Namibia: Language policy in education - in practice

An article seen on AllAfrica.com

http://allafrica.com/stories/200709241071.html
The Education Corner

New Era (Windhoek)
NEWS
24 September 2007
Posted to the web 24 September 2007

By Toivo Mvula

The Language Policy was developed to guide Namibian schools on how national languages should be taught in schools, to promote the cultural identity of learners through the use of their mother tongue as a medium of instruction in Grades 1-3 and to ensure that English is taught as the medium of instruction from Grade 4 and upwards.

What does the Language Policy state?

The Language Policy states that schools should teach learners in Grade One to Grade Three in their mother-tongue. Grade Four is to be regarded as a transitional year where schools start to switch from mother tongue as a medium of instruction to English as a medium of instruction.

What does this mean?

This means that, as from Grade Four, the mother-tongue becomes a subject and learners will be taught in English; i.e. other subjects will be taught in English.

Is the policy being fully implemented?

No. Although the policy states that learners should be taught in their mother tongue from Grade 1 to Grade 3, this has not happened and is not being done all over the country. Many schools also do not offer Namibian indigenous languages as subjects from Grade 4 until Grade 12.

Why is a mother tongue important?

Research has shown that being taught in one’s mother tongue at an early age helps you to make sense of what you are being taught in order to help you to conceptualise better and acquire writing and reading skills which are best acquired in the early years of schooling.

Teaching mother tongue in schools also helps to promote the language and cultural identity of learners.

What about English?

English is the official language of Namibia. The Language Policy states that English should be compulsory from Grade One to Grade Twelve.

- From Grade 1 - 3 = as a subject.

- From Grade 4 - 12 = as a subject and as the medium of instruction.

The Policy also states that, ideally, learners should study at least two languages as subjects from Grade 1 to Grade 12 and one of them must be English.

- The Education Column is a column that was created by the Ministry of Education to highlight educational issues that are of concern to its stakeholders (learners, students, parents, teachers, development partners, unions, and the private and public sector). For more information, contact the Public Relations Office at Tel: 061-2933358 or 2933366.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200709241071.html

South Africa: 8th international conference on language and development

(NB: Please respond to the conference planners via the website, NOT to Sociolingo!)

08th international conference on language and development

 Date: 1 to 3 October 2007

Venue: University of South Africa, Tshwane (Pretoria), South Africa

http://www.unisa.ac.za/default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=19711

 The aims are to:

* Discuss and debate matters pertaining to language, education and development;

* Identify key areas for collaborative projects and interventions;

* Constitute core teams to pursue collaborative projects;

* Develop joint working and funding proposals.

About the conference

 Language is knowledge. Language is power. Language is a key driver in development – in thesocial, cultural, educational and economic domains. Yet, despite international initiatives to address education, poverty, gender equality, disease, civil conflict and economic growth, millions of people across the globe are marginalized. They exist on the fringe of survival and are denied access to basic necessities which could obviate their suffering and bring new hope.

What role does language play in development?

 What role can language play in addressing urgent global demands? How do we reconcile language development, the hegemony of English, the formation of national identities, demands for democratization and liberalization, and the recognition of individual and cultural rights in a global context? How can language practitioners, educationalists, development specialists and the like, from across the world, collaborate to make a tangible difference to increasing access to knowledge through the development of language?

 The University of South Africa – in association with the Trustees of the Language and Development Conference Series – invite applications from governments, academics, researchers, NGOs, and activists to participate in the 8th International Conference on Language and Development from 1 to 3 October 2007.

 This International Conference will take the following form:

 * Plenary presentations;

* Individual papers addressing the key themes;

* Workshop sessions.

 

Uganda: English language standards

Posted by sociolingo on April 18th, 2007

Yet another article in the press today about falling standards of English, this time from Uganda. The main complaint seems to be the use of ’slang’. What is quoted in the article is mainly internet and phone text short words. You hear exactly the same complaint in England from teachers there too. This is not about the lack of teaching English really, it is about the changing use of language and genres, and about power elites using this as a tool to discredit mother tongue teaching.

Several telling quotes from the article:

Inappropriate language, consisting of text abbreviations and slang, is slowly creeping into students’ course work and exams, teachers reveal. “Words such as ‘b4′, ‘gd’ or ‘thru’ are so common when I am marking,” says David Eryatu, a General Paper teacher at Wanyange Girls’ School.

Each age group and school has a language of their own,” states Daudi Mulongo, the headteacher of Kiira College Butiki The irony is that although there is no major threat to the English language, he admits that carelessness could have an impact on the students’ grades.

“Fortunately, we are not being marked by Cambridge; otherwise it can affect grades drastically.” Sameer Ogole, a Kyambogo-based software developer, uses online slang frequently. He agrees with Mulongo: “Slang has been around for so long, it has not hurt the use of the traditional form of English.

