[lg policy] South Africa: Language counts in education

Mon Mar 2 20:55:13 UTC 2015

 Language counts in education March 2 2015 at 01:47pm
By Elsabé Taljaard
<http://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/opinion/language-counts-in-education-1.1825723#comments_start>
 [image: chalk blackboard] INDEPENDENT MEDIA

Unesco promotes mother tongue-based bilingual or multilingual approaches in
education – an important factor for inclusion and quality in education. The
theme for Unesco’s International Mother Language Day 2015 is “Inclusion in
and through education: Language counts”.

On reading this, any South African involved in education would immediately
relate to these aspirations, since all the buzzwords relevant to the South
African educational context are present: mother tongue-based bilingual or
multilingual approaches in education, inclusion and quality. If the Unesco
policy is aimed at attaining quality and inclusive education for all, South
Africans should enthusiastically support such a policy, since these are the
pressing ones in education today.

Why then, does it feel as if South African academics, teachers and most
importantly learners are still fumbling around in the darkness of an
education system in which the language rights of the majority of school
pupils are underrated?

We have access to international normative frameworks for language policy
based on sound research. We have well-formulated national policies on
language in education, contextualised for the South African situation, but
are these perhaps nothing more than colourful stalactites in our
educational cave which fail to reach the bottom and thus to support the
whole structure?

In view of the celebration of mother tongues which is the purpose of
Unesco’s (rather clunky sounding) Mother Language Day (February 21), it
seems an opportune moment to reflect on the state of mother tongue
education in South Africa, specifically from an African languages
perspective.

One of the anomalies of post-apartheid South Africa is that the only pupils
who currently enjoy the privilege and benefits of mother-tongue based
education from their initial entry into the schooling system up to
university level are those with English and to a lesser extent Afrikaans as
mother tongues.

Ironically, pupils from these two groups are exactly the ones who were
linguistically privileged during the previous political dispensation. So
what has changed for those pupils who have one of the nine African
languages as mother tongues? Very little, I’m afraid, except that they are
part of an educational system where the language of teaching and learning
is often poor South African English.

There are two key questions to consider with regard to the implementation
of the policy of mother-tongue based education.

Firstly, how does one guarantee access to the global and national
(economic) environment in which English is the dominant medium of
communication and vehicle of access; secondly, how does one implement the
policy without getting bogged down in narrow ethnic nationalism? Perhaps
somewhat ironically, the key to the success of mother-tongue based
education lies in the measure of success with which English as additional
language is taught. There is, however, another side to this argument,
namely the symbiotic relationship – within an educational setting – between
mastering one’s mother tongue and becoming proficient in a second and even
third language.

It is a moot point that successful learning of additional languages is
dependent on an adequate mastering of the home language. Only when this
symbiosis is recognised in educational policies will African languages be
regarded as providing access to equality, transformation and quality
education.

It is against this background that some comment on a policy drafted by the
Department of Basic Education on the Incremental Introduction of African
languages in South African Schools seems necessary.

First of all, the title of the policy document is misleading since it does
not only address the issue of non-African speakers having to learn an
African language, but it also speaks to strengthening the use of African
languages at home language level.

Therefore, two issues are central to the draft policy. Firstly, it
addresses the issue of (additive) multilingualism by proposing the
implementation of a programme whereby primary schoolchildren in government
schools will have to learn an indigenous African language, starting from
Grade 1; secondly, it aims to improve proficiency in and use of the
indigenous African languages as mother tongues or home languages, as they
are referred to in the document.

Multilingualism is a multi-dimensional concept, and it is not clear as to
what the final purpose of delivering a multilingual individual to society
would be. Is the sole – and absolutely valid – aim to create social
cohesion, or should being multilingual in the final instance empower pupils
to function and to succeed in an educational environment in which the
language of teaching and learning is not the mother tongue?

This needs to be stated clearly, since it will inform the pedagogy of
teaching the African language in the classroom. Furthermore, seen against
the background of the interplay between being fully proficient in one’s
mother tongue and the success with which additional languages are acquired,
one cannot help but question the wisdom of quantitatively adding more
languages, when proficiency in the mother tongue which surely is the most
important cognitive tool is qualitatively lacking.

In its report on last year’s Annual National Assessments, the Department of
Basic Education identifies the writing of single words and simple sentences
and the use of punctuation, capital letters and full stops as areas of
weakness in the Grade 1 home language. Is it fair to expect of pupils who
have not yet mastered these very basic skills in their mother tongue to
start learning yet another language, while simultaneously attempting to
master numeracy and a host of other academic and life skills?

Should the emphasis not rather be on the qualitative improvement of mother
tongue education and maximising the benefit that pupils can derive from
being taught through the medium of the mother tongue and secondly, to
increase the number of pupils who have access to quality mother tongue
tuition, especially during the initial four years of schooling?

It would seem that the policy as it currently stands is yet another
stalactite hanging from the roof of our educational cave, not reaching the
bedrock.

*l Taljaard is a professor in the Department of African Languages at the
University of Pretoria*

http://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/opinion/language-counts-in-education-1.1825723#.VPTNx-FcvIU

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