Bilingual education in the spotlight

EDUCATION specialists from 17 African countries and a variety of backgrounds will join educationalists from France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States for a conference on bilingual education and the use of African languages in education this week.

The three-day conference takes place at the Windhoek Country Club Resort from today. “Research has shown for the past 50 years that the use of African languages in education is a vital issue for the development of relevant and effective African education systems,” one of the organisers, the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) said in a press statement ADEA, the German co-operation agency GTZ, and the Unesco Institute for Education (UIE) are organising the event with the Ministry of Education and the French agency, AIF.ADEA said studies had shown that in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Zambia, pupils in bilingual schools perform better than those in monolingual schools in subjects like mathematics, the sciences and languages, including French and English.Conference participants will examine the findings of a study on mother tongue and bilingual education in sub-Saharan Africa commissioned by ADEA with GTZ and the UIE.This study analyses the situation in 13 African countries – Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia.”Research has shown for the past 50 years that the use of African languages in education is a vital issue for the development of relevant and effective African education systems,” one of the organisers, the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) said in a press statement ADEA, the German co-operation agency GTZ, and the Unesco Institute for Education (UIE) are organising the event with the Ministry of Education and the French agency, AIF.ADEA said studies had shown that in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Zambia, pupils in bilingual schools perform better than those in monolingual schools in subjects like mathematics, the sciences and languages, including French and English.Conference participants will examine the findings of a study on mother tongue and bilingual education in sub-Saharan Africa commissioned by ADEA with GTZ and the UIE.This study analyses the situation in 13 African countries – Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia.