I quote a few lines from various articles by the South African language planner, Neville Alexander. In a review of achievements in Africa Neville concludes (and I quote): ‘[W]e are not making any progress at all’ (Alexander 2006: 9); ‘most conference resolutions were no more than a recycling exercise’ (Bamgbose 2001, quoted in Alexander 2006: 10); ‘these propositions had been enunciated in one conference after another since the early 1980s’ ( 2006: 11); ‘since the adoption of the OAU [Organisation for African Unity] Charter in 1963, every major conference of African cultural experts and political leaders had solemnly intoned the commitment of the political leadership of the continent to the development and powerful use of the African languages without any serious attempt at implementing the relevant resolutions’ (2006: 11). This has led to ‘the palpable failure of virtually all postcolonial educational systems on the continent’ (2006: 16)6. What we need is large-scale implementation of the existing good laws and intentions and recommendations. But the political will for that is mostly lacking. Neville’s analysis (2006: 16) stated: politicians are “not considering favourably a plan that amounts to no more than a wish list, even if it is based on the most accurate quantitative and qualitative research evidence”. Politicians need an analysis of the costs. Some of the hard economic evidence was still lacking in 2006, but now much of it exists. Firstly, researchers have shown how massive the economic costs of NOT doing what is needed are. Many minority children are being pushed out of school. They do not drop out; the way formal education is organised pushes them out. Most of those who still succeed, (and there are some) do not succeed BECAUSE of how their education is organised but DESPITE of it. When minority children do not get any or get very little formal education, this means incredible wastage, economically and psychologically, because they are not allowed to develop the capabilities they have7.– Indigenous people and minorities, especially those whom the educational system has alienated, are often overrepresented in several statistics on suicides, alcoholism, drugs use, unemployment, violence, crime. Some of the consequences of the miseducation (including an internalised neocolonial consciousness, wanting English-medium education8) continue through several generations. This also increases conflict potential in societies, including so called radicalisation of young men and a few young women. More than 40 years ago some of us (e.g. Stephen Castles, 19739) wrote, to no avail, about the ticking time bomb that badly organised minority education implied. We have told the power holders and politicians and educational authorities all this. And still the miseducation continues. Now the time bombs are exploding. Minorities have not had a choice. This would presuppose research-based knowledge of the long-term consequences of various choices, and the existence of good of good mother-tongue based MLE. On the other hand, economists have now shown that even the initial direct costs of getting minority education right are minor10. The long-term economic and other gains and benefits of doing it right are huge. The result could be well-educated multilingual people, with drive, initiative, creativity, cognitive flexibility, high selfconfidence, fewer identity challenges, economic mobility, and willingness and capacity to integrate and participate in public life. Today’s submersion education continues. But it is not only Indigenous peoples and numerically small minorities and minoritized people that suffer. Their languages and the world’s linguistic and cultural diversity, suffer, and as a