Colours of the Alphabet Impact Report

COLOURS OF THE ALPHABET
ACCORDING TO UNESCO
IMPACT REPORT
Children who study in their mother tongue tend to be
better and faster at learning than children studying
in second languages.
Early learning in a home language leads to better
performance in tests in official language of
instruction in later school years.
Mother-tongue education has benefits beyond
cognitive skills including enhanced self esteem, self
confidence and classroom participation.
Lack of mother tongue education has a significant
negative impact on the social mobility of an
individual.
LINGUISTIC ENVIRONMENT
Zambia’s linguistic context provides an example of
the multilingualism that is seen across the continent.
Whilst Zambia has 72 spoken languages and 7
national languages, it only has 1 official language;
English - spoken at home by a mere 1.6% of the
population. Despite this low use, the language of
education in Zambia is largely English, including all
exams, and all post grade four teaching is conducted
through English.
Across the continent, millions of African students are
unable to access education in their own language. It is
estimated that there are over 2000 languages spoken
across the continent, with indigenous language
multilingualism a common feature of everyday life.
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