education generating higher promotion rates will help students complete primary education and will substantially increase completion rates at low cost. The costs saving due to bilingual education is estimated at $ 5 million, equal to the cost of primary education for 100,000 students( Patrinos and Velez, 2009, p. 1).
Although MTB MLE does require additional“ start-up” funding, the amount is far less than is sometimes assumed. With respect to reading materials, for example, experiences in many countries have shown that glossy pages and multi-coloured illustrations are not necessary and, in fact, are often a distraction for children from non-print environments who are just learning to read. The most important feature of reading materials for early primary grades is that they are in the students’ MT, about topics that are familiar and interesting to them and with simple illustrations that they understand. Black and white line drawings and paper covers are fine if students like the stories and recognize the people in the pictures.
Dai KG2 students love reading their MT stories.( China) © SIL International, China
In summary, MTB MLE is more cost effective than monolingual education in multilingual countries because it reduces high repetition and dropout rates for children from minority language communities. When all factors are considered, it is safe to say that
... supporting effective MT based programs in multiple mother tongue languages is a better investment than continuing to fund an education system that is failing to educate children in any language. The cost of inattention to language is that millions of dollars will continue to be wasted on education programs that are ineffective— and millions of children will lack access to a quality education( Phlepsen, 2011, p. 4).
Booklet for Policy Makers
15