Worshop on “Introducing the Caboverdian language into schools”

On Saturday, 21 May, Renée DePalma accompanied bilingual education specialist Ana Josefa Cardoso in organizing a workshop at the University of Cabo Verde (UCV), where teachers, university educators, writers, and language and culture activists discussed ways forward towards introducing the community language, Kriolu, into the school system. Despite its independence from Portugal in 1975, the official language of Cabo Verde continues to be Portuguese, while the vast majority of the population speak Kriolu in their home and community contexts. To date, the community language has been excluded from Cabo Verdean schooling contexts, so this workshop was designed to explore possibilities and challenges in introducing mother tongue language instruction, as recommended by Unesco – see https://www.unesco.org/en/languages-education