By Amna Bedri

Marginalisation exists in all societies, even in the most developed societies, but it is more pronounced in low-income or under-resourced contexts. In Sudan, marginalisation can have many causes. It can affect people who are exposed to hazards such as drought, conflict, violence, poverty, and also to adverse socioeconomic, institutional and environmental conditions. According to UNICEF (2014,p.3), “disadvantaged groups [in Sudan] includes nomads, war-affected populations; youth involvement in the military and internally displaced persons. Children from poor families”. There are also homeless children, children with special needs and working children. Even children living with their families in distant rural villages are deprived of education.
At the top of the list of marginalized children of school age are girls of nomadic families and girls of internally displaced populations. They are triply marginalized because they are girls, because of the conditions of their families and because of the lack of services, which means they are overburdened with household chores such as fetching water and firewood on a daily basis, they may also be required to look after siblings if the mother is working to support the family. In addition, they are subject to such cultural practices as child marriage and male favouritism. For instance, in Nuba mountains, marginalized communities are affected by civil war, an almost–constant state of conflict with the government of Sudan since 1989 which has affected the provision of educational services and international aid, while lack of education has led to lack of skills and means of livelihood.
Access to technology and knowledge of the English language are both means of empowerment and overcoming of marginalization. However, none of the state primary schools uses technology in classrooms. The existing equipment is used for administrative purposes only. “Sudan has launched many initiatives, aimed at implementing ICT in the education system” (Tairab, et al., 2017, p.312), but there are many challenges such as lack of written policy to use ICT for educational purposes in primary schools, lack of technology/equipment and proper training for teachers, lack of contents, and lack of proper skill and awareness of teachers and education managers (Ahmed, 2015). In addition, there are constraints of shortage and cost of electricity and internet connection in most parts of the country.
The digital divide in Sudan is actually between those who are enrolled in state schools and others who are enrolled in private/international schools. State primary schools cover only 50% of the children of school age. This was clear during the Covid-19 crisis when many private schools used different means of technology to continue offering classes online while none of the state schools had such a system. For example, some private schools used ZOOM, others provided iPads for their children and the children use them now even in face-to-face classes. In these schools, gender is not a factor. The private schools also use other forms of technology in classrooms such as smart boards, multimedia and tablets with downloaded syllabus material. An exception in the state schools is the e-learning project implemented by the Federal Ministry of Education, some state ministries and a group of partners and donors, namely: UNICEF, Ahfad University for Women, War Child Holland and Dutch Research Institute TNO. The main objective of the e-learning project is to provide education for out of school children in remote rural villages; for example one project targeted 2000 children in remote areas in Kassala (Eastern Sudan). It is now on hold because of problems in the solar power generators used to charge the laptops.

Generally, English language teaching/ learning has gone downhill in government schools since 1989; these schools lack basic requirements such as English language textbooks, teaching resources and teachers. Most teachers in rural areas come directly from secondary schools without access to any kind of training. In one of our target schools located in an urban setting, there is only one textbook for the whole class of over 60 students. This has created a linguistic gap adding to the existing causes of marginalization of these children. Families prefer sending their children to English medium private and international schools, if they can afford to do so.
References:

Ahmed, A. (2015). Managing information and communication technology in Sudanese secondary school. Journal of Education and Practice, 6 (32), 1-8.

Tairab,A., Huang, R., Chang, T. & Zheng, L. (2019). A framework to promote ICT in K-12 education in developing countries: A case study in Sudan, Conference Paper. Available at: www.researchgate.net/publication

UNICEF (2014). Middle East and North Africa out-of-school children initiative. Sudan Country Report On Out-Of-School Children. Available at: www.unicef.org/mena/reports/out-school-children-sudan

By Kamal Raj Devkota

Marginalization is a process of forcing a person, a social group or a community to live the life of marginality. It is rooted in “margin” which often underlines “gender, racial, political, cultural or economic oppression” (Hall, Stevens & Meleis 1994, p. 25). Education is another social factor that perpetuates marginalization of those who are ‘ignored’ because of their regional, ecological, economic, social and/or linguistic backgrounds. In this blog article, I will focus on how access or lack of access to English language learning and Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) is connected to marginalization in educational contexts in Nepal.

Education and Marginalization in Nepal
Marginalization has become an undeniable part of the Nepalese society. It is a shocking reality that it shapes the life and identity of a large section of its population. Though the state is often projected as the state of “char jat chhattis varna ko sajha fulbari” [a common garden of four castes and thirty-six ethnicities], the disparities and marginalization sustained on the grounds of regionality, caste, ethnicity, poverty, gender, etc., are at odds with this depiction. The complex intersectionality among these factors has reinforced even ‘double and ‘triple’ marginalization of people from marginalized and disadvantaged communities. Such a condition of marginalization is apparent in educational contexts. ‘Social selection’ of the privileged (Valentin, 2001) and ‘selective exclusion’ of women, so-called lower caste citizens, and linguistic and ethnic minorities (Caddell, 2007) are the prime causes of unceasing marginalization in education in Nepal.

