Vietnam Women's Union

Workshop discusses bilingual education for ethnic children

06/10/2006

Teaching mother tongue along with the national language for ethnic children is the main topic of a three-day workshop being jointly held by the Ministry of Education and Training, the Centre for Ethnic Education Research and the United Nations of Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Hanoi on October 2

The workshop introduced researches on bilingual teaching in other countries, and experiences from a project to teach Ba Na and Gia Rai ethnic minority languages along with the national language at several primary schools in central highlands Gia Lai province from 2001-2005 with assistance from the World Bank.

The workshop will discuss and choose several ethnic minority languages and localities for pilot projects. At least four ethnic languages, including Ba Na, Gia Rai, H'mong and Khmer, are expected to be chosen.

A UNICEF expert said after coming back from a fact-finding tour of Gia Lai province that bilingual teaching project in the province has achieved satisfactory results as ethnic children are capable of learning two languages at the same time. He also said that the bilingual teaching would help preserve languages of many ethnic groups in Vietnam which are under threat of extinction.