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<h1>Language counts in education</h1>
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March 2 2015 at 01:47pm <br>
By Elsabé Taljaard
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<p>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”. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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? </p>
<p>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? </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>There are two key questions to consider with regard to the implementation of the policy of mother-tongue based education. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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?
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<p>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. </p>
<p>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? </p>
<p>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? </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p><em>l Taljaard is a professor in the Department of African Languages at the University of Pretoria</em> </p>
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