How bilingual instruction is boosting learning in Senegal

Imagine being 6 years old, waiting nervously on your first day of school. The teacher enters and begins the lesson, but every word is in a language you don’t understand. Letters on the chalkboard blur into symbols, instructions go unheeded, and the excitement of learning is quickly replaced by confusion. That’s the daily reality for millions of children across the global south, where classrooms still operate in colonial languages — often far removed from the ones children speak at home. Language barriers are one factor contributing to the global learning crisis, where 70% of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries are unable to read and understand a simple text, according to the World Bank. For Mamadou Amadou Ly, executive director of the Senegalese NGO Associates in Research and Education for Development, or ARED, this language barrier is personal. Growing up in Senegal, he remembers how shame surrounded the use of local languages in school and kept children from learning. “Even during recess, if we spoke one word that wasn’t French, we were given a symbol of shame and everyone laughed at us,” Ly told Devex. “That’s how strong the stigma around national languages was.” That experience fuels his mission to make bilingual education the norm in Senegal through ARED’s flagship Harmonized Bilingual Education Model, which begins by teaching primary school children in their mother tongues — such as Wolof and Pulaar — alongside French, then gradually transitions to full French instruction. This work has earned Ly the 2025 Yidan Prize for Education Development and $30 million Hong Kong dollars ($3.8 million) to expand ARED’s reach. An unexpected path to education Ly didn’t start out in the classroom; he studied mechanical engineering before volunteering to teach literacy to adults — including his own parents — in his neighborhood. He had been inspired after meeting an American student, Dr. Sonja Fagerberg-Diallo, in 1988, who was then conducting doctoral research in linguistics. “She worked with my parents in adult literacy, and I thought: ‘How can a foreigner with no links here invest so much in our community’? That inspired me to become an educator,” Ly said. When Fagerberg-Diallo formed ARED in 1990, she hired Ly, who initially started out working on programs to help adults read, write, do sums, and manage their small businesses. By 2008, however, his focus had shifted. “National assessments showed children in school couldn’t read. I was personally surprised, because I had seen that even in six months, I could help adults read and write in their own language. I said, ‘This should be possible in the formal system too,’” Ly said. “Impact evaluations show children who start learning in their own language do better in everything — not just reading, but across subjects.” --— Mamadou Amadou Ly, executive director, Associates in Research and Education for Development From 14 classrooms to 8,000 schools In 2009, ARED and Senegal’s Ministry of National Education launched a small pilot in 14 classrooms. “We knew from the start we had to work with government, not outside it. We told the ministry: Let us learn together, research together, act together,” Ly said. That pilot grew to 114 classrooms, then 200, and today ARED’s materials and teacher strategies are used in more than 8,205 primary schools across the country. ARED is currently working in 12 out of Senegal's 14 regions. However, it was not all plain sailing. At first, many parents resisted ARED’s use of local languages in the classroom, questioning how their children would become “civil servants” if they didn’t learn in French. “Some were furious. They thought learning in a national language would waste time. But when they saw the results, even directors of education started bringing their own children to bilingual schools,” Ly said. Evaluations back this up. For example, in ARED’s Ndaw Wune, an in- and after-school remediation program for struggling second- and third-graders who are at risk of dropping out, children improved by 74% in letter reading, 100% in syllable reading, and 134% in word reading in a single year. The children are also happier and more willing to learn, Ly said. “Impact evaluations show children who start learning in their own language do better in everything — not just reading, but across subjects. The child is happier, the parents are happier, and they can finally engage in the learning process.” The harmonized bilingual model ARED has refined its approach since it started in 2009, initially teaching the national language and French side by side. Now, the NGO uses a “harmonized model,” teaching 80% in the national language and 20% in French in the first two years, gradually reversing this so that by grade six, 80% of the instruction is in French, ready for the transition to higher education. To achieve this, the NGO trains teachers and develops culturally rooted resources, from classroom guides to more than 50 storybooks published in eight national languages and French. Its approach moves beyond rote “chalk and talk” teaching by encouraging group work and flexible classroom layouts in order to promote social-emotional skills alongside learning, Ly explained. By 2029, Senegal aims to transition all primary schools to the bilingual model. Challenges of scale However, scaling has not been easy — ARED, like many other NGOs, was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and then it lost 50% of its funding due to the USAID cuts. Furthermore, ARED’s core work — teacher training and developing materials — is costly, and funder timelines can be slow. Describing how ARED coped with the cuts, Ly said, “We had to reorganize and develop low-cost strategies to keep going.” Today, ARED relies on a mix of donor and government support, including backing from the Gates Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Dubai Cares, and Echidna Giving. There are also political and cultural headwinds, and resistance from parents persists in some rural areas, though strong learning results have softened opposition. Despite these challenges, Ly is optimistic. ARED has begun work in Mauritania and Gambia and hopes to scale further. For Ly, the stakes are high. “You see the child in the classroom — he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t move, he doesn’t know how to act. Then you go next door, where the lesson is in a language he understands, and he is blooming, happy to learn. That is the difference,” he said.