Suggesting Creoles as the Media of Instruction in Formal Education

Abstract

Creole and Pidgin languages are spoken by not less than 50 million people around the globe, but literacy is usually acquired in other languages, especially those languages introduced by the former colonial powers. This paper suggests that Pidgin and Creole languages should be elaborated for use as the media of instruction in formal education, particularly in contexts where up to 85 per cent of the population speak them. Pidgins and creoles researchers have labelled pidgin and creole languages as “developing” and they highlight their capacity to perform the same functions as their developed European lexifiers, English and French. The central argument is that pidgin and creole languages have the potential to express complex realities and function officially in formal education despite the negative attitudes towards them by their speakers. The attitudes towards pidgin and creole languages in education, the part of political and linguistic entities in adopting Nigerian Pidgin and Mauritian Kreol as the medium of teaching literacy in their respective countries are the central issues of focus.