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Ambivalence on the medium of instruction policy and access to education in Tanzania</a>
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<span itemprop="name">Dr GASTOR MAPUNDA</span> </dd><dd class="" title="">
16 February 2016
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<p style="text-align:justify">A FORTNIGHT ago, I argued that for
some reason, Tanzania’s 2014 Education and Training Policy was
intentionally made indecisive on which language our education system
should adopt.</p>
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<p style="text-align:justify">The policy irresolutely says that
English and Kiswahili shall be used at all levels of education as media
of classroom instruction. This week, I want to discuss yet another
inexact and a bit wavering statement regarding classroom interaction
concerning the deaf, as presented in the same Policy. The policy does
realise that sign language is important and useful to the deaf.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">This mention is made on page 36.
Besides, it declares that deaf students fail to effectively benefit from
education and training because of not having in place a proper system
of teaching them and using sign language. With this realisation in mind,
one would now expect a clear articulation of the way forward.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">However, what the policy says, and in
passing (sub-Section 3.2.18) is that “the government will facilitate the
use of sign language and Braille at all levels of education and
training”.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">What is amiss is the declaration that
sign language shall be one of the languages in the same way as Kiswahili
and English, but specifying that this is for the deaf.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">Additionally, I view the policy
ambivalent due to the fact that there are many deaf children allover
Tanzania, but there is no mention in the policy that these will be
facilitated wherever they are, or at least collected and be taught
together in particular centers so as to make sure that they all benefit
from the education system.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">Right now deaf children who benefit from
the education system are those in regions where there are such schools,
and these are very few. Simply saying that the government will
facilitate the teaching of sign language, or using the Braille, does not
say much to help the deaf in practical terms.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">On the February 4, 2016 a project on
teaching the Tanzanian sign language for the educational development of
the deaf child was launched in the Department of Foreign Languages and
Linguistics, University of Dar es Salaam.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">It is a small-scale project, funded from
abroad. What was very moving was the fact so little is known to the
general public about the situation of the deaf in Tanzania.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">For example, from the project’s ongoing
research which involved 232participants from the three districts of Dar
es Salaam, of whom 94 were deaf children, it was realised that 89
percent of the deaf children live with parents who are not deaf, and 86%
live with relatives who are not deaf. This means that deaf children are
not exposed to sign language at home.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">Besides, many parents and guardians have
acknowledged lack of knowledge of sign language. Another important
finding relates to the fact that these deaf children necessarily have to
communicate with other people. What is intriguing is where these
different groups of people who communicate with the deaf get their
knowledge from.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">Apparently, it was realised that sign
language is not taught in mainstream schools. What happens is that each
person is a teacher of yet another person.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">But the teaching process is done by
fellow deaf children, other deaf people on the streets, and also from
the dictionary. Of course, there are others who are taught by teachers,
some of whom have no knowledge of the official sign language.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">The consequence of having these multiple
sources is that such haphazardly taught language is full of mistakes,
and, therefore, confusing. Think of a teacher who learns a language from
a pupil, or even a dictionary!</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">This suggests that there are serious
problems with the use of sign language in Tanzania. An important
observation was that the deaf children themselves complained of
anomalies in their classroom interaction with their teachers. For
example, they complained that the main problem is that teachers use
signs which are incomprehensible to them.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">This can be caused by the fact that
those teachers get their signs from different sources, most of which are
unauthorised. Some teachers only talk when they teach in class while
aware that there are deaf children in their classes. Besides, some
complain that their teachers do not understand them in class, and some
are laughed at and ridiculed by other students who are not deaf.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">They also complained of some subjects
being difficult. For them, the easiest subject is Mathematics, and the
most difficult is language. I have decided to talk about this component
of the policy on the medium of instruction because I know that without
explicit and well articulated medium of instruction policy guidelines,
some people in the society will always be left behind. Even the efforts
by the government to provide free education will not be felt by some
Tanzanians.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">Besides, not putting in place mechanisms
for ensuring that these policy statements are implemented has a lot of
implications for such groups that need special attention.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">For example, the said research reported
that for the schools where there are teachers with sign language
training it was realised that children preferred to remain at school to
going home during vacations.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">My suggestion is that the government
should liaise with sign language experts and make sure that appropriate
steps are taken to facilitate teachers in teacher training colleges,
parents and guardians with deaf children to be able to communicate with
their children and help them accordingly.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify">Other members of the community also need
to be taught sign language whenever necessary for them to be able to
interact with the deaf as smoothly as possible.</p><p style="text-align:justify"><a href="http://dailynews.co.tz/index.php/columnist/46993-ambivalence-on-the-medium-of-instruction-policy-and-access-to-education-in-tanzania">http://dailynews.co.tz/index.php/columnist/46993-ambivalence-on-the-medium-of-instruction-policy-and-access-to-education-in-tanzania</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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