Multilingual education is a cost-effective investment.

 

Although there are initial costs for developing linguistically appropriate teaching materials and training educators, MLE is a wise long-term investment that improves educational outcomes and fosters a more inclusive society, benefiting both the economy and social cohesion.

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Carrying out thorough preliminary research.

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  PRACTICAL ACTION : Conduct a thorough situational analysis of the socio-linguistic and educational context to identify challenges and opportunities and use the data to ensure effective policy implementation and optimal resource allocation for MLE programmes.  Key practical actions include to:  • Conduct socio-linguistic research to assess learners’ language proficiency, spoken fluency, and literacy levels, while also evaluating attitudes toward mother tongues and other languages.  • Promote the collection of intersectional data which not only identifies languages spoken but also gender, age, socioeconomic status, disability, migration status, geographic location and other factors that can affect access to education, learning and opportunities.  • Address foundational questions for programme development to ensure a solid foundation for policy decisions, resource allocation, and stakeholder collaboration, and a sustainable framework for the MLE programme, includ...
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Aligning assessment strategies to support MLE.

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  PRACTICAL ACTION : Align assessment strategies with the principles of MLE to ensure that learners’ linguistic abilities are recognized as strengths and that assessments accurately reflect learners’ content knowledge, rather than just language proficiency.  Assessment strategies for MLE include to:  • Assess in home language : Provide learners with opportunities to be assessed in their home language or mother tongue, especially in the early stages of schooling. This ensures that assessments reflect content understanding rather than proficiency in the official school language. Consideration should also be given to the classroom language used for teaching.  • Emphasize formative assessment : Use a greater proportion of formative assessments (as opposed to summative assessments) to focus on understanding rather than mere knowledge retention. This approach promotes inclusive teaching practices and supports ongoing student development.  • Integrate diverse assessme...
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Monitoring and evaluating existing and future MLE programmes.

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  PRACTICAL ACTION : Integrate robust M&E systems within MLE programmes to better understand their impact on learning outcomes, attendance, retention and the broader educational experience for diverse language groups.  Practical actions include to:  • Disaggregate data by learners’ first or home language and correlate this with their school attendance and learning outcomes. Additionally consider the intersection of other factors such as gender, age, socioeconomic status, disability and geographic location to gain a deeper understanding of how these variables influence educational access and outcomes.  • Develop and review language-learning outcome indicators to track the relationship between learners’ language and their performance on foundational SDG 4 indicators (4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.6.3, and 4.5.2), using these for mid- and end-term national and regional reviews. The post-2030 framework should further deepen data on languages and education.  • Engage Indigeno...
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