This father is reading a book with his children and helping them improve their reading comprehension and knowledge while nurturing reading habits. Source: Save the Children

Those are some reflections from teachers and parents about the difficulties their children face on their way to get a quality education. Since 2018, Save the Children has partnered with KOICA Vietnam Office to improve learning environments for 3-11 year old children from ethnic minority groups in 12 remote communes in Tay Giang District, Quang Nam Province and Van Chan, Mu Cang Chai Districts, Yen Bai Province in the “Enhancing the school readiness and learning outcomes of ethnic minority children in Vietnam” project.

According to a recent research on reading habits among ethnic minority children in the provinces of Yen Bai and Quang Nam, most of the interviewed students (95.5%) love reading, but 88.4% of books they read are textbooks and 61.6% are picture books. Students often read books at school and 84.7% books come from the library. With the implementation of the project ‘Enhancing the school readiness and learning outcomes of ethnic minority children in Vietnam’, Save the Children is promoting the replication of its common approaches in developing the fundamental literacy and math skills that children need to be successful in school, which has been tested worldwide and its effectiveness has been proven in addressing quality education among ethnic minority children.

Preschool and primary school teachers have been introduced to various approaches aiming at increasing children’s readiness for school. The local teaching assistant model is used in primary schools to assist students such as Emergent Literacy and Math Skills (ELM) and Literacy Boost (LB), both at school and at home, for improving the readiness and learning outcomes of children. These approaches will be complemented by Mother Tongue Based Multi Lingual Education (MTBMLE) to address the language barrier between teachers and students in ethnic minority communities.

Parents have also learned skills to help their children learn better through Parents’ Club and Caregiver Workshops. Activities such as Reading festivals and Reading camps are also organized to engage communities in supporting local children to do better in school.

To create pathways for future scale-up, the project will continue our advocacy for the adoption of ELM and LB as approaches to improve the readiness and learning outcomes of marginalized children. Save the Children will also continue doing advocacy efforts to strengthen the better implementation of education policies, especially for ethnic minority children./.