Language Revitalisation and Reversing Language Shift: Special Problems in a Multi-lingual and Cultural Context - the case of Vernacular Languages in Kenyan Education

Kenya has a complex language situation:more than 42 mother tongues, a lingua franca, Kiswahili (also used as the national language), and an official language English. Given this, planning and implementing a language policy for education can be challenging. The government's policy on the language of instruction in schools is that mother tongue is taught as a subject and also used as a language of instruction in the first three years of primary education. In urban centres where Kiswahili is the lingua franca, the government policy recommends that Kiswahili is used as the language of instruction in place of mother tongue. English is recommended for instruction in all grades beyond grade three. Although this is the official policy enforcing it has been a challenge for government. Teaching and learning resources in mother tongue are limited. The main suppliers of school textbooks and readers are commercial publishing houses which arc not attracted to the idea of publishing books in mother tongue as the market is limited. The government, on the other hand, has inadequate resources to produce the necessary texts and readers to serve the Kenyan community in over 42 languages and dialects. In addition to these challenges of teaching and learning resources, teachers are not trained to teach in mother tongue. Teacher deployment does not consider the languages that the teacher speaks when posting them to schools. Some teachers do not speak any particular mother tongue, especially those brought up in urban areas. Another challenge associated with use of first language instruction is the stigmatization that minority mother tongue speakers are exposed to as a result of the dominance of English, Kiswahili and other dominant Kenyan mother tongues, such as Gikuyu with 5.3 million native speakers (Daily Nation, January 30, 2001 in Ogcchi, 2003). Others are Dholuo, Oluluyia and Kikamba. The consequences of this is that, over time, minority languages will be 'phased out' as the dominant mother tongues, English and Kiswahili, spread further afield. The government is aware of this danger and has initiated a programme for the production of literature in some of the minority mother tongues. There are, however, other challenges that may hinder the intentions of the government and other actors to support mother tongue in education. This paper reviews the efforts of the Government of Kenya (GoK), through the curriculum development centre, Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), to promote the use of mother tongues in education in Kenya. We also consider efforts to revitalize vernacular languages by other actors, especially Non-governmental Organisations and volunteers. We begin by exploring the ground for language revitalization through a historical analysis of Kenya's language in education (LiE policy. In particular, we focus on the hegemony of English over Kiswahili and the vernacular languages, and how this is associated with the challenges facing the enforcement of LiE policy. Finally, we propose solutions to the situation.