Role of Mother Tongue as a Medium of Instruction in Rural ECDE Centres in Nandi County, Kenya

Abstract

A mother tongue-based education system with a sufficient number of well trained teachers and instructional materials may not fully implemented if the Language instruction policy is weak or ill thought-out. Despite this policy stating that a child's native language be used only until Class 3, teachers do switch the instruction without any concern. The purpose of this study was to establish the role of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in rural ECDE centres in Nandi County. The study adopted the interdependence theory by Cummins (1979). The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The study targeted 4 Quality Assurance and Standards Officer (QASO), 200 head teachers and 400 teachers from 200 ECDE centres in the county. The sample size was 241 respondents. Simple random sampling technique was used to select ECDE centers to take part in the study. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 79 head teachers and 4 Sub County QASOs. Simple random sampling technique was used to obtain 158 teachers from the sampled schools. The instruments for data collection were interviews and questionnaires. Questionnaires were administered to the ECDE teachers, while interview schedules were administered to the county Quality assurance officers and head teachers. The instruments were piloted in Uasin Gishu County that share similar characteristic as the study area. Cronbach Alpha coefficient was used to test reliability of the instruments. Data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. There was a positive influence of mother tongue as a medium on classroom instruction (r = .200, p<0.05), which implies that the more the mother tongue is used as a medium the classroom instruction improved. The role of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in rural ECDE centres in Nandi County was to create opportunities for students to develop effective cognitive skills. The Ministry of Education should ensure that schools should comply with language of instruction policy which states that mother tongue or language of the catchment area should be the medium of instruction in preprimary. Teacher training institutions should help teacher trainees to understand the benefits of mother tongue and train teachers on how to design and develop relevant mother tongue instructional materials.