Medium of instruction versus mother tongue

 Our life would have been different without a speaking language. Luckily, we use this tool, the language to exchange information, chat, learn, in sum to communicate: to take with, or to enable someone to get, and take with.

Now that we use languages to communicate, this communication is only possible when those communicating use the same linguistic code: they speak the same language. In that regard, an African proverb states: "if you want people to understand you, speak their language". Something very important in that statement; "speak their language", this looks an order, an imperative, a command, a kind of urgency. it's not a question that calls a "yes" or a "no" answer. 

In Europe, in Asia, in America, almost allover the world we have institutions that take care of people learning from the childhood to the adulthood. These institutions aim at preparing these "guys" to be good citizens, by enabling them to get relevant "things" through teaching and learning. As stated above, for a communication to be possible, we need to share the same linguistic code. In these continents, the medium of instruction is not different from what the learners speak at home with slight differences as it is showed here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_of_instruction. 

In Africa according to the above link, the situation varies from a specific linguistic area to an other. We'll focus here to the francophone linguistic area. The medium of instruction in France, in public schools is French because legislation restricts languages other than French in these schools. But in private schools or called non state schools in this part of the world, the medium of instruction is different from the official language that is French such as Diwan Breton language-medium schools and the Calandretas in the south that use Occitan. In Italy, while Italian is official (language) throughout the territory, also French is official in Valle D'Aosta, German in South Tirol. This kind of freedom or flexibility helps educational institutions to speak languages the students know or speak at home. We have now following scenarii; 

a- the official language is the primary language of majority of people living within a given area

b- even though official, the language can be different from the one or those considered as mother tongue

In West Africa, the situation is completely different as all what is considered as official languages are "imported" ones: English is official in Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. French is official in Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Togo, Benin, Niger, Mali, Guinea and Senegal while Portuguese is official in Guinea Bissau and in Cap Vert. That is said these so called official languages are foreign languages and totally different from languages children speak at home or within their community (even nowadays the trend looks different as children born with these foreign languages as mother tongues). For example in Burkina Faso, we have Burkina children that have French as their mother tongue because this is the language spoken at home and around him. It looks weird but that is it.

Internationally renowned scholars have invested a lot to find out the correlation between mother tongue and academic failure. Here we are going to reference some of them through a scientific article (Multilingual Education Works from the periphery to the center) from Benson, Heugh, Bogale and Gebre Yohannes in Ethiopia: a study and its implications for multilingual Education.  

Ethiopia is one of most populated countries of Africa located in the horn. It is boarded by Somalia in South-East, North-West by Sudan,  North-East by Eritrea, West and South respectively by South Sudan and Kenya. With its 1 million square kilometers and its population estimated at 109 millions people, Ethiopia is the 2nd most populated country in Africa and the 13th most populous country in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia). In this country, according to the same source, almost 90 "individual" languages are spoken. If we compare this giant to a country like Burkina Faso, the difference at all level is huge. All the languages according to the 1995 constitution enjoy equal state recognition. This is great and is in line with Basil Bernstein view of languages: all the languages are equal as the 1st article of the Universal Declaration of Human rights of 1945 which states: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. In this regard, we can say all languages are born free and equal in dignity, rights and in communication purposes. 

Human beings use to compare languages which is normal, and try to rank them, which looks weird. Early human beings developed languages for communication purposes. That said, the only function of a language is to communicate; so English language is for communication, French language too, as well as Moore, Diula, Fulfulde, etc. Each language "satisfies" all the communication needs for those using it (that code). If there is any form of agreement that languages are all equal, why the medium of instruction in many African schools are quiet different from the learners' languages?