Writing a new chapter on bilingual education in Mozambique: Rolling out early grade reading reform

• In Event: Rolling-Out and Scaling-Up: The Insiders’ View of Reading Reform

Proposal

Bilingual education is not a new phenomenon in Mozambique. From 1993 to 1997, Mozambique’s National Institute for Education Development (INDE) implemented a bilingual educational experiment that created the foundation for the national bilingual pilot program by the Ministry of Education and Human Development (MINEDH) in 2003 (Benson, 2000). This pilot program initiated the first-ever rollout of bilingual early grade reading reform in Mozambique.

The scale-up of bilingual education is necessary in Mozambique. Only 10% of the Mozambican population speaks as a first language (National Institute for Education Development, 2014), and a recent early reading assessment found that more than 90% of second graders two norther provinces could not read two words in Portuguese (Raupp et al, 2013). To improve and strengthen bilingual education, the USAID-funded Vamos Ler! program is integral to MINEDH efforts to scale up bilingual education bilingual early grade reading in Mozambique. The program focuses on improving the reading and writing skills of students in grades 1-3, reaching more than 800,000 children, in the local languages of Emakhuwa, Elomwe, and Echuwabo. The program also supports the language transition from local language to Portuguese in grade 4. This presentation will discuss the efforts that MINEDH has committed to improving the rollout and scaling up the early grade literacy reform of Mozambique’s national bilingual education program.

Benson, Carolyn J. (2000) “The Primary Bilingual Education Experiment in Mozambique, 1993 to 1997” International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 3:3, p. 149-150

National Institute for Education Development (Instituto Nacional de Desenvolvimento da Educação). (2014). Avaliação nacional da 3a classe (National Evaluation of Grade 3). Maputo: Ministry of Education.

Raupp, M, Newman, N., Revés, L. (2013). Impact Evaluation for the USAID/ Aprender a Ler project in Mozambique: Baseline Report. http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00JDZT.pdf

Author

• Armindo Ngunga, Vice Minister of Education, Republic of Mozambique