[EDLING:275] Botswana: Mother Tongue in Education

[Francis M. Hult]

allAfrica.com

Botswana: Mother Tongue in Education

Dorcas Moefhe, Owen Pansiri and Sheldon Weeks

Gaborone

It is now a known and accepted fact that the use of mother tongue as a medium 
of instruction in early days of schooling contributes to improved classroom 
learning and related academic achievement.

Children who learn to read and write on their first language or mother tongue 
then transfer those skills to other languages such as Setswana and English. 
What is more problematic is how to start with mother tongue education in a 
multilingual society such as Botswana. Collaboration between governments and 
non-governmental organisations in educational development is one major strategy 
that the World Conferences on Education of 1990 and 2000 endorsed.

 
Botswana has used this strategy to deal with, among others, the education of 
remote area dwellers. The government has also embraced the Minority Education 
Project with a specific focus on the education of the San, but the project does 
not seem to be coming out clearly between the Ministry of Education and the 
other interested parties. The University of Botswana and the University of 
Tromso (UB/UT) are currently working together on research and capacity building 
for the Basarwa whom they refer to as the San.

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