Challenges and Prospects of Mother Tongue Instructional Policy in Osun State ECCDE Centres
Okewole, Johnson Oludele (Ph.D); Osunjimi, Lawrence Adebayo (Ph.D)

Abstract
Many education systems favour using national or „global‟ languages instead of mother-tongue . Education is often carried out in the old colonial language, or an international language, such as English. This is based on the belief that certain internationally „important‟ languages give children a competitive advantage in later life. In other countries, education is taught in the dominant language of a main linguistic group, sometimes at the expense of more marginalized ethnic or linguistic groups This paper, therefore, examined the challenges and prospects of mother tongue instructional policy in Osun State Early Childhood Care and Development Education.The design of the study was descriptive.Four ECCDE centres were sampled from each of the Ife East, Ife North and Ife South LGAs and five from Ife central LGA (due to its cosmopolitan nature) by convenience to participate in the study. The study sample consists of 107 participants selected by convenience. The instrument used in this study was a self-constructed Questionnaire titled “Questionnaire on Challenges and Prospects of Mother Tongue Instructional Policy in Osun state ECCDE centres (QCPMTIP)”.From the foregoing it is evident that the Mothe Tongue instructional policy is not being properly implemented in ECCDE centres in Ife Zone of Osun state. Reasons found for this include the disposition of the government, parents and the owners as well as the operators of such centres.

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