Addis Ababa — The current learning and teaching process through the medium of European language depresses school achievement in Africa, a study revealed on Wednesday.

The failure in the second language was mainly reported to have depressed school achievement in Sub Saharan African countries.

The study presented at the 7th international language and development conference in Addis Ababa revealed that bilingual education is appropriate for Africa than putting influences to educate students in the European language.

John Clegg, an expert in the education field (based in UK) who presented the study to the conference said that students have to learn in their local language (mother tongue) throughout schooling.

"Education through the medium of European languages depresses school achievement in Sub Saharan African countries. Education through the medium of a second language normally works under certain conditions, which are not fulfilled in SS Africa. In contrast, education through European language limits levels of individual and school achievement,"Clegg said.

According to Clegg's study, bilingual education can deliver school achievement generally, higher second language ability, cultural enrichment and community involvement in education. Clegg also slams governments and aid agencies for not understanding the existing problem.

"Governments and aid agencies do not know enough about the question of instructional medium in Africa.Plicy-making debate avoids the limiting effect on achievement of education through European languages. Populations are uneducated about language choice in shool. Teacher education largely avoids questions of medium of instruction," he added.

Clegg indicated that bilingual education initiatives are needed urgently even if it takes time to construct. "Governments should initiate high-visibility experiments in bilingual education now, and plan for its wider development. Development agencies should actively promote it," he added.

Professor Herman M. Batiboh, Head of department of African language and literature at university of Botswana said that only a few African countries adopted an endoglossic policy by promoting one or several major indigenous languages to play certain national roles while others fail to do so.

"In most African countries the national linguistic resource remained under-exploited, mainly because of lack of proper language planning," he said.