Bilingual education offers hope of a better future

Lô Thị Ghenh listens to her teacher at Lao Chai Primary School
UNICEF/2011/Viet Nam/Tattersall

Seven-year-old Lô Thị Ghenh eagerly listens to her teacher at Lao Chai Primary School, in Sa Pa district in northern Vietnam. She is all the more attentive as she is learning in her mother tongue, Mong, as part of a mother tongue-based bilingual education model, supported by UNICEF.

Here, among the cascading rice paddies and misty mountains, 85 per cent of the Mong people live below the poverty line. The quality of education is poor and malnutrition is high. Access to adequate water and sanitation, to health services, and to education are some of the major issues confronting this community.