Bangkok recently hosted the High-level Policy Forum on Multilingual Education, which brought together over 30 high-senior government officials from 20 Asia-Pacific countries during the 7th International Conference on Language and Learning, hosted by UNESCO, UNICEF, and partners.

The officials endorsed the Bangkok Priorities for Action on First Language-based Multilingual Education, which followed up on the 2019 Bangkok Statement on Language and Inclusion.

The Bangkok Priorities for Action emphasize the need for mother language-based multilingual education in addressing the region’s “learning crisis” post-Covid. The full text (four pages) describes “first language-based multilingual education as an accelerator of learning.”

Connections with UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 are also emphasized. 

For further reading, check out Multilingual Education: A Key to Quality and Inclusive Learning at UN.org.