Bilingual ethnic primary school programme
Ha Noi, Jan. 11 (VNA) -- A project to provide bilingual primary school education to ethnic minority children in 39 Vietnamese provinces has won acclaim from countries around the region.
Education experts and officials have labelled the multi-grade bilingual education (MBE) programme as a model of educational reform in the Asian region.
Other regional governments are considering adopting the programme, including Thailand, India, Laos, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
The Vietnamese authorities have worked with the British Council to design a study guide on the project so that it can be used as an example for other educational initiatives in Viet Nam and elsewhere.
The Vietnamese MBE scheme is being carried out by the Ministry of Education and Training with support from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and is about to enter a new five-year phase.
UNICEF representative Hoang Van Sit said the next stage would seek to lift the professional quality of the MBE programme.
At a conference held last week in the town of Buon Ma Thuot in the central highlands province of Dac Lac, officials reviewed the project's first ten years.
The programme has reached 1.4 million students, of whom 71.5 percent belonged to an ethnic minority and 44.4 percent are girls.
Investment has particularly helped the children of the Cham, Khmer and H'Mong peoples.
Various bilingual books (in Vietnamese and one of the ethnic languages) have been produced specially for teachers and ethnic children.
The number of girls going to school has increased in the past decade, particularly those in Lao Chai commune in Lao Cai province's Sa Pa district, which used to have a critically low rate of school attendance.
Nearly 400 training courses on different subjects were opened for 33,000 teachers in multi-grade bilingual primary education.
The project provided education equipment to 125 teacher training schools and centres, including funds to build and upgrade schools and pay teachers' wages.
The Government of Viet Nam has lauded the MBE as a strategic and efficient education programme that creates greater opportunities for ethnic minorities in a more diverse educational system.--VNS/VNA
