The issue of the medium of instruction in Africa as an “inheritance situation”

One of the most crucial language planning decisions that a country can make is “the determination of a language to serve as the medium of instruction in school” (Fasold, 1984, p. 292). The issue of the medium of instruction (MOI) tends to take center stage, in theory at least, in language policy decisions in most African countries, much as it does in post-colonial settings around the world (Evans, 2002; Tollefson & Tsui, 2004). African countries have been grappling with this issue since they liberated themselves from European colonialism in the late 1950s. The challenge for African countries has been whether to replace former colonial languages with indigenous languages as MOI in public schools and universities and, in doing so, cut off students from the international scholarly community; or retain former colonial languages as the sole mediums of instruction and, in this process, perpetuate linguistic imperialism and neo-colonialism (Phillipson, 1992; Reagan & Schreffler, 2005). In post-colonial Africa, the pendulum has, despite the cognitive advantages of vernacular medium instruction, continued to swing in the direction of former colonial languages as MOI in school. To explain this state of affairs, Bamgbose (1991, p. 69) points to the colonial legacy that he terms the inheritance situation: how the colonial experience continues to shape and define post-colonial problems and practices in the higher domains, including education. Thus, Bamgbose remarks, “while it would seem that African nations make policy in education, what they actually do is carry on the logic of the policies of the past,” which, in the main, favor former colonial languages as the sole mediums of instruction in the educational systems.

The five papers in this volume are in agreement with Bamgbose’s theory of inheritance situation, for they invariably point to the continued dominance of former colonial languages over the indigenous languages in education. The first paper, by Ali Alalou, contributes to the MOI debate around which of Morocco’s two main languages, French and Moroccan Standard Arabic (MSA), should be chosen as MOI in public schools. It does so against the background of two language policy developments in the country: on the one hand, the reinstatement of French as MOI and simultaneous demise of the policy of Arabization, which for the past 30 years promoted Arabic as MOI in Moroccan schools; and, on the other hand, a new policy initiative institutionalizing use of the Amazigh language(s) in education. Alalou notes, however, that despite the recognition of Amazigh, the status of this language has been modeled to maintain the status quo, that is, to serve Arabization. The latter, although theoretically defunct, “lives on” through its surrogate and the national language, MSA. In a similar article, Nick Manuel and David Johnson discuss the choice of MOI in Angola, with a focus on the country’s new language policy seeking to introduce 6 African languages into the school system after 32 years of a monolingual educational system using Portuguese as the sole MOI. In particular, the authors examine the historical and ideological processes that have led to the new policy, and trace the discursive practices, beliefs, and attitudes that shape and influence current language use in education. Their findings also point to the inheritance situation, for they suggest that

while there will be support for bilingual education that includes African languages, changing the medium of instruction policies will be an uphill battle, especially when language ideologies supporting the hegemonic status of the former colonial language, Portuguese, and the growing influence of English, remain so entrenched.

Comparable findings are presented in Christina Fleischmann and Iman Nick’s paper on the language situation in the Seychelles islands. More specifically, Fleischmann and Nick investigate teacher attitudes towards each of Seychelles’s three official languages, Seselwa (a Creole), English, and French as well as the country’s Creole-mediated multilingual education policy. The study concludes that if the participants’ views are any indication, “there seems to be far more interest in conducting (post)secondary education in English and/or French, as is done in France and Great Britain,” Seychelles’s former colonial powers. Like Alalou’s study on Morocco and Manuel and Johnson’s study on Angola, this study of teacher attitudes in the Seychelles does also lend credence to the inheritance situation, for its participants favor former colonial languages over their indigenous languages as the MOI in school.

In the next paper, Felix Banda showcases how translanguaging, defined as the purposeful pedagogical alternation of languages in spoken and written, receptive and productive modes, enables learners and teachers in multilingual South Africa to not only engender inclusive classroom participation and learning, but also to resist symbolic domination by English monoglot/monolingual norms. Banda calls for language policies that question the inheritance situation, in this case the monoglot/monolingual formalized practices that have informed language education models in multilingual Africa since the colonial era to the present. The final paper, by Carolyn Benson, discusses each of the afore-mentioned four papers in detail from the perspective of the much vaunted ideal of an African Renaissance, defined as “a process of rebirth, renewal, revival, revitalization, reawakening, self-reinvention and rededication, characterized by a surge of interest in learning and value reorientation” (Khoza, 1999, p. 282). The question that arises about the African Renainssance, as Makgoba, Shope, and Mazwai (1999, p. xi) put it, is “whether African people can champion their renaissance through the medium of foreign languages?” The authors note that addressing this question is

perhaps one of the greatest challenges to African people [because] language is culture, and in language we carry our identity and our culture. Through language we carry science and technology, education, political systems and economic developments. The majority of African people, about whom the rebirth or reawakening is about, live in their indigenous languages throughout their lives. (Makgoba et al., 1999, p. xi)

Benson invokes the African Renaissance not to champion continued use of monolingual norms in African education, but rather to assert that educational development requires a re-definition of values from a multilingual, multicultural and meanwhile pan-African perspective, and the promotion and celebration of policies and practices that maximize the skills, knowledge and values that African leaners bring with them to the classroom.

The special issue on MOI in public schools in Africa ends with a review, by Benson, of Kamwangamalu’s (2016) book, Language policy and economics: The language question in Africa, in which the issue of the MOI in African education is also addressed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.