World Bank Wants Children Be Assessed In Mother Tongue

A World Bank report suggests that pre-primary school children should not be examined using English and Swahili languages as they are not a suitable way to determine the child’s development.

According to the World Bank, as much as Kiswahili is Kenya’s national language and English the official language, such children are better examined using their mother tongue.

The report dubbed the Multilingual Assessment of Early Child Development Analyses notes that when children below the school-going age are assessed using a country’s official language, it does not fully reflect the child’s capabilities and development.

“Assessments done using official languages do not fully reflect the development of a child, underscoring the importance of translation and adaptation,” reads part of the report.

The World Bank’s report is a conclusion on a recent study done in parts of Homabay and Kisumu Counties, to determine the performance on receptive vocabulary on children between two and six years of age.

From the September 2015, October 2016 and September 2019 study, the World Bank established that most young children, especially in rural areas tend to grasp the language and diction of their caregivers. Further, the children are subjected to assessments in official languages when most families in the country hardly ever use the official languages in their homes.

The survey, in which families with at least one child between two and 6 years were recruited from nine schools in Homabay and Kisumu’s rural areas, about 505 children were tested on their ability to answer expressive vocabulary tests.

While 297 children answered the test in more than one language, 189 children answered it entirely in Luo, 13 of them answered in entirely English and six answered entirely in Kiswahili.

It was established that the children, especially the younger ones answered more expressive words in their mother tongue.

The report also notes that while the number of children answering in only one language decreased with age, the use of Swahili language was very small across all ages.