This usage is limited to instant messages and cell phone text conversations.” Students also reveal that part of the reason why they have developed their own vocabulary is because the correct spelling of traditional English is very “long and boring.”

They argue, however, that they are able to draw a line between the informal and the formal English, during their exams. “It is easy, fast and cool,” says 17-year-old Fiona, a student at Makerere College School. “I use it when I am with my friends, but not with my teacher or exams,” says another.

The final quote gives us the answer. Draconian measures to ban informal expression, or code-switching will not work, but educating young people about the different genres and encouraging them to only use the formal code at school so that they get better grades may work.

As usual the move towards using local languages for the first few years of schooling is also attacked as a cause for this demise.

The education ministry’s new policy to teach lower primary classes (P1 to P3) in their mother tongues is also under stiff criticism.

Many people have expressed the fear that this will further compound the problem of bad English use due to a shaky foundation in the children’s learning of the language.

However, Francis Kaleeba, a language specialist at the National Curriculum Development Centre, says: “If you have a good background in your mother tongue, it also enhances your English language. Children can then decode easily the meaning of words into English.”

The same tired old arguments appear every time any African government introduces (or re-introduces) mother tongue teaching for the first few years of education. Usually the critics are the ‘elite’ power holders. The results from many programmes show that teaching kids in a language they understand helps them learn, and then they are able to transfer those skills to a new language and get better results than those who were only taught in the ex-colonial language. No-one disputes the role and importance of international languages such as French and English, but these same tired old arguments against mother tongue teaching do nothing but raise dust and cloud more important issues. Class sizes are generally very large in primary schools, teachers often inadequately trained, and textbooks either non-existent or inappropriate (especially ones imported from Europe!). Yes, there does need to be adequate English grammar teaching - and mother tongue language grammar teaching too, but you hear this in England as well as Africa.

 

Uganda: support for Ugandan languages

Uganda’s state minister for Gender, Isanga Nakadama has advised parents to stop forcing their children to speak English.

By Risdel KasasiraThe minister who was presiding over the World Cultural Day in Kampala, says for African cultures to survive, native languages must be protected especially at family level. She says there are families where children are beaten because they speak native languages.Nakadama says this is an unfortunate situation that will kill African languages. Nakadama said Ugandan government is planning to introduce teaching of vernaculars from primary to secondary level in order to help maintain local languages in every locality.The minister of relief and disaster preparedness, Prof. Tarsis Kabwegyere proposed that the Institute of Languages at Makerere University, Uganda’s leading public university to work with the ministry of gender, labour and social development to design a national language policy.

Kabwegyere says the policy should be written in all native languages of Uganda.

Ultimate Media

Angola: debate on Angolan languages

The debate on local languages is a hot potato in Angola at the moment. Last month experts, technicians of the Culture Ministry (Mincult), university lecturers and students met for three days in order to discuss about the problem of local languages, its insertion in the education system, and their preservation. It really seems quite hopeful that things will move forward although things are hindered by the lack of legislation enabling the Vernacular Languages Institute (ILN) to be officially recognised.

