This archive report was first published on 24 July 2019.
July 24, 2019
Nairobi City Hall may soon require all publicly owned nursery schools to include a lesson on mother tongue in their curriculum.
The proposal, drafted by nominated MCA Silvia Museiya, aims to compel City Hall's education department to develop a policy requiring every ECDE center to have a lesson on language and culture.
According to Museiya, the idea is to enable children to express themselves in their mother tongue, through compositions and other forms of expression.
"I need a child to identify with any of the indigenous languages," Museiya explained. "I am a Maasai, but I can speak fluent Kikuyu."
Museiya's motion has been necessitated by the need to revive indigenous languages, which are facing extinction in urban centers.
"I just need the children to be able to identify with an African language and culture and minimize the Western cultural influence in our society," Museiya said.
She believes that early childhood education is a devolved function, and City Hall can come up with a policy compelling nursery schools to have a lesson called 'language and culture' to be taught at least once a week.
