The Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning recently conducted a systematic review examining the effects of native language-based education policies and Language of Instruction (LoI) transition policies on students’ literacy, biliteracy, and multilingual literacy skill development. The review summarized evidence from 45 high-quality studies carried out in low-and middle-income countries, focusing on education in a range of native languages, as well as post-colonial languages acquired later on, such as English, French and Portuguese.

The results of the review found that 70% of all 10-year-old students in low- and middle-income countries struggled to read simple texts. Moreover, an average of 40% of these students received their education in languages not spoken at home, leading to comprehension difficulties. In addition, nearly all students were required to transition to yet a different language of instruction at the end of primary school.

The systematic review uncovers compelling evidence that teaching children in their “own” language first has multiple benefits. Specifically, the delivery of native-language reading programs leads to significant impacts on native-language reading scores and then later-acquired-language reading scores.

Based on these results, the authors recommend: 1. Continued investment in teaching students in their native language. 2. Performing high-quality studies of how and why native-language education programs impact literacy and other academic outcomes in both the native language and the “later acquired” languages. 3. Implementing cost-effectiveness analyses to provide decision makers with data on how much time and resources should be devoted to teaching in one language versus another.

Source: Nakamura, P., Molotsky, A., Castro Zarzur, R., Ranjit, V., Haddad, Y. and de Hoop, T. (2023). Language of instruction in schools in LMICs: A systematic review, CEDIL Evidence Brief 11. London and Oxford: Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning. https://doi.org/10.51744/CEB11