DOI: 10.4324/9781003158660-4 Introduction Studies have consistently shown that children learn better through their mother tongue or most familiar languages (UNESCO, 2016; Phyak, 2018; Trudell, 2016). Learning in mother tongue has also been considered as a part of funda- mental human rights (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1999). Linguistic human rights in edu- cation primarily refer to the rights for all children to receive education through their mother tongue as well as to develop literacy skills in their mother tongue (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1999). Tsui and Tollefson (2004) accordingly argue that the medium of instruction (MoI) to teach all kinds of subjects should be children’s mother tongue, minimally in the frst few years of schooling. About 40% of the global children, nevertheless, do not have access to education in their mother tongue or a language they understand (UNESCO, 2016). Although many mul- tilingual countries in Asia and Africa have continually shown their positive com- mitments for the adaptation of mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE), most children from these regions do not have access to such educa- tion (Trudell, 2016; UNESCO, 2016). Most multilingual societies have explicit policies that recognize the importance of mother tongue and multilingualism in education, but they are hardly implemented in practice and, instead, monolingual education policies have been more prevalent (Mohanty, 2019; Sah, 2020a). Such monolingual policies are often framed within (a) nationalist language ideologies that emphasize a dominant national language attributed to national identity, and (b) neoliberal language ideologies that promote the use of commodifed lan- guages in education (Sah, 2020b). At present, the latter are more dominant, resulting in the adaptation of English as a medium instruction (EMI) policy in both K–12 and higher education (Dearden, 2015; Sah, 2020a). Dearden (2015) defnes EMI as “the use of the English language to teach academic subjects in countries and jurisdictions where the frst language (L1) of the majority of the population is not English” (p. 2). EMI is also defned as “an instructional model of teaching non-English academic subjects through Eng- lish . . . which facilitates the learning of content knowledge and English skills” (Sah, 2020a, p. 1). As Simpson (2017) notes, “EMI refers to a controversial 3 English as a medium of instruction, social stratification, and symbolic violence in Nepali schools Untold stories of Madhesi children Pramod K. Sah