Multilingual education threatened in Brussels, Belgium

[Noel B. Salazar]

Dear colleagues,

The Flemish Minister of Education, Pascal Smet, decided last week to cut 
the financial aid for multilingual and multicultural teaching in 
Brussels, the heart of Europe. Multicultural and multilingual teaching 
is a broad approach to teaching which includes language courses and 
classes on culture for children who speak another language at home (LCO 
-- OETC in Flanders). These children take a part of the courses in their 
mother tongue.

The organizing non-profit, Foyer, has promoted multicultural projects in 
Dutch-speaking pre-schools and primary schools since 1981. At present, 
more than 500 pupils are involved in programmes in Italian, Spanish and 
Turkish in six schools across the European capital. Over the years, 
Foyer's multicultural projects have attracted researchers who have 
published a number of studies in journals and in the media, nationally 
and internationally.

As you undoubtedly know, multicultural teaching has a positive impact on 
the linguistic integration of students. From a linguistic perspective, 
learning a foreign language is easier if the knowledge of the mother 
tongue is sufficiently developed. From a psychological perspective, 
including creating an identity, self-confidence, motivation to 
integrate, et cetera, this approach recognizes and validates the foreign 
mother tongue within the school. Once these multicultural students reach 
secondary school (age 12), they achieve higher grades than other 
students of non-Belgian origin. An impressive 90% of the children that 
followed this project graduated, whereas the results for the average 
group of immigrant students are significantly lower (respectively 70% 
for boys, 75% for girls).

Why the Minister of Education decided to abolish the project, leaving 
500 children and their families in the cold, is totally incomprehensible.

We really need your support to revert this decision. How can you help?
(1) Sign the online petition (and don't hesitate to leave comments and 
to self-identify as an expert): http://goo.gl/fve3c
(2) "Like" the related Facebook page: http://goo.gl/NDF80
(3) Spread this news worldwide

I thank you, in name of the children, their parents and their teachers.

All the best,

Dr. Noel B. Salazar
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Noel B. Salazar, PhD
CuMoRe - Cultural Mobilities Research
New book: Envisioning Eden 
<http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title.php?rowtag=SalazarEnvisioning>
EASA Executive Committee Member (2011-2013)
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IMMRC-Anthropology, University of Leuven
Parkstraat 45, bus 3615, BE-3000 Leuven, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)475 53.73.13, Fax +32 (0)16 32.59.02
http://kuleuven.academia.edu/NoelBSalazar
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Noel B. Salazar
De Bonnestraat 99, bus 1, BE-1080 Brussels
BELGIUM
Cell: +32-475-53.73.13
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