The use of "mother tongue" in information literacy instruction among the NEET (not in education, employment, or training) youth at a South African township

Abstract

South Africa, with its rich linguistic diversity, boasts 12 official languages, including sign language. The current schooling system uses the English language as the preferred language of instruction for many schools, except Afrikaans-speaking schools. As a result, many students are fluent in English. Many South African educational institutions have adopted other languages, depending on their geographical location as part of their multilingual policy implementation. The focus of this study was on information literacy instruction. The study aimed to investigate the use of the mother tongue in information literacy instruction among the NEET population at Khuma township in South Africa. During the apartheid era, townships were reserved for the African population with limited access to libraries, offering information and user education in their mother tongue. A participatory action research approach was employed, utilising a focus group of 14 participants to collect data. The findings revealed that NEET youth prefer English over their mother tongues for learning purposes. Some of the reasons for the preference of using English include that formal schooling was conducted in the language, difficulty in understanding concepts in the mother tongue and the different dialects of the official languages being a barrier. Additionally, the study highlights the challenges of integrating the mother tongue into teaching and learning, largely due to the unequal status of these languages compared to English. The study offers recommendations for policy, advocacy, and the possible incorporation of the mother tongue into teaching and learning, particularly in information literacy. These findings are expected to motivate further empirical research on this phenomenon.