Managing language issues with wisdom: the challenges of language leadership

Abstract

The paper describes the recurring and newly emerging issues in language policy and education policy as these intersect with economic and international policies. The language policies are examined in terms of various realities, specifically, demographic, political, economic, cultural, religious, social, familial and personal realities. The issue of the "duality" of the education system is reinterpreted in terms of the multiplicity of learning systems, as distinguished from the formal structures and meaning of the education system. The extent to which the introduction of foreign languages in secondary and tertiary institutions of learning and the increasing number of students studying abroad is creating a new linguistic map of language attitudes and profiles among elite groups in the country is discussed. The phenomena of language loyalty, language maintenance, language shift and multiliteracies in the education sector as well as in other sectors are examined. How the agenda of lifelong learning and the creation of a knowledge-based society is shaping the new linguistic and educational imagination ls also discussed. The impact of the change of emphasis from the dominant cultural drive of educational goals to the economic drive of education goals, which creates new tensions and which demand pragmatic responses in language behaviors, is critically analyzed. The emerging policy tensions of the Information Communications Technology (lCT) revolution and Knowledge Management challenges, in particular, the agenda of transforming society through technological advantage offered by the Multimedia Super Corridor and the flagship applications is reviewed. How the introduction of the Smart School Flagship, together with electronic books, digital libraries and the Internet as well as other e-Iearning initiatives, might change the language learning landscapes is also explored. The issues of national pride and identity, national and family language profiles are revisited in the context of new formula in the language debate, including, ecological linguistics, and such other criteria as "fitness for the present and future" and "espoused theory and theory in action" pertaining to language uses and language users. The paper examines the language dissemination roles of institutions such as think tanks, the International Islamic University, ASTRO, and The Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs Institute. The paper analyzes language policies not just within the education and administration systems but in the context of Malaysian aspirations in global leadership, as well as its actual roles in international organizations such as ASEAN, NAM, and the OIC. The paper concludes by discussing the emergence of the new language elites and their roles in shaping language learning attitudes and motivations.