in primary experimental schools. In these schools, African languages had been used as the media of instruction for the first three of six years. New programs which use African language for all six years started in 2001. However, this new program is also practiced in the experimental schools, and had not been introduced to all schools in Niger until very recently. In addition, the number of experimental schools does not show drastic growth. (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)