In multilingual sub-Saharan African countries, many children attend school and learn to read in a language that they do not speak at home. This mismatch between home and school language may contribute to poor learning outcomes, including low literacy rates. Bilingual education that includes a local language of instruction has become more prevalent…

Even a quick glance at international data reveals something troubling: There is an increasing economic and educational gap between Africa and the rest of the world. If we look just a bit deeper, we find that economic and educational stagnation may simply be the inevitable outcomes of broad educational failure for millions of rural African…