Approaching mother-tongue education as a personal and societal development strategy

Abstract

This paper underscores the need for a broadly defined market orientation in our advocacy for mother-tongue learning, as well as in the research that seeks to establish the value of mother-tongue competence in Africa. The paper calls attention to the fact that the world of today is driven by market ethics, in which people‟s choices are guided by the persistent quest for what to sell in the market of opportunities, both in the social and material domains of life. Our young people must be shown how speaking a mother-tongue opens up opportunities for self-advancement in their struggles to make life meaningful. This general argument is hinged on literature from both linguistic and non-linguistic scholarship, and illustrated with Kenya‟s sociolinguistic realities and the corresponding constitutional and policy provisions.