LINGUISTIC HIERARCHIES AND HIGHER EDUCATION ACCESS: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF MULTILINGUALISM IN RURAL PAKISTAN

Abstract

Education policy of language has immense consequences on the avenues of higher learning particularly in the bilingual or multilingual societies whereby the stratification of language can result in the issue of inequity. The regional languages such as Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi and Balochi are marginalized in rural Pakistan whereby, Urdu and English are the major language of education and this diminishes the chances of students to prepare and avail higher education. The given qualitative ethnographic study, which relies on classroom observations, interviews with students, teachers, administrators, and community members, document analysis, was carried out in the rural schools of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan in order to know how linguistic hierarchies prevent the access to higher education. Findings have shown that privilege types against the Urdu and English language are used to create structural forms of discrimination that undermine the academic readiness and self-esteem of speakers of the regional language therefore restricting their access and performance to higher education. Nonetheless, the research also indicates pedagogical practices that use the regional languages to promote engagement and conceptual knowledge, and thus recommends that multilingual strategies could be applied to bridge the secondary and tertiary level. Placing these findings in the context of the international literature of higher education, the study proposes the establishment of culturally responsive language policies to value multilingualism as a resource, which will result in equal access to higher education. The study is relevant to the international discourse of linguistic diversity in higher education providing policy suggestions of the inclusion of institutional practices in multilingual environments.