Bangladesh has one of the world’slargest school systems with more than 21 million studentsenrolled in pre-primary and primary education. However, only58 percent of 10-year-olds in Bangladesh are able to read asimple passage with little or no help, a smaller proportionthan other countries including Botswana, Cambodia, or India.One of the challenges faced is the country’s wide variety oflanguages, 41 in total, of which 16 are in common use. InBangladesh, indigenous students, those from outside the mainBengali ethnic group are half as likely to complete primaryschool. One of the reasons for that is that they do notunderstand the national language, Bangla, which is thelanguage used in their schools. Evidence from a wide rangeof countries suggests that allowing students to learn intheir mother tongue, at least in the early years ofeducation, improves learning outcomes.