Abstract:
At the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000, 189 world leaders adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, from which the eight-goal action plan, the 'Millennium Development Goals', was derived and intended as a response to the challenges of development emergency facing the global community. But nearly eight years later and a little less than half way to 2015, the world, (Africa, in particular) is not yet on track to meeting the targets. Education, according to the Second Decade of Education for Africa Plan of Action (2006), forms the basis for developing innovation, science and technology in order to harness our resources, industrialize, and participate in the global knowledge economy and for Africa to take its rightful place in the global community…It has been shown that learning outcomes are higher for children taught in their first language in the early years of school In this paper, formed on the theoretical anvil of linguistic political economy of development, we argue for the meaningful engagement of African languages in the national development initiatives of African States as one of the viable options open to Africa for meeting the challenges of the Millennium Development Goals.
