Mother tongue and education in Africa: Publicising the reality
Date
2014-07-31
Authors
Kioko, Angelina N.
Ndung’u, Ruth W
Njoroge, Martin C
Mutiga, Jayne
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Multilingual Education
Abstract
Varied realities surround the use of mother tongue education in Africa. These realities are entrenched in the attitudes and misconceptions that have gone unchallenged due to inadequate literature on the successful use of mother tongues in the classroom and beyond. The realities discussed in this paper include the frustrations of children introduced to education in a foreign language; misconceptions about the success of mother tongue education; educational benefits of mother tongue education; and mother tongues and enhanced economic opportunities. The foci of this paper are the success stories from Africa and the economic benefits in the use of the mother tongue in creative media or economies. These success stories are a way of getting to stakeholders to invest in mother tongue education for there are returns on such investment. The stories are also a way of challenging scholars to get out of the conference rooms and do something gainful with the mother tongues.
Description
Journal atricle
Keywords
mother tongue, Africa, multilingualism, Primary school education
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