*Corresponding author email: machinyise@yahoo.co.uk Symbiosis Group Symbiosis www.symbiosisonlinepublishing.com ISSN Online: 2577-7815 The Impact of Familiar Local Language Medium of Instruction on Zambian Primary School Pupils’ Academic Performance: A Case Study of Mumbwa Primary Schools Elliot Machinyise* Department of Literature and Languages, Kwame Nkrumah University, Zambia International Journal of Family Business and Management Open Access Review Article Introduction Globally, there are 50-75 million ‘marginalized’ children who are not enrolled in school. Children whose primary language is not the language of instruction in school are more likely to drop out of school or fail in early grades. Research has shown that children’s first language is the optimal language for literacy and learning throughout primary school [6]. In spite of growing evidence and parent demand, many educational systems around the world insist on exclusive use of one or sometimes several privileged languages or dominant languages as media of instruction. This means Abstract As multiethnic and multilingual nation, Zambia has more than 70 languages spoken within its boundaries. As result of this linguistic landscape the selection of appropriate language of instruction in schools has been a challenge for a long time. In order to meet this linguistic diversity, Zambia has developed an educational framework which stipulates that familiar local languages should be used as the Medium of Instruction (MOI) from grade one to four in public primary schools. Therefore, this paper investigated the impact of mother tongue medium of instruction on pupils’ quality of learning in Zambian primary schools. The findings have revealed that the students’ ethnicity and national identity are best portrayed through mother tongue medium of instruction. In addition, acquisition of skills and application seems to be efficient in classes where such skills are taught and explained in the mother tongue of children. It has also been revealed that children in private schools where practical subjects are taught in English perform poorer than their counterparts in public schools. A descriptive method of research was used for the collection of data. 50 teachers from selected public and private primary schools and 10 parents of Mumbwa district were selected for this study. Appropriate recommendations were made in light of the findings. The study will provide further information on how local community and parents can work with schools in facilitating the teaching of children in local languages. The recommendations the study brought up will bridge the gap between the teacher training institutions and the teaching service commission in order to train and deploy teachers according to the needs of schools. This study will bring to the fore the necessity of equipping teachers with the knowledge of local language of children whilst at teacher training institutions. Keywords: Medium of instruction; familiar languages; dominant language; mother tongue; Received: September 18, 2019; Accepted: January 22, 2019; Published: March 13, 2019 *Corresponding author: Elliot Machinyise, Department of Literature and Languages, Kwame Nkrumah University, Zambia, Email: machinyise@yahoo. co.uk excluding other languages and with them the children who speak them [2]. While there is considerable and general consensus among academicians about linguistic and cognitive advantages of using national and dominant languages as media of instruction in schools, little is known and said about the implications of using mother tongues of learners as media of instruction. For many years, especially in Africa, indigenous languages have been overlooked and treated as an impediment to the learning of officially supported second languages such as French and English. In many Zambian schools the use of mother tongues or local languages is still discouraged and is a punishable offence. There is a general feeling and practice among educational administrators and parents to link communicative competence in the official language to cognitive advancement and academic efficiency. However, little or nothing is known about the implication of ignoring a child’s mother tongue within the school environment. Barcu, et al. (2004) report that abandoning children’s mother tongue within the educational environment does not only affect the vitality of the home language but puts the children’s cultural identity at the risk of extinction as well. Using children’s mother tongue as medium of instruction promotes and facilitates multilingualism as the teacher will be compelled to teach in the mother tongues of all pupils. In most Western countries, multilingual and linguistic diversity is increasingly the norm. According to the Zambia Education Curriculum Framework (2013), all the teaching and learning in all the classroom subjects at the lower primary level will be in the familiar Zambian languages. This is because there is evidence that children learn more easily and successfully through the languages they know and understand well. It is against this backdrop that this study was undertaken to investigate the impact of using local familiar languages as media of instruction on Zambian primary school pupils’ academic performance specifically in Mumbwa district. Literature Review According to Machinyise (2017), more than 70 million