The Interplay of Language and Gender in Literacy Initiatives

Language and gender are two of the most powerful forces shaping who gets to become literate – and who gets left behind. In communities across South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and beyond, a woman who cannot read is not simply “uneducated.” She is navigating a system that was, at multiple levels, not designed with her in mind. The language used in classrooms may be foreign to her, the teaching materials may not reflect her lived reality, and the social norms around her may actively discourage her participation. Understanding how language policy and gender dynamics intersect within literacy initiatives is essential for anyone working in adult education – because getting this wrong means millions of people remain unreached.

Why language choice is at the heart of literacy 🔗

Every literacy programme begins with a fundamental choice: in which language will learners read and write? This choice is rarely neutral. It carries political, cultural, and deeply practical consequences. UNESCO estimates that 40 percent of students worldwide experience a mismatch between their language repertoires and the language of instruction. For adult learners – many of whom are returning to education after years away – that mismatch is not just an inconvenience; it is a formidable barrier.

When a literacy class is conducted in a language that learners do not speak at home, the cognitive load doubles. Learners are not simply learning to read; they are simultaneously learning a new language. This is especially common in postcolonial contexts where the official or “national” language – often a European language like French or English – bears little resemblance to the languages spoken in local households. The result is that literacy remains out of reach not because of a lack of willingness or capacity among learners, but because of a fundamental mismatch between policy and lived linguistic reality.

The case for mother tongue-based instruction 🔗

Research consistently affirms that starting with learning to read and write in a child’s – or adult’s – first language enhances cognitive development, academic success, and multilingual skills. The principle extends beyond children. Adult learners who begin their literacy journey in a familiar language build confidence faster, retain knowledge more effectively, and are more likely to continue their education.

Evidence from multilingual programmes in countries like Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Vietnam, and South Africa illustrates this well. In Burkina Faso, bilingual education using national African languages as the first language of instruction before French is introduced has shown promising results in improving learning outcomes. In Cameroon, the École et langues nationales (ELAN) programme found that teaching in the majority community language – even where it was not every child’s precise mother tongue – produced strong outcomes because learners had far greater familiarity with it than with French. The implication for adult literacy is clear: the closer the language of instruction is to what learners already know and use, the better the outcomes.

This does not mean literacy programmes must function in every local dialect. Community languages – languages widely understood across a region – can serve as effective bridges. Mother tongue-first programmes that are valued by learners and communities share a key feature: teachers use what learners already know – their language, culture, and the knowledge they bring from their home – to help them grasp new concepts. This approach respects learners’ existing competencies and builds on them, rather than asking learners to set them aside.

Language policy and its systemic effects 🔗

The choice of language in literacy programmes is rarely made by individual teachers or facilitators. It is shaped – and often constrained – by national language policies. In many low- and middle-income countries, there is a well-established link between proficiency in a postcolonial language and socioeconomic mobility, which creates high demand for earlier and earlier introduction of international languages in education. This places literacy programme designers in a bind: use the mother tongue and improve learning, or use the dominant language and improve perceived employability?

The answer, supported by evidence, is that these goals are not mutually exclusive. Learners who first develop strong literacy skills in their own language are better placed to acquire a second language later. A solid foundation in the mother tongue actually accelerates the learning of additional languages, rather than impeding it. The problem lies in policies that skip this foundational stage entirely, pushing learners directly into a language that is functionally foreign to them. For adult women in particular – who may have limited prior schooling – this approach is especially counterproductive.

The challenge of linguistic diversity in multilingual classrooms 🔗

Another layer of complexity arises in communities where many languages are spoken side by side. In Pakistan’s Tharparkar region, for example, over 13 sub-regional languages are used by the local population, including Dhatki, Marwari, and Parkari, making the question of which language to use for instruction particularly challenging. Rather than treating this diversity as a problem, effective programmes have reframed it: identifying the most familiar shared language in a community and using it as a bridge, while acknowledging and valuing learners’ other languages throughout the process. This multilingual approach affirms linguistic identities while building practical literacy skills.

Gender and literacy: a persistent and complex gap 🔗

While language is a structural issue affecting all learners, gender adds a further dimension of disadvantage – particularly for women and girls in low-income and rural settings. Today, 122 million girls remain out of school globally, and two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women. This is not a recent statistic – it has persisted for decades, resisting change despite global commitments to education for all.

The reasons are structural and deeply embedded. Poverty is one of the most important factors determining whether girls can access and complete their education. Girls facing intersecting disadvantages – low family income, remote location, disability, or minority status – are consistently the furthest behind. In 20 countries with available data, including many in Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia, fewer than one percent of rural young women from the poorest households complete secondary school. For adult women who never completed school, returning to literacy programmes as adults means overcoming not only the original barriers, but years of accumulated exclusion.

