Paper Title
Mother Tongue Education in South Africa: What are the Realities?

Abstract
With eleven official languages in South Africa, the issue of which language/s should be used as medium of instruction in schools has become a topical one. As a result of this quagmire, English and Afrikaans to some extent have become the de facto dominant and preferred languages in education. This is especially true of higher education. In this paper, I examine some of the reasons for this rather unfortunate status quo. This will be done vis-à-vis the language in education policy as stipulated in the South African constitution. Examples from sub-Saharan Africa and from the literature would be used to explicate my position and recommendations would be made accordingly. Keywords - Mother tongue, South Africa, medium of instruction, language in education policy