A Prospective Survey of Native Population’s Attitude towards Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTBMLE) and Fulfulde as Medium of Instruction in the Far North Region of Cameroon

Abstract

This paper sets out to investigate the attitude of native peoples of the Far North Region of Cameroon towards the prospects of a MTBMLE and the use of Fulfulde as a medium of instruction (MOI) in the primary school of the region. The data were collected through a survey using a set of close-ended questions in a questionnaire administered to more than 467 informants. Some interviews were also conducted to gain more insight into the opinion of the population toward this educational paradigm. The findings show there is some support for the use of mother tongue and French in a transition model and there is stark support for primary school education in mother tongue and French but not Fulfulde as a substitute for French. In fact, there seems to be strong opposition to the idea of using Fulfulde as MOI in nursery school with natives of other ethnic groups. There is a mixed opinion regarding the use of ethnic language from year one to three and the use of the mother tongue to teach maths. This research points to the fact that indigenous languages still suffer some stigma.