What we do

SIL education specialists and consultants provide technical support to local communities, government and non-government agencies and institutions that are engaged in planning and implementing literacy and education programs in non-dominant language communities, contributing to:

• Awareness raising and advocacy that generates interest and support, locally, nationally and internationally, for mother tongue-based education
• Language and education policies that support the right of all people to use their first language as one of the languages for learning
• Preliminary research that provides information about the context in which literacy and education  programs will be implemented and identifies the resources as well as the potential constraints  to program implementation 
• Program planning that leads to literacy and education programs that are valued and sustained through cooperation among local, regional, national and international stakeholders.    
• Orthography development that results in writing systems for non-dominant languages that are acceptable to relevant stakeholders, especially mother tongue speakers.
• Training programs, especially for teachers and teacher trainers, in which participants gain knowledge, skills, and confidence to be effective in their specific roles.
• Effective Language Education in students' primary languages as well as in learning and bridging to other languages.

• Teaching materials that meet government standards, build on the wisdom and knowledge of the learners’ heritage communities and enable them to achieve their educational goals.
  

• Learning materials that help students from non-dominant language communities to gain fluency and confidence in using their own and additional languages for successful life-long learning and communication.
• Monitoring and evaluation systems that measure students’ progress, identify program strengths and weaknesses and provide regular information to stakeholders.