The purpose of this investigation was to explore the education language policy African countries use as medium of instruction in the educational systems, as well as official national languages. Such investigation was driven by two linguistic factors. First, most African countries are populated by diverse population groups which may be as many as over 100 each of which may have its own language which may not be understood by other ethnic groups. Second, each African country was governed by foreign nations, which imposed the use of their various languages for official communication. The sample was drawn from 15 countries whose geographical locations were: North, South, East, West and Central Africa, thus forming a stratified random sample regionally. The results showed that a number of countries have opted to use a foreign language as official, others have chosen to adopt both a foreign language and one of the national language as official. None of the participating countries have chosen one of their national languages as exclusively the official language. In terms of language of instruction, at primary school level a national language is used as medium of instruction. At secondary and post-secondary level, a foreign language is used as medium of instruction. The concern raised in research and the present investigation is the kind of message conveyed to both children and the population at large, given the dominance of foreign languages being used at national level and as medium of instruction educational institutions. Simply stated, the message is that their languages are inferior to the foreign languages, and without stretching the point, such message implies low self-esteem, and that Africans are inferior to people whose languages are dominating in schools and society at large.

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