본문 내용으로 건더뛰기

KDI 경제교육·정보센터

ENG
  • 경제배움
  • Economic

    Information

    and Education

    Center

최신자료
What shapes parents’ attitudes towards bilingual education?
WIDER
2025.11.05
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-of-education 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.