Student Mother Tongue Usage, Preference, and Attitudes in Bungoma County, Kenya (original) (raw)
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Global goals on sustainable development goal-four on inclusive, quality and equitable life long education for all and universal secondary education completion by the year 2030, has seen the government increase expenditure to education to cushion learners from financial constraints on education costs; thus provide resources for quality education. Despite the initiatives, low achievement and low completion rates continue to ache the education sector leading to heavy costs on those who do not complete school within the recommended four years. The purpose of the study assessed the influence of mother tongue use on learning in secondary schools for achieving quality and equitable life long education. The objectives to the study were; to establish the influence of spoken language (Mother tongue) on students' completion rate and performance, and to determine the influence of evaluation / examination language on students' completion rate and performance in public secondary schools in Rarieda sub-County, Siaya County, Kenya. The study was anchored on Behaviorist theory of learning by Skinner (1960). The study used mixed methods convergent parallel design. The target population was 22650 respondents from 23 schools as sampling units. The sample size was 400 respondents that comprised of 298 students of which 185 were students from mixed day schools, 105 students from boarding boys, 108 students from boarding girls, 274 teachers and 23 principals. Questionnaires and interview guide were used to collect data. The key results of study revealed that in mixed day schools 87 percent of students use mother tongue as mode of communication and 42 percent in county boarding schools. This is during break times and other times in classrooms when teachers' are not around and they recruit the non-local students to learn the local language. This was found to be against school language policy. 53 percent of students in mixed day schools and 39 percent in county schools assert that some teachers also use mother tongue to communicate with them though outside the classroom but within school compound and this encouraged the students to speak more in mother tongue. These students narrated that they face difficulty in understanding most terms used during teaching and learning process and they also face difficulty in writing the examinations which are done mainly in English, thus perform dismally and may even repeat a grade. The spearman's reliability coefficient of r =0.71 confirmed a negative influence of mother tongue on learning. The study findings led to a conclusion that students lacked appropriate language development and enjoyed a laissez-faire kind of monitoring and guidance on appropriate language use at school. The study recommended that schools to have language trainer sessions per week to help learners develop and get used to the English and Kiswahili languages. Reintroduce debating sessions which was realized to have been abandoned in most schools, under the guidance of the teachers to enhance appropriate language development at school. Finally, Mother language to be used to enhance; peace and culture through songs, dances, proverbs and drama during school cultural days to give pride in their heritage and identity.
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