The focus of APPEAL's work in language and education is to raise awareness among policy-makers, planners, teachers, community leaders and communities on the importance of early learning in the mother tongue as well as bilingual/multilingual education. APPEAL's current work is aimed at helping countries to address questions and issues such as:

• Should the official national language be the only language of education?
• What is the role of minority languages in education?
• What does research show about the relationship between language of learning and effectiveness of learning?
• What are some of the experiences of countries in Asia and the Pacific with regard to language of instruction?
• What are the main challenges to be addressed considering issues in language and education?

For this purpose,  APPEAL is working with regional and international experts to develop an Advocacy Toolkit on Bilingual/Multilingual Education and Mother Tongue Teaching. APPEAL is also supporting countries in the region to undertake pilot projects and action research, and with the technical assistance of linguists, prepare literacy materials using mother tongue/bilingual approaches for reaching linguistic minorities. Using the experience gained from pilot projects,  APPEAL has recently produced a manual for developing literacy and adult education programmes in minority language communities.

More on APPEAL's programme on Language and Education