The effectiveness of English Medium Instruction in primary education: evidence from Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

The impact of English Medium Instruction (EMI) on educational outcomes in resource constrained countries is underexplored. We exploit a random distribution of EMI in Ethiopia’s primary schools and use an IV-2SLS strategy to identify its effects. We find that EMI undermines learning outcomes in Mathematics and increases verbal skills. Countries with limited resources and lacking appropriate pedagogic solutions in their educational systems should carefully consider its consequences before adopting it.

KEYWORDS:

• English Medium Instruction
• primary education
• test scores
• Sub-Saharan Africa

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• I21
• I28
• O1

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Ethiopia wasn’t colonized and has its own script and writing system.

² See Chapters 3 and 4 in Rossiter, Azubuike, and Rolleston (2017) for a detailed descriptive analysis of selected variables in the school survey.

³ The four states account for about 85% of the country’s population.

⁴ We report the first stage and reduced form regressions in Table 1.