ABSTRACT
Many post-colonial countries with bi- or multilingual populations have long relied on a single language, typically an ex-colonial language, for schooling. Such countries have faced serious challenges in attempting to increase access to basic education while raising the quality of teaching and learning. One possible way to address both access and quality issues is to implement bilingual schooling using students’ mother tongues. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the social and linguistic conditions in one multilingual country and to consider the possibility of changing the language of instruction to better meet the learning needs of primary students who have traditionally been schooled in a monolingual “official” language system.
