Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Through Mother Tongue Instruction in Multilingual West African Classrooms

Across multilingual West African contexts, millions of children in the early grades are taught to read and count in a language they do not speak at home. The result is a foundational learning crisis that is often overlooked: children may be able to recite letters and numbers in the language of instruction, but they lack the cognitive scaffolding necessary to translate these skills into meaningful understanding. This initiative directly confronts that gap. The Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Through Mother Tongue Instruction (FLN-MTI) initiative is a two-year program that creates a new curriculum and trains teachers for Grades 1–3 in multilingual areas of Ghana's Northern, Savannah, and Upper East The program creates and tests a step-by-step MTI curriculum that helps children learn basic reading and math skills in their home language first, and then smoothly transition to learning in English by the end of Grade 2. Community language specialists, district education officers, and the Ghana Education Service (GES) collaborate to co-develop curriculum materials, ensuring both linguistic accuracy and cultural resonance. The learning sequences embed locally grounded contexts, market transactions, seasonal agricultural cycles, and oral storytelling traditions. Assessment tools are adapted from the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA) frameworks, and contextualised for the target language communities. Teacher support follows a coaching-centred model: fortnightly in-classroom coaching sessions, structured lesson observation protocols, and community-of-practice clusters across participating schools. A specialised module for school leadership helps head teachers maintain instructional improvement beyond the programme period. The initiative supports the AU Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 16-25), especially focusing on improving the quality and relevance of education, and it directly helps achieve Sustainable Development Goals 4.1 (basic learning outcomes) and 4.2 (early childhood development). It further draws on the evidence base established by the AU ECED-FLN Cluster to ensure continental coherence and peer learning across member states. Target reach: 80 classrooms, 3,200 children aged 5–9, 160 teachers across 4 districts. Key outputs: Structured MTI curriculum guide (Grades 1–3), teacher coaching handbook, community engagement toolkit, and a policy brief for the Ghana Ministry of Education's Basic Education Division. Sustainability pathway: Integration of materials into GES pre-service teacher training curricula at colleges of education, with a replication package prepared for adaptation in Nigeria (Hausa-speaking communities) and Côte d'Ivoire (Dioula-speaking communities).