issues of Educational Language Policy and EMI in North Africa

Abstract

In North Africa language policy in general and decisions about what language medium to use in education have been affected on one hand by discourses of independence and nationalism as well as development and modernisation, and by the inevitable heavy burden of colonialism on the other. In most higher education institutions in North Africa, the medium of instruction for scientific and technological subjects is not Arabic which is the mother tongue and official language of the entire region. In Academia, Arabic has struggled to keep a role even in the social sciences while French, in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, rules supreme in the sciences. In Egypt and Libya English takes the lion share for the sciences. This chapter provides an analytical and critical review of empirical and theoretical literature on EMI in North Africa. The reviewed studies and discussion pieces represent a range of ideological and educational positions vis-à-vis the role of English in the North African context, its future and the impact of EMI on the quality of learning experiences of Arab students.