Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/322165 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 40/25
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
This qualitative study explores parental attitudes towards bilingual education in Mozambique. To improve foundational learning, several countries in sub-Saharan Africa have re-evaluated their language-ofeducation policies and experimented with bilingual education. Community buy-in is essential for a successful bilingual programme, particularly in contexts where former colonial languages retain socioeconomic prestige. Despite variation across schools, our findings, based on focus group discussions in Maputo and Nampula provinces, show that a majority of parents support bilingual education. Initial scepticism often shifted when observing their children learning to read. However, parents consistently expressed concerns about their children not learning adequate Portuguese, the most common reason for opposing bilingual education. Furthermore, parents lacked information about the rationale, practices, and benefits of bilingual education- for which a remedy would be the school providing full and regular information. Apart from parental buy-in (demand side), for a successful bilingual programme effective implementation (supply side) is indispensable to produce robust learning results-the most critical factor shaping parental attitudes.
Subjects: 
bilingual education
language of instruction
parental attitudes
education policy
implementation
focus groups
Mozambique
JEL: 
I21
I29
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-599-2
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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