Gambian languages and education

Project description

Gambian languages and education (December 2018-December 2021) was an academic research project based at King’s College London which focussed on the integration of the languages of The Gambia in its monolingual (English only) education system. Its overarching research aim was to find out what role Gambian languages play in education in The Gambia.

The project was based on a collaboration between its principal investigator/PI – Dr Clyde Ancarno (Linguist at King’s College London, UK) – and three key partner organisations in The Gambia:

  • The National Language Program Unit of the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education/MoBSE (leading the introduction of literacy lessons in the national languages in lower basic education)
  • Gambia College (teacher training institution for nursery and primary school teachers)
  • The University of The Gambia (which trains secondary school teachers and lecturers)
Research purpose

Gambian languages and education focussed on an attempt of the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (see Hsieh and Jeng 2016) to allow the Gambian languages primary children speak at home to feature in primary school education. Following a three-ear pilot, the ministry introduced in 2015 an early parallel biliteracy programme which prescribes that from grade 1 to 3 public and grant-aided primary school children receive an equal number of literacy lessons in one of The Gambia’s seven national languages (either Fula, Jola, Mandinka, Manjaku, Serahule, Serer or Wolof) and English. We therefore aimed to address the following questions:

  • How do parents, students, teachers, and policy makers perceive the national language literacy lessons introduced as part of the early parallel biliteracy programme?
  • What challenges, if any, are those in charge of implementing the early parallel biliteracy programme facing?

References: