Language of Instruction and Refugee Learners: A Mixed-Methods Study of the Tusome Intervention and Language Options in Kakuma Refugee Camp

• In Event: Refugee education: SEL and language interventions for learning

Proposal

Language of instruction (LOI) choices are challenging in typical multilingual environments. For refugees, living in countries of exile and without clarity on if and when they will return to their countries of origin (Dryden-Peterson, 2017), language choices are particularly difficult. Refugee education policy increasingly suggests including refugees in national systems of education, especially given the opportunities that inclusion enables for refugee learners to access stable systems of education that offer structured curriculum, trained teachers, and certification. (UNHCR, 2016). What has yet to be systematically explored, however, are the implications of this inclusion of refugees into national schools for LOI policy and practice and implications for learning.

In Kenya, refugee children are included within national education systems. However, the vast majority of refugee children live in isolated camps, where they follow the Kenyan national curriculum in almost exclusively refugee schools. In this paper, we share results from a mixed-methods study of RTI’s adapted Tusome Early Grade Reading Program in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, where schools were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the Tusome program. One version of the program focused on reading instruction in English only, and the other on reading instruction in English and Kiswahili. The program supported all Grade 1-3 children and teachers in the camp, including in the newer Kalobeyei Settlement, where refugees and a few national Kenyan students attend school together.
It is in this context that we asked research questions related to these language programs. Specifically, we asked:

1. Which Tusome treatment option supports learning outcomes on the Early Grade Reading Assessment?
2. How do teachers, parents, and students think about, value, and weigh the benefits of the language options in the Tusome program, including for their current schooling and longer-term future opportunities?

We draw on two sets of data to answer these questions. The first is the RCT baseline and endline Early Grade Reading Assessment results in English and Kiswahili from children assigned to the two treatment groups, as well as from a third set of non-refugee children who attended schools in the Turkana county schools that surround Kakuma. The second is qualitative data from 57 interviews with students, parents, and teachers, supported by classroom observations, which illuminate how language is used in Kakuma Refugee Camp and how children, parents, and teachers evaluate the two language options in Tusome.

Our findings are not only relevant to Kakuma but also to other multilingual instructional environments where refugee children may traditionally be excluded from large scale literacy interventions. Recommendations from the study focus on the LOI policy for Tusome in Kakuma and provide data that can inform UNHCR and national government policies on LOI in schools attended by refugees globally.

Authors

• Brown Onguko, RTI International

• Benjamin Piper, RTI International

• Sarah Dryden-Peterson, Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Vidur Chopra, Harvard University

• Celia Reddick, Harvard Graduate School of Education