encouraging but also students' regular attendance has improved. The teachers also express a higher level of confidence and satisfaction in their teaching and in their relationship with the children. For the parents and the communities, there is great satisfaction to see the development of children's literacy in their mother tongue; an opportunity that they themselves never had, as well as the promotion of local culture and heritage as expressed through the use of their mother tongue. UNICEF and the Ministry of Education and Training are now looking at possibilities to expand the programme at the same time as we continue to enrol new cohorts in the three areas where the programme is already on going. The next step is to expand the programme in more communities within the same three ethnic groups. We hope to be able to replicate the programme in other ethnic minority groups and expand the programme to many more provinces and languages. High level officials from the Ethnic Council in the National Assembly and the Committee for Ethnic Minorities have visited the MTBBE programme and have expressed appreciation of the programme and are willing to support an expansion. I would like to present our key messages:  The ethnic diversity of Vietnam is a treasure to be cherished and an opportunity for strengthening the quality of education for all Vietnamese  Initial literacy in mother tongue both enhances this diversity by further promoting ethnic languages and cultures and strengthens mastery of Vietnamese by ethnic minority learners Greater mastery of Vietnamese will increase the social, economic, and political contributions of ethnic minorities to Vietnam  Innovations in the use of mother tongue in education will make Vietnam a leader in the region in progressive language policies  We strongly believe that giving EM children the possibility to learn in their own language and for them to be able to read and write their own mother tongue will provide them with more opportunities in life and will also give them a stronger cultural identity. This will enable them to participate more fully in economic progress and development as stated in the article 4,5 of the Declaration.