Multilingualism in Kenya

Kenya is a country where multilingualism is profoundly practiced. There is no true lingua franca in Kenya because neither Swahili nor English can be considered as the true language of Kenya. Swahili is the national language while English is the official language, a situation that seems odd compared to the rest of the world. Surprisingly, not everyone in Kenya can speak Swahili or English. Most people prefer using their mother tongue rather than Swahili or English. It's even strange even on the understanding of the language. People living along the coast speak better Swahili than people living in central highlands of Kenya. This can be contributed to the fact that some primary schools in Kenya (especially those in Kikuyu land), teach vernacular in lower grades(1,2,3) and they are even tested on it. The reason why they are taught vernacular is because all* the pupils come from surrounding regions and speak the same dialect.This is not the case with every school in Kenya. On the other hand, schools in western, Northern, and South Kenya don't do that normally because there are pupils who have different dialects and therefore not possible to teach the regional dialect. This can explain why people in western Kenya and coast speak Swahili fluently than those in central Kenya, especially Kikuyu tribe.There are over twenty different dialects in Kenya today. Most of them are defined into specific regions. e.g., Kikuyu in central Kenya, Luo in western and Nyanza, Kamba in northeastern and so on.