IMPLEMENTING MULTILINGUAL POLICIES FOR QUALITY EDUCATION: THE AFRICAN LEADER’S DILEMMA

Abstract

This theoretical paper aims to address three key questions with regards to the provision of multilingual education: Why is Africa slow to act; what cases exist around the world that offer Africa opportunities to learn from?  And what new ways of knowing, thinking and acting can be explored to facilitate the adoption of multilingual education? Education programs operating in many countries indicate a shift from monolingual to multilingual education. The emerging trend in effective bilingual education programs, the use of technologies, new policy orientations, new partnerships and indigenous ways of thinking are explored in order to ascertain how to improve the learning experience of the African child. The paper concludes that Africa needs to employ her indigenous ways of knowing, thinking and acting to provide effective strategies for the acquisition of literacy and multi-literacies, which are critical to Africa’s participation in the global economy. This calls for new pedagogical approaches with a focus on classroom processes that develop multilingualism in learners for global citizenship while, at the same time, preserving and revitalizing indigenous literacies for better education standards.