Mother tongue language as medium of instruction in Primary Schools of B/G/R/S: What are the Challenges and opportunities?

The study attempted to examine challenges and opportunity in using mother tongue language as medium of instruction in primary schools of Benishangul Gumuz Regional state. The target population of the study was mother tongue languages teachers in the three zones of the region. Questionnaires, interview and Focus Group Discussion was employed for data collection. The quantitative data was analyzed using one sample T-test and percentages. Whereas, data obtained through interview and FGD was analyzed qualitatively. The study revealed that teachers were facing different challenges towards teaching mother tongue languages. Lack of trained teachers, shortage of instructional materials (text books, teachers’ guide), problems of dialect and other morphological aspect of languages are few to makes mention. Finally, the researcher recommended some actions to be taken such as teachers should be trained and specialized in mother tongue subjects, enough budget should be allocated for publishing textbooks, teachers guide and textbooks should to be revised for teaching.