Fifty-One Languages, but When Does English Enter the Picture?

Schools across Ethiopia teach in fifty-one different languages, and students learn in at least two different languages during the course of their school years. The complexities don’t stop there, and, researchers Solomon Areaya and Daniel Tefera found, they include much stronger support among parents than among teachers for an earlier shift to instruction in English—and an asterisk on what is meant by instruction in English.

Since 1994, Ethiopia’s policy has been that students should receive instruction in their mother tongue (or the dominant mother tongue of their area) in grades one through eight and shift to English instruction in ninth grade. That national policy, though, allows regions to decide to move to English instruction earlier, and several have done so, with some beginning instruction in English in fifth grade, others in seventh grade, and still others in ninth grade. Additionally, after the transition to English, some regions use English for all subjects, and others use it for science classes but continue using a mother tongue for social sciences and arts.

Research supports mother tongue instruction, finding that it increases access and equity, reduces dropout rates, helps students learn the second language (in this case English) more quickly, and increases their understanding of the content they’re taught. In short, mother tongue instruction improves learning and increases student achievement on multiple fronts.

But among the experts from regional state education bureaus and other government offices Areaya and Tefera interviewed,

[v]ery few … considered research findings and international experiences as standards regions should follow and mentioned that no research findings or international experiences were identified and followed by regions while making decision.

Instead, those decisions were made “to cool down the public demand,” as one regional expert said.

That sense of the public demand was not misplaced: nearly 71 percent of parents told the researchers it would be better for students if the transition from mother tongue to English instruction came earlier. According to a Parent Teacher and Student Association member from a region that decided to start English instruction in fifth grade, parents “said that instead of having jobless students at the end of the day, it is better to teach them in English.”

A much narrower majority of teachers agreed that students would benefit from having English instruction start earlier. That may be because teachers better understood the limitations of English instruction in their schools.

“I think English is a problem for teachers too,” a principal from the Amhara told Areaya and Tefera. “Teachers of non-language subjects can comfortably teach in their own mother-tongue and face challenges when teaching in English.”

It may be, though, that parents wanted something that wasn’t formally on offer but was the practice in most schools: a mix of languages coexisting in the classroom. Just 9.8 percent of parents wanted their children taught exclusively in English—and as it turned out, just 9.5 percent of teachers used English exclusively in non-language classes. While parental wishes and reality line up surprisingly well, as the authors conclude, “the study uncovered that there is a need to revisit the way primary school teachers are trained.”

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