Early marriage and pregnancy continue to force girls out of education. Domestic responsibilities fall disproportionately on women and girls, leaving little time for formal learning. Safety concerns, long distances to learning centres, and the absence of female facilitators all reduce women’s ability to participate. Cultural norms in many contexts cast formal education for adult women as unnecessary, inappropriate, or a threat to family structures.

How language compounds gender disadvantage 🔗

Language and gender do not operate separately – they compound each other. A UNESCO-commissioned study on mother tongue-based teaching and girls’ education argues that one of the principal mechanisms through which inequality is reproduced is language, specifically the language used as the medium of instruction, and that the learner’s mother tongue holds the key to making schooling more inclusive for girls and women. When a literacy programme operates in a language that women rarely encounter in daily life, the burden of learning falls harder on those who have had the least prior exposure to it – and that is disproportionately women, who in many communities have fewer opportunities for mobility, employment, or engagement with formal institutions.

Women in rural areas, in particular, may have limited contact with the official or national language. Their literacy – and their confidence – grows far more reliably when the programme speaks to them in a language they know. Positive links exist between the use of the mother tongue in education and female participation and achievement in learning. Programmes that have applied this approach have seen higher enrolment, lower dropout rates, and stronger literacy outcomes among women participants.

Designing literacy initiatives that are gender-sensitive and linguistically inclusive 🔗

Understanding the problem is the first step. The second is building literacy programmes that actively address it. Gender-sensitive and linguistically inclusive literacy initiatives share several key characteristics.

Using the learner’s language as a starting point 🔗

Effective programmes begin where learners are – not where policy assumes they should be. This means conducting needs assessments to understand the languages spoken in a community, developing or sourcing reading materials in those languages, and training facilitators who share the linguistic background of their learners. Language education that begins with the learner’s home language and then introduces a second language in small, gradual steps helps learners build confidence in speaking, understanding, reading, and writing across all their languages. This sequenced approach is not a compromise – it is best practice.

Addressing the practical barriers women face 🔗

Gender-sensitive literacy design goes beyond curriculum. It means scheduling classes at times that work around domestic responsibilities, locating learning centres close to women’s homes, ensuring safe environments free from harassment, and engaging families and communities in supporting women’s participation. UNESCO’s 2024 highlights on gender equality in education show that targeted programmes in countries like Chad and Cambodia that combined literacy training with vocational skills – designed specifically for women – produced strong outcomes in both literacy and economic empowerment. The lesson is clear: literacy programmes for women work best when they acknowledge and respond to the full context of women’s lives.

Reflecting gender in learning materials 🔗

The content of literacy materials matters, not just the language they are written in. Materials that portray women only in domestic roles, or that present learning scenarios irrelevant to women’s lives, subtly reinforce the message that education is not really for them. Gender-transformative content – materials that show women as active participants in economic life, civic decision-making, and community leadership – sends a different signal. It tells learners that literacy is connected to their own agency and potential.

The role of policy in enabling change 🔗

Individual programme innovations can only go so far without supportive policy environments. National language policies that mandate instruction exclusively in a dominant language undermine even the best-designed community literacy efforts. Governments that recognise the linguistic diversity of their populations – and build that recognition into education policy – create far more enabling conditions for literacy gains. Embracing linguistic diversity is key to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4.6: ensuring literacy and numeracy for all by 2030.

Similarly, gender equality must be embedded in education policy at every level – not treated as an add-on. The World Bank’s evidence on girls’ education makes clear that poverty, location, and social norms intersect to deprive girls and women of education, and that targeted policy interventions – including conditional cash transfers, female teacher recruitment, and community-level awareness programmes – are among the most effective tools available. Literacy programmes that operate without this policy scaffolding will consistently struggle to reach the women who most need them.

The intersection of language and gender in literacy is not a niche concern. It sits at the centre of whether global literacy commitments are kept or broken. Every time a woman is handed learning materials in a language she barely understands, or attends a class that assumes she has the same freedom of movement and time as a male counterpart, the system fails her – not the other way around. Literacy initiatives that are genuinely responsive to linguistic and gender realities do not just improve outcomes for individual learners; they shift the conditions under which entire communities access knowledge, voice, and opportunity.

What do you think? How can literacy programme designers better involve local communities – especially women – in decisions about language of instruction and curriculum content? And in contexts where national language policy conflicts with mother tongue-based approaches, what responsibilities do educators and policymakers carry toward adult learners who have already been failed by the formal system?

References

1. https://languageonthemove.com/language-barriers-to-social-participation/
2. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/driving-literacy-through-linguistic-diversity-and-mother-language-based-learning
3. https://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/how-incorporate-mother-tongue-and-community-languages-improve-learning
4. https://www.sil.org/literacy-and-education/mother-tongue-based-multilingual-education-programs
5. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10546270/
6. https://www.tcfusa.org/mother-tongue-based-multilingual-education/
7. https://unric.org/en/unesco-prize-for-girls-and-womens-education-2024/
8. https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/data-stories/a-tale-of-old-and-new-gender-gaps
9. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED495412
10. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000395878
11. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/girlseducation