At the end of each supervisory trip, feedback sessions with Provincial Departments of Education and Training, District Boards of Education and Training leaders and education managers were very useful. Participants were able to update information on the status of each school and listen as teachers shared their classroom experiences. The technical comments by the central programme staff were particularly valuable.
Provincial and district programme staff visited the schools each quarter to provide timely support to teachers.
How did you evaluate students’ progress?
Yearly student assessments were an essential part of the MTBBE Action Research. The assessments provided valuable information about the impact of the programme on learning outcomes.
The first student assessment in September 2008 collected baseline data for the first cohort of students. The assessment focused on five components in both the mother tongue and Vietnamese at pre-primary level.
A second assessment in May 2009 assessed the same group of students’ progress over the pre-school year. It found that the MTBBE students had made“ significant progress in all five components” compared with a sample of non-MTBBE students. The 2009 assessment added sections on teachers and learning materials. It provided valuable information that was used to improve textbooks, provide insights for teacher training, and strengthen the teaching-learning process.
MTB MLE RESOURCE KIT Including the Excluded: Promoting Multilingual Education
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What are your plans for the future?
UNICEF will continue to communicate with policy makers at all levels to encourage their support for continuing MTBBE in the three language communities and, where feasible, expand it to other languages.
UNICEF will build on the growing interest and engagement of the Ethnic Council of the National Assembly and political leaders in the provinces by disseminating the MOET’ s final evaluation results and recommendations from the final evaluation. This will be done with the support of high-level institutions like the National Assembly and other related councils, to ensure the expansion and sustainability of the MTBBE programme.
Participants in the Action Research identified, tested and revised the essential components of MTBBE that will support expansion to new schools and new ethnic minority groups in Viet Nam. The programme also helped to create a socio-political climate that promotes expansion. UNICEF will encourage and provide technical support to the three provinces engaged in the Action Research to sustain their MTBBE programmes, continuing the good practice in Lao Cai and An Giang. UNICEF will also develop a specific advocacy strategy to engage more political leaders and decision makers in the National Assembly, in universities and research institutions in considering language issues in education for both bilingual and multilingual students as these students are often from the most remote and disadvantaged provinces.