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.
About the author
Sophie Edwards
Sophie Edwards is a Devex Contributing Reporter covering global education, water and sanitation, and innovative financing, along with other topics. She has previously worked for NGOs, and the World Bank, and spent a number of years as a journalist for a regional newspaper in the U.K. She has a master's degree from the Institute of Development Studies and a bachelor's from Cambridge University.
