Language Education Policies and the Notion of the Indigenous in a Global World: A Brief Examination of the International Baccalaureate's Language Manifesto

Author : Pallavi Mogre

Abstract :The International Baccalaureate (IB) is an international educational board that promulgates notions of linguistic inclusivity. The paper examines the IB’s language education policies vis-à-vis its proliferation in the Indian subcontinent. Notions of mother tongue and multilingualism are problematised for nations which suffer from a linguistic limbo of sorts due to colonisation. The paper investigates how an international curriculum can understand and align itself through its policy formulation to meet the needs of language learning and acquisition in nations where linguistic multiplicity compromises and confounds any clear definitions of a native tongue/s. Ideologies about the vernacular and the mother tongue are obfuscated in the light of globalisation, and the paper posits that in such countries, international language education policies, in spite of their attempting to take cognisance of this linguistic dissonance, are unable to navigate a linguo-political terrain that even national curricula have been unable to address in a politically astute manner due to regional concerns along with the linguistic metamorphosis spurred by globalisation.

Keywords :IB, Globalisation, International Language Education Policies, Indigenous, Heteroglossia, Multilingualism.

Conference Name :International Conference on English Literature and Linguistics (ICELL-25)

Conference Place Dehradun, India

Conference Date 18th Oct 2025