There are countless numbers of organizations, projects, and policies aimed to improve educational quality. In my opinion, there are so many generalities in the content of these projects/organizations/policies. If you’re like me, you need something more straightforward and concrete to understand not only solutions to education issues but also the issues themselves. I needed something more specific than terms like “gender parity” and “decentralization” to help me grasp onto what is working in educational development. So here’s my attempt to explain to you a strategy that made sense to me. The effort to start teaching in native languages is a successful and understandable strategy to improve education quality.
Check out this blog to follow along with a strategy that I found useful and inspiring:

First off, we need to acknowledge that most of the world’s countries are multilingual, even though some languages like English are becoming dominant through globalization. Mother tongue language involvement is a bottom-up approach to education development that is showing some positive results. By bottom-up, I mean creating a strategy at the a local level to find a solution on a national level. Vietnam is experiencing this right now by involving local (or minority) languages in their schools [1].

The Ways Local Languages Are Being Involved:

–Bilingual teacher assistants instruct in the local language alongside the teacher, to increase material comprehension. The teacher then sets up the dominant language (in this case Vietnamese) as a second language learning [1].

—Teachers also benefit from the training they receive for the project by increasing their skills through information exchange with other teachers as well as experience with creating their own learning materials for the classroom [1].

–Children work with the teachers to make their own books which keeps the educational content relevant and interesting to them. With more interest in reading, comes higher reading skills and then eventually the ability to read in Vietnamese [1].

—Parents become more involved in the school through making school supplies and coming up with other tools for the classroom [1].

–The local or minority culture is recognized and celebrated in the classroom. Children are encouraged to display traditional clothing, cultural artifacts and instruments, as well as a place to talk about their cultural history [1].

Why all of this is important:

— There are studies that show that simultaneous bilinguals, those who are learning one language at home and one at school, suffer from learning disabilities [2]. Usually these “disabilities” are just a misinterpretation of their pace in school environment because they lag behind when they are trying to learn material and a new language at the same time. [2]. Introduction of the local language into the school system would eradicate this problem. In addition, numerous studies have been made about the benefits of bilingualism. These include improved cognitive skills, tolerant attitudes, creativity, problem solving skills, and metalinguistic awareness [2]. After hearing this, who wouldn’t want to be bilingual?

— Teaching kids in their home languages makes them want to go to school.  Education development is completely pointless if there isn’t desire from the children to attend or focus in school. Because of local language involvement, “student enrollment, retention and transitions have all improved” [1]. The question is now, how do we get the world to recognize this powerful change local language has on education?

To consider the powerful words of Nelson Mandela, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart” [3]. We need to educate children in their own language if we really want education to work.
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