Sound leadership: a tool for harnessing the educational and economic values of indigenous languages

Abstract

Africa is one of the world’s richest continents laden with tangible and intangible natural resources. Despite the wealth of natural resources, many African citizens are still living in great penury, frustration and hopelessness. Striving to provide solution to the challenges of poverty in Africa may hold no water without the recognition of the role and impact of indigenous languages in the educational and economic sectors. It is observed that developed countries ardently project, preserve, protect, promote and commodify their languages for educational and economic purposes while developing countries lack the political will to do the same for their indigenous languages, hence the failure to harness the values thereof. The paper argues that the diverse and dynamic indigenous language heritage is an enabling resource for developing communities to actively participate in the knowledge economy and initiate development within their communities themselves. The knowledge economy is the economic part of the information society in which the creation and utilization of knowledge play a principal role in the creation of wealth. African leadership must strive to enable most of the indigenous languages to become the instruments of work and scientific understanding. The study argues that with the right leadership, the educational and economic values of indigenous languages can be harnessed.

Keywords: Sound leadership, educational, economic, indigenous languages