Based on official enrollment information from the Guatemala Ministry of Education, approximately 33 percent of Mayan students attend bilingual( MT & Spanish) schools. Based on that information, we could predict that, of the 1,202 Mayan high school students who responded to the survey, about 392 would come from bilingual or MT-medium schools. In Figure 3, this is what“ Predicted” means at the bottom of the graph on the left side.
In the survey however, 582 of the 1,202 students said they came from bilingual schools.( These are the numbers in the“ Actual” column in Figure 3.) These statistics show us that bilingual education raised the rate for attending secondary school by 48 percent among Mayan students.
In the case of Guatemala, it is a bit difficult to know which factors— academic, psychological, emotional, political or a combination of these— were most important in preparing the Mayan students for secondary education. Also, we know that some teachers in the‘ bilingual schools’ use more Spanish than MT for teaching. Even so, the effect of bilingual education schools for the students is highly significant in showing the relationship between bilingual and multilingual education in primary grades and higher rates of participation in secondary education.
In Cameroon, the Kom experimental study followed Kom students’ progress through six years of primary school( 2006-2013), even though the MTB MLE students had moved out of their MT and into English after Grade 3. At the end of primary, all students can take a competitive exam to qualify for secondary school. When researchers analyzed the results of those exams, they found that, among the Kom children who qualified for secondary school, 70 percent came from the Kom MLE schools while only 30 percent came from the English-only schools.
Even though the number of Kom children who finish primary school in just six years is quite small, the percent of Grade 6 Kom students who did well on secondary qualifying exam is quite large. From research evidence on mother tongue-medium education we can assume that Kom students’ advantage would have been even greater if their MLE programme continued to the end of Grade 6 rather than ending at Grade 3.
To summarize: While more research evidence is needed on this topic, the information we do have shows that MTB MLE does increase the probability that students will move on to secondary schooling.
Booklet for Policy Makers
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