Unique effects of home language on academic achievement among Myanmar students: A home and school perspective

Using Myanmar national sample (5707 students from 202 schools) from 2019 Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics, this study discovered unique effects of home language on academic achievement at levels of homes and schools, after control of student and school characteristics. Against the background finding that schools were significantly responsible for academic achievement, there was a lack of interaction effects between socioeconomic status (SES) and speaking Myanmar versus non-Myanmar at home as well as interaction effects between school mean SES and within-school proportion of students speaking Myanmar at home across academic achievement in mathematics, reading, and writing. Speaking Myanmar at a home resulted in significant academic advantage at the home level across mathematics, reading, and writing. Over and above, a higher proportion of students speaking Myanmar at home within a school resulted in significant academic advantage at the school level across reading and writing.