The most outstanding characteristic of language in education policy for South Asia (SA) is its multilingualism. All through recorded history the seven countries that constitute SA have been multilingual. For at least the first two decades of their existence as sovereign states the large nation states of SA failed to take into account this…

In formulating an official language policy, a country must consider cultural, social, political and economic factors. Alternative policies on language instruction can be categorized into three groups: 1) subordination of the home language to the country's dominant language; 2) bilingual maintenance through the simultaneous provision of instruction…