Language, education and ethnicity: whose rights will prevail in an age of globalisation?

Education and ethnicity cannot be discussed without taking language into account. This paper will argue that any discussion of ethnic minorities cannot ignore the question of language, nor can any discussion of human rights ignore the question of language rights. Unfortunately, in today's globalised world, governments and minorities are faced with conflicting pressures: on the one hand, for the development and use of education in a global/international language; on the other for the use and development of mother tongue, local or indigenous languages in education. Language complexity and ethnic plurality were largely brought about as a result of the creation of nation-states, which were spread around the world as a result of European colonialism. European languages and formal education systems were used as a means of political and economic control. The legacy that was left by the colonial powers has complicated ethnic relations and has frequently led to conflict. While there is now greater recognition of the importance of language both for economic and educational development, as well as for human rights, the forces of globalisation are leading towards uniformity in the languages used, in culture and even in education. They are working against the development of language rights for smaller groups. We are witnessing a sharp decline in the number of languages spoken. Only those languages which are numerically, economically and politically strong are likely to survive. As a result many linguistic and ethnic groups are in danger of being further marginalised. This paper will illustrate this thesis both historically and from several contemporary societies, showing how certain policies have exacerbated ethnic conflict while others are seeking to promote harmony and reconciliation. Why this should be so will be explored. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Real-time context-aware network security policy enforcement system (RC-NSPES)

The major technical objectives of the RC-NSPES are to provide a framework for the concurrent operation of reactive and pro-active security functions to deliver efficient and optimised intrusion detection schemes as well as enhanced and highly correlated rule sets for more effective alerts management and root-cause analysis. The design and implementation of the RC-NSPES solution includes a number of innovative features in terms of real-time programmable embedded hardware (FPGA) deployment as well as in the integrated management station. These have been devised so as to deliver enhanced detection of attacks and contextualised alerts against threats that can arise from both the network layer and the application layer protocols. The resulting architecture represents an efficient and effective framework for the future deployment of network security systems.