Globalisation and Education Futures: Education Futures: Language and Human Rights in Global Literacy

The continued use of English, French and Portuguese for educational purposes in Africa monopolizes the control of national educational policies and goals. This chapter explores the constraints of these linguistic choices through the report of the cultural agency of the United Nations about falling education standards in the world. This chapter examines theory and practices regarding the consequences of the use of local languages in school in order to explore the effects of language choices on learning. Based on several field visits over a period of many years, involving observation in classrooms and interviews, the findings examine how the use of local language affects the learning in Africa. The study finds that the use of colonial languages as languages of schooling have been influenced by the still powerful notion throughout Africa that learning in a foreign language will promote development and modernization. This research demonstrates that local languages and local curriculum need to be valued as a Human Rights and children need to be prepared in order to be reflective, critical, knowledgeable and mobile in the world, and that this will support African development.