See: http://allafrica.com/stories/200608281557.html

Ghana: Textbooks

LETTER TO THE SPEAKER

Towards a needs-based curriculum for schools

Mr. Speaker, Honorable majority members, Honorable members of the minority, ladies and gentlemen.
In my letter to you some months ago, I discussed programmatic structures with regards to the curriculum in our universities, in which I indicated that the current curriculum succeeds in producing students en masse at the end of each academic year, but fails to make them productive in society. Even though the greater majority of my audience understood the import of my argument and agreed with me, in principle, on the challenging issues I raised, others misread the piece and thought I meant that some courses in the liberal arts such as History and Philosophy, among others are irrelevant and should not be offered. I don’t think I can ever dream of such an idea, having gone through the same system and programs, myself. In that piece, I argued that the current set up of programs, among which are those in the liberal arts, have not been designed and taught with any connection to the outside world, thus products of the universities become displaced in the communities in which they have to serve because they find it difficult if not impossible to apply such knowledge in the real world. It has been seven (7) months since this piece and I am yet to hear a single reform about that.
We seem to be losing hold of a number of things, one of which includes our English language. We can hardly talk of a language policy which identifies us as real Ghanaians. I am not talking about whether or not we should have a national language, but a national English language policy that can identify us as Ghanaians and can identify us with one bloc of the so-called powerful Western countries. Today, when experts talk about the Englishes of the world Nigeria is mentioned. Nigeria has become such a powerful bloc identifiable with a consistent, marked way of speaking and writing that is uniquely Nigerian. There is no such thing as Ghanaian English even though I can easily make out a Ghanaian from a Nigerian should they both present themselves. Usually, for a developing country, the success of language policy might be contingent on how well its system is modeled after its colonial powers. Thus, one would easily assume that the Ghanaian will take after the British both in speech and in writing. Unfortunately, however, we seem to be at a cross-road in this direction as one is not sure if our speech and written forms are American or British. When the Ghanaian speaks or writes, it is very difficult to decipher its form and function as it is not clear if it follows the American or the British tradition. This is worrying, considering that even in schools the problem has crept into the syllabi and most instructors have no clue what this is doing to our identity or even if there is some awareness, instructors do not care. What is obvious now is that Ghanaians are now like the metaphoric pendulum moving to and fro at the touch of any harmless weapon.
This chaotic situation on the language scene is reflected in curriculum development at the basic and secondary levels of education. I don’t know if I am the only one who has observed this phenomenon but over the past years there have been attempts by curriculum designers to introduce some Western (American or British) subject matters into the syllabi of students in the educational sector and this hasn’t helped. Isn’t it a source of concern that children as early as the crèche level are made to study subject matters that have no bearing on their cultural contexts? Consider a child who lives in the Kushiegu-Karaga area, who is forced to study subject matters about hurricanes, history of other countries, animals, and concepts that are so foreign to pupils. The process of education at the tender age at which these pupils find themselves is so complex and until the pupils are able to have some grounding in their environment, they can’t make any sense of other materials that are so foreign to them. At the basic level, pupils wherever they find themselves know as much terminologies of their environments and will take sometime for them to be exposed to foreign phenomena. How would they make sense of hurricanes and holocaust when they don’t ever happen in Ghana?
The Literature scene has been invaded by foreign texts and materials, many of which students have no clue what the texts are talking about. The worrying development is that for the most part texts from the western orientation have been favored over the texts and materials that deal with the Ghanaian or African experiences and whose themes provoke crucial debates and arguments. What this means is that students know more about foreign subjects than they know about their local heroes and writers, and how can they relate to their history with this growing sense of displacement? As it stands our education is not geared towards producing graduates who will meet the challenges of the nation, but graduates who will serve the needs of the West. By the time a student leaves school he can recite and quote notable areas of Shakespeare’s or Arthur Miller’s texts but display sheer ignorance about the culture and history of Ghana or Africa, or in other words his/she will hardly be able to display knowledge of Ghanaian texts.
I am by no means discounting the importance of materials of the Shakespearean or western tradition but our dependence on them has not done our students any good. I will admit that Literatures of the western tradition or specifically those of the Shakespearean orientation are one of the best considering the universal nature of their themes but how can you treat such foreign subjects in schools when students can make no connections with the concepts discussed in the materials? Pupils and students can only benefit if they are not rushed into studying the Literatures of other areas they are yet to encounter. Our educational authorities can only hasten slowly in introducing these materials to our pupils and students. At the university level a careful blend of Ghanaian or African texts and those from the West and not necessarily an over-dependence on western texts and materials will help.
We seem to be at a cross-road, only feeding on systems that have not helped us. We need a curriculum that can identify with the needs and ideals of our system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Author: Godwin Yaw Agboka

Languages of Mali

According to the Ethnologue:Languages of the World (2005) entry for Mali there are 50 languages. Of these 13 have been recognised for education and 11 are being used.

Mali: The quest for a literate environment in Mali

The Malian newspaper Les Echos reports on the workshop held in Bamako, 5-8th September on the development of a literate environment in Mali.

In order to mark International Literacy Day (September 8th), the Ministry of Education and its partners is holding a major 4 day workshop in Bamako with 102 participants from governmental departments and non-governmental organisations. The aim of the workshop is to identify and debate how to develop a literate environment in Mali and to develop integrated strategies to achieve this. The development of a literate environment is actually the second part of the 10 year plan for the development of Education in Mali (PRODEC), and is allied to the Literacy for LIFE movement of UNESCO.

I think that the problem with these sorts of initiative is that it is all very well to talk, and a lot of talking will have gone on in the workshop, but all too often that is all there is. This initiative needs to be backed by action and perhaps changes in legislation in order to really change things. The workshop raises the questions of ‘what is a literate society and what are the criteria for judging the success of becoming a literate society? These are questions that will be well-debated in the workshop.

One of the biggest problems is the lack of reading materials in Malian languages. In previous workshops and for many years materials/texts have been written, but they are still not published. This is a major area that needs to be addressed if there is going to be any real change.

Mali has gone a long way in recent years to develop education in Malian languages alongside French in the Primary sector (for the first 6 years). These young people will grow up with a different attitude to language than their parents. But if there is nothing for them to read as they are growing up they will lose the incentive to read for pleasure in their own languages. It really is imperative to address this reading desert.