Contents
Introduction 1 Background to the current MTB MLE movement 1
Part 1 : Purposes , benefits and essential features of MTB MLE 3
Q1 : What is the educational situation for children in many minority language communities ?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Q2 : What are the challenges to MTB MLE and what has been done to overcome them ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Q3 : How does MTB MLE help minority language children achieve a quality education ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Q4 : How does MTB MLE support gender equity ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Q5 : How does MTB MLE support social cohesion and national development ? . . . . 14
Q6 : Does MTB MLE cost more than single-language education to implement and maintain ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Q7 : What are the essential components of successful and sustained MTB MLE programmes ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Q8 : Can it be done ? Can strong MTB MLE programmes be established and sustained ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
References 24
Part 2 : Research-based answers to questions about mother tongue-based bilingual or multilingual education 27
Introduction 27 Q1 : Does MTB MLE help students learn the official school language ? . . . . . . . . . 28
Q2 : Does MTB MLE help students achieve grade-level competencies in other academic subjects ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Q3 : Does MTB MLE prepare students for secondary schooling ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Q4 : Does MTB MLE help girls achieve academic success in primary school ? . . . . . 34
Final comments 35