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Obstacles to progress

Challenges

Spoken by 30 million mainly in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Egypt. The
people of Oromo account for more than 40% of the Ethiopian population and are the largest
ethnic group in that country.
Igbo
A native language of the Igbo people and one of Nigeria's official language, Igbo is spoken by
over 24 million people, with the greater portion of speakers residing in Cameroon and
Equatorial Guinea.
Amharic

The fifth most widely spoken language in Africa, Amharic, is the second-largest Semitic dialect
on the continent after Arabic and mainly spoken in Ethiopia.
Zulu
IsiZulu, also known as Zulu, is one of South Africa's official languages.
Branching out from the Bantu/Nguni family of languages, Zulu has more than 10 million
speakers.
Shona 21
Shona is the most spoken language in Zimbabwe, with over 10 million speakers and is an
official language in Zimbabwe “
"The African Exponent" 185

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The African Union (AU)
“ The official languages of the Union and all its institutions shall be Arabic, English, French,
Portuguese, Spanish, Kiswahili and any other African language.”

"AU Languages : African Union " 186
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'Educational Achievement’
“ Raising levels of academic achievement is key to the development of any under-developed

country. It provides the basis for
• a more skilled workforce needed for industrialisation

• a more stable society (through higher employment, higher average earnings)
• a more stable political environment (through less 'discontentment')

• a greater understanding of societal and national issues, a more 'reasoning' population

Raising levels of academic achievement is a major challenge in any African country
underdevelopment and equates to

• less than robust institutions, including those related to education
• problems of 'delivery' (arising from absent teachers, missing educational materials)

• poor pupil attendance (children are often needed to help with family subsistence farming,)
• societal / parental negative attitudes towards education of females