Mother-tongue education is failing

The data reveals the gap between policy ideals and classroom realities. Jane Viedge and Rod Amner report on some promising solutions

- Jane Viedge and Rod Amner

Read right: Archie Mbolekw Primary School teacher, Hlakanipha Gxekwa, received support from Funda Wande to implement daily phonics lessons, guided reading and writing routines. Photo:

The numbers tell a politically uncomfortable truth. A survey of all Grade 4 children in Makhanda's no-fee public schools this year found that 51% of isiXhosa learners taught in English can read for meaning.

However, for those taught in isiXhosa — despite it being their mother tongue and despite decades of policy emphasising the value of home language instruction — only 25% reached the same benchmark.

“Children who speak African languages at home and go straight to English schools do better,” says Kelly Long of Makhanda-based NGO, GADRA Education. These are children from the same neighbourhoods, the same socioeconomic backgrounds, often living on the same streets. The only difference is the language of instruction.

The recently released Funda Uphumelele National Survey confirms the pattern nationally — only 29% of isiXhosa learners read for meaning by Grade 4, compared to higher rates in English and Afrikaans. The data doesn’t prove mother-tongue education is wrong. International evidence supporting the grounding of early learning in a child’s home language is robust. Instead, it shows a gap between policy ideals and classroom realities.

Long acknowledges the global research as irrefutable but says we are setting children up to fail by insisting on mother-tongue instruction without giving teachers the specific tools to teach it.

“We've got to stop being scared of saying the controversial thing,” Long says. “We've tried it for 30 years. We haven't made it work.”

The failure begins with a misunderstanding of the languages. For years, the South African education system has largely “copy-pasted” English reading methodologies into African language classrooms.