Mother-tongue education

For children growing up speaking the majority language of a country, there is often no question about what language will be used when they start school. This, however, is not the case for 40% of children all over the world, who are confronted with a completely foreign language when they go to school for the first time (UNESCO 2016). Sometimes this is a conscious choice on the part of the parents in order to give their children a ‘bilingual advantage’, yet in the majority of cases, such as in migrant families or postcolonial nations, there is no other option than to sink or swim in a classroom full of unfamiliar words.

In the multilingual island of Mauritius, around 87% of the population speaks Mauritian Creole (CIA 2020), yet the education system has completely ignored the mother tongue of the majority of the pupils until recently. In my own data collection, many Mauritians reported not understanding what their teachers were saying when they were at school, as the language of instruction was English or French. One participant I interviewed laughed when asked about what languages were spoken at school, saying that when the teachers were speaking, she just heard “bla bla bla”.

When the idea of introducing Creole into the school system was first discussed in Mauritius, it was met with a lot of criticism and resistance, particularly from parents and teachers (Miller 2015). Traditionally, Creole was considered ‘broken French’ with no grammar (Baker & Fon Sing 2007), so for many it was inconceivable that this way of speaking could have an official place in school. What’s more, Creole is considered useless for professional or social mobility and parents were concerned that education in Creole would have a negative effect on French acquisition (Florigny 2015).

Many parents believe English or French-medium education is the best way for their children to acquire an international language in order to be successful in the world. It is true that people who do well in nations such as Singapore, Hong Kong and India have certainly benefitted from the high level of English attained through the education system. Nevertheless, many children from disadvantaged backgrounds simply cannot access basic education because they do not understand the language it is delivered in (UNESCO 2016). Additionally, dropout rates are typically much higher when teaching is delivered in a second language (Griffin 2020) compared to the mother tongue. The importance of the mother tongue in early education is advocated in the first principle of UNESCO’s guidelines for education in multilingual contexts:

[I] Mother tongue instruction is essential for initial instruction and literacy and should ‘be extended to as late a stage in education as possible’ (UNESCO 2003)

Yet those implementing national policy are almost necessarily the ones who have done well in education and therefore only see the benefits of teaching through international languages (Chellapermal 2012), perpetuating power inequalities throughout society.

Since 2012, Creole has had a role in Mauritian primary schools. Although attitudes towards Creole are slowly changing, in part due to government support over the past decade, negative attitudes do persist. The good news is that studies have shown that pupils who had already failed primary exams twice, had a 70% of passing after 3 years of Creole in the classroom (Harmon 2006) and that formal teaching in Creole had no negative affect on French (Florigny 2015). Hopefully, future interest in promoting and studying the role of Creole in education will solidify these findings and lead to an appreciation of the importance of the mother-tongue alongside acquisition of international languages which will continue to benefit the people of Mauritius.

References

Baker, P. & Fon Sing, G. (2007). The making of Mauritian Creole: analyses diachroniques à partir des textes anciens. London: Battlebridge Publications.

Chellapermal, R. (2012). MIE Academics’ patterns of verbal behaviour and views on the new school language policy. Presented at the MA Conference, Mauritius Institute of Education.

CIA. (2020). Africa :: Mauritius. The World Factbook: Mauritius. Available at : https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mp.html [accessed 05/08/20]

Florigny, G. (2015). Presumptive impact of learning Mauritian. Presented at the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics Summer Meeting, University of Graz.

Griffin, J. (2020). Why teaching them in their own language could help 500m children to stay in school and succeed. Available at: https://theirworld.org/news/why-teaching-in-mother-tongue-could-help-500m-children [accessed 02/08/20]

Harmon, J. (2006). L’utilisation des langues nationales comme langues enseignées et/ou langues d’enseignement à Maurice. Presented at the Colloque international « Bilinguisme et interculturalité », Mayotte.

Miller, A. (2015). Kreol in Mauritian Schools. USA: Yale University Bachelor’s Thesis. Available at: https://ling.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/AllisonMillerSeniorEssay.pdf [accessed 05/08/20]

UNESCO. (2003). Education in a multilingual world: UNESCO education position paper. 35. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000129728 [accessed 05/08/20]

UNESCO. (2016).40% don’t access education in a language they understand. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/news/40-don-t-access-education-language-they-understand [accessed 02/08/20]