Teaching in the right context: Textbook supply program, language, and learning

An ethnic gap in education is prevalent around the world. This remains the case in Vietnam, a country that has achieved phenomenal economic growth and raised the educational attainment of the public. This paper examines the impact of language policy reorientation represented by the textbook supply program in Vietnam on the ethnic gap in children's learning measured by a vocabulary test. Applying difference‐in‐differences estimation to the Young Lives data between 2006 and 2015, we show that the program became more effective in narrowing the ethnic gap as the education policy became reoriented toward ethnic minority children. A causal mediation analysis reveals that increased study time is possibly a moderate mediator through which the language policy reorientation helped narrow the ethnic gap for the young cohort over and above the direct impact, but this was not the case for the old cohort. This paper, therefore, alludes to the importance of delivering learning materials carefully designed for the target group to bring about meaningful behavioral changes. It also underscores the importance of teaching in the right context, corroborating the findings from recent studies on teaching at the right level.