The Cameroonian experience in mother tongue education planning: the community response framework

Abstract

Although multilingualism is the norm in Africa the degree of linguistic complexity varies from one specific national context to another. While some countries are highly multilingual, others have fairly few languages. Similarly, whereas in some countries a good number of languages enjoy majority status; in others, we have a myriad of primarily minority languages. All these considerations have a great impact on attitudes and policies towards mother tongue-based multilingual education. Such is the case with Cameroon, one of the most linguistically fragmented countries in Africa. Faced with about 250 languages, governments have been rather too cautious with decision-making concerning indigenous language-based multilingual education so that today, the country lacks a well-articulated language policy. Moreover, existing legislation primarily favours foreign language education and therefore cannot adequately address indigenous language promotion needs. In this article, I examine language and education planning practices in Cameroon and posit that in the present context, successful integration of indigenous minority languages into the school system can only be ensured through planned participation of local communities in the process. I present the twin notions of the community response framework as an alternative planning approach and the language committee, responsible for community-level language promotion, as the ideal vehicle for this alternative planning.

Keywords:

• multilingual education
• language planning and policy
• Cameroon
• indigenous languages

Notes on contributor

Blasius A. Chiatoh holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Yaoundé 1, Cameroon. For over a decade, he was on the staff of the NACALCO Centre for Applied Linguistics, during which time he served as a field researcher and a project coordinator. Specialised in literacy, he has over the years developed a special bias for language planning, bi-multilingual education and sociolinguistics. He has published extensively, both nationally and internationally. He is now a lecturer in linguistics at the University of Buea in Cameroon.