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When her teachers first met Lo Mu Du Ly-Et, from Lam Dong Province had no sign language skills. Now, at age of 13 and thanks to the sign language and other learning material developed by the Quality Improvement of Primary Education for Deaf Children Project (QIPEDC), she communicates and attends school. Her life and future have been transformed.

"We were lucky to be able to access a good set of sign language materials suitable for primary school students so that she and her friends could learn quickly," said Nguyen Thi Ngoc Minh, Headmaster of the Lam Dong Province School for the Deaf." Ngoc Minh is referring to the 4,000 Vietnamese sign word catalogue and 150 video lessons covering math and other subjects for students in grades 1–5 developed under QIPEDC.

Ly-Et is just 1 of the almost 2,000 deaf children from 20 provinces across Vietnam whose lives this program has changed. Originally envisioned to serve just 1,200 children, the program—administered by the World Bank with funding from the Global Partnership for Results-Based Approaches—was an extraordinary success.

Increasing the Use of Sign Language and Creating a Support Community for Deaf Children

 Sign language is not new in Vietnam, but it has not been widely used there. Since the World Bank–managed Intergenerational Deaf Education Project (IDEO) introduced a set of 2,000 gestures in 2015, sign language has gradually become part of preschool and kindergarten curricula. Even so, most of Vietnam's estimated 116,000 deaf children rely solely on reading lips or wearing hearing aids to communicate.

The QIPEDC project piloted an approach to integrate deaf children into the mainstream and special education by training parents, caregivers, teachers, and deaf mentors, thus creating a support community for deaf children from school to home.

The program trained almost 1,800 parents of deaf children and 429 teachers, including Nguyen Thi Ngoc Anh. As a deaf person herself, she understood the isolation of not being able to communicate. As a child, she said, "I kept wondering why my parents and others around me could hold long conversations, but they struggled to understand me, which to me was a big disappointment." Wanting a different outcome for deaf children, she became a sign language teacher.

Measuring Success and Widening Children's Prospects

The test scores of deaf students in the schools supported by the project improved significantly, with 97 percent of students in the program passing the exams for their grade levels, well above expectations.

Thanks to her son's success in the program, Tong Thi Nga, the mother of a deaf sixth grader, has an expanded view of his future. "I hope that he can achieve his dream," Nga said, hopeful that he might now qualify for a scholarship that would allow him to continue his education.

Expanding the Program's Reach

As the impact of the training courses became apparent, many project provinces shared training materials with schools that were not part of the project. When the project wound down, in September 2022, Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training agreed to authorize the use of its materials nationwide.

The ministry also expressed interest in expanding the program to reach older students. "Implementation has been difficult, but the results are rewarding," said Nguyen Thi Minh, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Education and Training. "The 4,000 new signs are a good start. We will need to work together on the next phases to help with other education levels."

Still image from World Bank Video "Helping Vietnamese Deaf Children Speak with Sign Language"

Over 2,000 primary school deaf students in Vietnam are targeted for a better education through an improved Vietnamese sign language-based curricula and teacher training, to be made possible through a grant agreement signed on July 29th between the Government of Vietnam and the World Bank. The Global Partnership for Results-Based Approaches (GPRBA), financed by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT),is providing US$3 million in funding for this project..

“GPRBA, using its considerable experience in results-based and innovative financing approaches, has designed a project that ensures a better education for deaf students in Vietnam,” said Ms. Maitreyi B. Das, Practice Manager for Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land Global Practice at the World Bank. “Those who before would be taught only in the spoken language of hearing students in the formal education system, will now receive a quality education that better meets their needs by using Vietnamese sign language.”

The objective of the project is to facilitate the integration of deaf children into mainstream and special education through the engagement of parents, caregivers, teachers, and deaf mentors, as well as the community at large.  The program’s goals are to increase the proportion of deaf students with access to primary education through Vietnamese sign language (VSL), and to train 500 primary school teachers and teaching assistants to use VSL to teach the subjects of mathematics and Vietnamese.

The project will produce a set of animated video lessons to teach mathematics and Vietnamese language for Grades 1 to 5 to reinforce the development of these improved education methods.  It will also triple the number of the VSL lexicon from 2,000 to 6,000 hand gestures. In addition, the project will fund the development of training materials that will help in building the capacity of teachers, teaching assistants, parents, caregivers, and mentors of deaf students.

The project will provide incentives to schools through subsidies for them to enroll deaf children and to teach them using VSL, in line with the government’s policy to increase access to education for children with disabilities. During the project’s first year, 1,500 and 200 deaf children will enroll in specialized and inclusive schools, respectively; the following year, another 300 and 40 students respectively, will enroll in Grade 1, replacing the students graduating Grade 5. Overall, the total number of deaf children enrolled throughout the project life is 2,040.

Both private and public schools in participating provinces will be eligible for the subsidy if they commit to provide VSL-based education services to deaf children. The project will be implemented in the provinces of Bà Rịa - Vũng Tàu, Bắc Kạn, Cà Mau, Cao Bằng, Đắk Lắk, Haiphong, Hanoi, Lâm Đồng, Nam Định, Ninh Thuận, Phú Yên, Quảng Bình, Quảng Ngãi, Son La, Thái Nguyên, Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, Thừa Thiên - Huế , Tiền Giang,  Vĩnh Long, and Yên Bái.

“The World Bank has helped us design a project that has all the components for successful implementation, and we are confident that this has opened a new path for us to improve education opportunities for children with hearing impairment,” said Mr. Nguyễn Hữu Độ, Vice Minister of Education and Training.

This step to “leave no one behind” regarding a quality education is crucial to making opportunities for a better life a reality to this disadvantaged group. Such progress in deaf education is closely related to at least three of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030: to eliminate disparities in education and ensuring equal access for vulnerable populations (SDG4), to promote opportunities for full and productive employment (SDG8), and to reduce inequality within a country and promote social, economic and political inclusion (SDG10).  Ultimately, the desired outcome is to build a more solid foundation for hearing-impaired students to more fully integrate into the Vietnamese society and lead independent lives.

Related:  

• World Bank Feature Story: Unlocking the potential of deaf children in Vietnam 
• Video: Helping Vietnamese deaf children speak with sign language (2:00)
• Video: Vietnam: How do we communicate with our deaf child? (2:16) 
• Video: Vietnamese deaf children pursue their dreams through learning sign language (1:49)