English and ICT: Redefining to challenge marginalization
Modern schooling particularly English-prioritized schooling and its unequal and uneven distribution across the nation have added another tension in the educultural landscape in Nepal (Devkota, 2019). Nepali, the national language, and English, the language more valued for its role in global communication, are foregrounded in every sphere of people’s lives in Nepal. The hundreds of indigenous languages which each give voice to individual culture and identity have still not been integrated into national language policy, language education policy, and pedagogical processes in tangible terms (Phyak & Ojha, 2019; Giri, 2014; Tin, 2014). Therefore, this situation has not only resulted in linguistic marginalization of indigenous languages and their speakers in policy, but also pushed these local tongues into gradual death. In the context of Nepal, English language is charged to promote social marginalization in two senses. Firstly, it perpetuates children’s unequal access to education, institutionalizing the dichotomy of English-as-a-medium-of-instruction (EMI) and non-EMI schools. Students whose parents cannot afford more for EMI schools are obliged to attend non-EMI or English-poor schools. Such an uneven schooling practice in relation to English and EMI has pushed a large section of children especially from economically disadvantaged families as well as those living in remote settings to be further marginalized. Secondly, Nepali schools today are oriented to set up ‘more English exposure’ and EMI, ignoring the children’s mother tongue(s) or the languages that children are more familiar with. However, in the absence of required language resources to facilitate learning, teachers’ attempts fall short of quality instruction. Rather, the strategy has devalued indigenous language skills and knowledge, and hard-pressed children from diverse linguistic communities to experience being ‘disregarded’ in the classroom context.

More recently, ICT and its access and use in student learning has drawn people’s attention. Shields (2011) argues that ICT is often attributed as the symbol of modernity and progress in the policy discourses in Nepal. However, the expansion of ICT and its application in student learning is still meager. As evidenced, during the pandemic thousands of students were completely disconnected from learning, nevertheless, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and concerned government bodies appealed to continue teaching and learning through alternative modes including the internet. With a lack of proper ICT facilities across the country, the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children is widening (Dawadi, Giri & Simkhada, 2020). Students experience a harsh digital divide when they get disconnected from learning due to poor ICT infrastructure, ICT knowledge, and internet access (Devkota, 2021). Particularly, children from rural settings and from poor family background are all found to have been marginalized. Such a marginalization process may continue further since ICT development is still slow and uneven in the country.

One more argument to highlight here is that seeing English and ICT as the unequivocal forces of marginalization becomes a monolithic and biased judgment. English and ICT are both prerequisites for global citizens today. No matter where the people are born and brought up, they experience (OR aspire to experience) diverse forms of globally circulated information, messages, images, ideas, and ideologies. For access to circulated messages and information, one needs to build up English communication skills and ICT knowledge. However, when there is an inequality in the access to learning English and ICT exposure, there continues to be marginalization of the ones who are deprived of the opportunities. Therefore, to conclude, to reduce marginalization of people in Nepal, use of English needs to be redefined in the multilingual, and even plurilingual framework in
Nepal’s education policy, and ICT needs to be accessible to all students in Nepal, including the ones that are marginalized and disadvantaged.

References
Caddell, M. (2007). Education and change: A historical perspective on schooling, development and the Nepali nation-state. In: K. Kumar and J. Oesterheld, Education and social change in South Asia. New Delhi: Orient Longman, pp. 251-284.
Dawadi, S.; Giri, R.; Simkhada, P. (2020): Impact of COVID-19 on the education sector in Nepal – Challenges and coping strategies. Sage Submissions. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.31124/advance.12344336.v1
Devkota, K. R. (2019). Unraveling English language space constituted in model school construction in Nepal. Education and Development, 29, 30-44. https://doi.org/10.3126/ed.v29i0.32565
Devkota, K.R. (2021) Inequalities reinforced through online and distance education in the age of COVID-19: The case of higher education in Nepal. International Review of Education, 67, 145–165 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-021-09886-x
Giri, R. A. (2014) Changing faces of English: Why English is not a foreign language in Nepal, Journal of World Languages, 1:3, 192-209. https://doi.org/10.1080/21698252.2014.989643
Hall, J. M.; Stevens, P. E. & Meleis, A. I. (1994). Marginalization: A guiding concept for valuing diversity in nursing knowledge development. Advances in Nursing Science, 19 (4): 23-41. http://10.1097/00012272-199406000-00005
Phyak, P. & Ojha, L. P. (2019). Language education policy and inequalities of multilingualism in Nepal: Ideologies, histories and updates. In A. Kirkpatrik and A. J. Liddicoat (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Language Education Policy in Asia, (341-354). New York: Routledge.
Tin, T. B. (2014). A look into the local pedagogy of an English language classroom in Nepal. Language teaching Research, 18(3), 397-417. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1362168813510387
Valentin, K. (2005). Schooled for the future? Education policy and everyday life among urban squatters. Greenwich, Connecticut: Information Age Publishing Inc.