Book notice

[Harold F. Schiffman]

From: African Books Collective

Languages of Instruction for African Emancipation: Focus on Postcolonial
Contexts and Considerations

Edited by Birgit Brock-Utne & Rodney Kofi Hopson

With rhetoric in the twenty-first century focused on the African
Renaissance, the central role of language in the development and
emancipation of the continent seems to have taken a backseat.

This collection of case studies from seven African countries poses
questions such as: What alternatives are there for educational language
policies towards African emancipation? What efforts have governments made
to change the language policy in favour of African languages and how far
have they succeeded? What challenges do African learners face when it
comes to current language of instruction policies? The authors reject
language education policies that neglect the multilingualism existing in
Africa; that reinforces patterns of privilege that existed in the colonial
era, further entrenching the schism between the elite and the masses.

This is a co-publication with the Centre for the Advanced Study of African
Societies, in South Africa, the pioneering research organisation dedicated
to the furtherance of African languages for education and development.

Introduction: Educational languages contexts and issues in postcolonial
Africa Birgit Brock-Utne & Rodney Kofi Hopson

Languages of instruction for education, development and African
emancipation Kwesi Kwaa Prah

The continued battle over KiSwahili as the language of instruction in
Tanzania Birgit Brock-Utne

The paradox of English only in post-independent Namibia. Toward whose
education for all? Rodney Kofi Hopson

The language situation in Mozambique. Current developments and prospects
Sozinho Francisco Matsinhe

We speak eleven tongues Reconstructing multilingualism in South Africa
Leketi Makalela

Extinction or distinction? Empowering Setswana as the medium of
instruction and instrument in Botswana schools Annah Molosiwa

Ideologies of Language and schooling in Guinea-Conakry. A postcolonial
experience Eva Yerende

Mother-tongue education. Lessons from the Yoruba experience Ayo Bamgbose

CONTENTS
9987417361 220pp. 2005 Mkuki na Nyota Publ. $34.95/19.95

African Books Collective is an organisation of 101 independent and
autonomous African publishers from 19 African countries. It was
established in 1989 as a major self-help initiative by a group of African
publishers to market and distribute their books world-wide outside the
publishers domestic markets. ABC seeks to be profit-making for
participating publishers, but is non-profit making on its own behalf.
Through collective action: ABC aims to strengthen indigenous African
publishing; and to increase the visibility and accessibility of the wealth
of African scholarship and culture, while at the same time meeting demand
for these materials by educational, cultural and other institutions in the
North.

all countries, excluding North America:

African Books Collective
Unit 13, Kings Meadow
Ferry Hinksey Road
Oxford
OX2 0DP
Tel: +44 (0) 1865 726686
Fax: +44 (0) 1865 793298
orders at africanbookscollective.com
www.africanbookscollective.com

North America:
Michigan State University Press
1405 South Harrison Road
25 Manly Miles Building, East Lansing
MI 48823-5245
USA
Tel: + 1 517 355-9543
Fax: + 1 517 432-2611 or 800-678 2120
msupress at msu.edu
www.msupress.msu.edu