[lg policy] Kenya: Language policy is a sure recipe for failure

Sat Feb 8 15:35:39 UTC 2014

Language policy is a sure recipe for failure

Updated Friday, February 7th 2014 at 22:31 GMT +3 0 inShare

 By Ken Opalo Several months ago, I wrote in this page about how hard it is
to develop and successfully implement public policy. One of the arguments I
advanced then was for the government to develop the habit of data-driven
policy development and analysis. Those calls fell on deaf ears. Day in day
out the government continues to engage in jua kali policymaking. The latest
instance of this is the education ministry's directive that Kenyan pupils
under the age of eight be taught in mother tongue. Now, there is nothing
wrong in giving value to our languages and the cultures they embody by
teaching them in schools. Indeed, one can argue that we will only be truly
decolonised the day we start learning about our history, culture and the
natural world we occupy in our own local languages as opposed to what
President Jomo Kenyatta called "colonial languages." That said there is
also a lot of evidence against teaching young Kenyans in their mother
tongues. First is the question of standards and equal access to quality
education. Income inequality and access to education in Kenya overlaps to a
significant degree with ethnicity. What this means for the new policy is
that historically wealthier groups with more access to education will have
better vernacular teachers than the rest of the country. Smaller, poorer
ethnic groups will be at a great disadvantage in this regard. More broadly,
the proposed system is guaranteed to confine poorer children without access
to English instruction at the bottom of the academic ladder after Standard
Three. Is this what we want for our children? Second, a lot of research
shows that the first few years of schooling are critical for pupils'
academic development and achievement. In other words, students with a firm
pre-primary education tend to do very well in school. Here in Kenya we seem
to be actively fighting against this reality. By laying the groundwork for
a shaky academic beginning for our children, we are dooming them to failure
after they stop being taught in their mother tongues. If this boneheaded
policy gets implemented, Kenya will find itself saddled with thousands of
Standard Three pupils who cannot read or write. And given the challenges
that our education system faces, majority of these pupils will not catch
up. In other words, the Ministry of Education is condemning hundreds of
thousands of Kenyan children to a future of academic underachievement. How
otherwise sane people are letting this happen is absolutely mind-boggling.
Third, there is the question of national cohesion. Negative ethnicity is
one of the millstones that continue to weight us down as a nation. How will
the new educational directive affect the way we see ourselves? Aren't we
priming future Kenyans to think of themselves firstly as members of their
ethnic groups and only secondly as Kenyans? To see the potential impact of
the ministry of education's directive, we need not go far. Our neighbor to
the south, Tanzania, has had a policy of mixed language instruction. There,
students in lower classes are taught almost exclusively in Kiswahili and
only later on does English get introduced as a language of instruction. The
result? Massive failure rates in high school national exams. A lot of
reasons may explain Tanzania's high failure rates, but language policy is
certainly up there as a cause. This is what Kenya is trying to do to its
students, albeit on a more circumscribed scale. Is this what we want for
our children? If we want to compete with the best in the world we have to
pull up our socks. Our public officials must take public policy development
and implementation seriously. The culture of jua kali policy development
must stop. Before we implement policies that will have a material impact on
the lives of millions of Kenyans we ought to think them through. Otherwise
we shall keep moving in circles, and will continue to confine millions of
our people to lives marked by underachievement and material want. Public
policy development is hard. Those who go about it without serious thought
are charlatans that do not belong in the public service. Their continued
employment at the expense of the taxpayer is a gross failure of our
political leadership. We should definitely think of ways of preserving our
diverse languages and the cultural riches they embody. We should also
strive to ensure that our kids get the best education possible. The sad
truth, however, is that neither objective can be achieved by implementing a
policy as boneheaded as the proposed language policy from the Ministry of
Education. GO TO PAGE 1 2 Next >>
Read more at:
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000104172&story_title=language-policy-is-a-sure-recipe-for-failure

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000104172&story_title=language-policy-is-a-sure-recipe-for-failure

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