Monolingual education in a multilingual setting: The case of Mozambique

Multilingualism can be defined as the sharing of the same geo-political and social-economic space by more than two languages. In modern Africa, multilingualism resulted from the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) on the Partition of Africa. At that conference, the colonial powers decided to divide the continent without considering the existing borders dividing different nations. With rare exceptions, the resulting countries from this scrambling of the continent are geographically large, and culturally and linguistically diverse, because they squeeze within the same borders various indigenous African nations while splitting others. In Mozambique, for example, only five of about 20-30 traditional nations escaped from being split. Nevertheless, multilingualism is not a problem on its own. The problem is how to manage, in a fair way, the diversity of languages and cultures that share the same geographical space and live under the same central government. For instance, what is the best education policy for a multilingual and multicultural society? This paper aims to share the experience in Mozambique of educational language policy in a multilingual context.