Create equal opportunities for all children to thrive in education

In collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Training, Save the Children organized a workshop in Lao Cai Province for 150 teachers and educational officials working in the ethnic minority regions. The objective was to address their challenges and share their views on how to teach ethnic minority children who have a different mother tongue.

The workshop is a part of Save the Children’s advocacy for the improvement of education quality for ethnic minority children. Save the Children has trained teachers to teach Vietnamese as a second language and helped create active learning and teaching environment in the ethnic minority communities.

Ahead of the workshop, an outdoor event was organized to present products which have been produced in collaboration, school, students and local community. Colorful children’s paintings and story books were exhibited as well as local specialties and handicrafts and the performances of dramas in Vietnamese showed the progress made in language skills.

 “It is very difficult when you speak a language and you learn in a different one. We need to provide equal opportunities in regards to language and learning environment for ethnic minority children. Otherwise they do not get quality education and the ability to thrive”, said the Director for Save the Children in Vietnam, Gunnar Andersen.

Many children from the ethnic minorities didn’t like going to school because they speak a different language from their teachers. They find it difficult to understand the lessons. Their school results were far lower than their Kinh peers.

Save the Children has introduced a programme to use mother tongue-based bilingual education approach and to teach Vietnamese as second language for ethnic minority children. The aim is to support the Ministry of Education and Training to improve the learning outcomes of ethnic minority children and to create equal opportunities for all children to thrive. The program  was initiated in early 2010.

The programme started in five provinces with a high population of ethnic minority groups. Nowadays, it has been expanded to 33 provinces in Vietnam. The Ministry of Education and Training has approved Save the Children’s method of teaching Vietnamese as second language to be included in training curriculum for students of 30 pedagogy colleges nation-wide.