[lg policy] South Africa: Research Boosts Mother Tongue as Basis for Primary Education

[Harold Schiffman]

South Africa: Research Boosts Mother Tongue as Basis for Primary Education
Sue Blaine
23 June 2010

      Johannesburg — INTERNATIONAL research, including research done
in Africa, continues to endorse the view that mother-tongue education
is the way to go. Language experts blame at least some of SA's poor
educational results, and its poor showing in international tests of
reading and maths ability, on a lack of mother-tongue education,
especially in primary school. There is a growing body of research that
demonstrates the connections between the languages in which children
learn, their successful cognitive development and their remaining in
school throughout high school, says Human Sciences Research Council
honorary research fellow Kathleen Heugh.

"Successful students in mainstream, state-provided education
(worldwide) are those who succeed in developing high-level literacy
skills in the language or languages of the immediate community which
can be transferred to high-level literacy in a language of wider
communication such as English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic or
Mandarin," she says.The Department of Basic Education's school
language policy views mother-tongue education as preferable,
especially in the first three years of school, but many children are
taught in English due to practicalities such as teacher ability and
availability.

The department is focusing on introducing English to children for whom
it is not a home language from Grade 1, instead of Grade 3, says
department spokeswoman Hope Mokgatlhe. This is in line with
recommendations made last year by a ministerial committee which looked
at the way in which SA's new curriculum was taught and sprang from the
realisation that children tend to struggle at school later if they do
not have a good grasp of English. However, not everyone agrees with
this "the earlier, the better" approach. The deputy director of the
University of the Western Cape's education faculty, Vuyokazi Nomlomo,
says there is no linguistic or academic advantage to learning English
before having adequate skills in one's own language.

Dr Heugh's research in Ethiopia shows that children who have had eight
years of mother- tongue education outperform those with six years of
it. The same result was shown for those with six years of
mother-tongue education, as opposed to those with four. In SA,
educationalists were "mesmerised" by outcomes- based education --
abandoned last year . Those who devised the curriculum did not
understand that language policy "was not so much something of
political correctness, but fundamental to ( how) children develop
reading and writing skills (and) gradually learn enough of the second
language ... to eventually use it as a complementary language of
learning", says Dr Heugh.

While there is "no reason" English cannot be taught in SA as a second
language from Grade 1, there is an important proviso: that the mother
tongue is properly built up first, and that it is "continued for at
least six well- resourced years of schooling ... but preferably eight
years if one really wants a positive return on investment". The
frequently used argument that SA has a specific logistical problem ,
as many urban schools have children who speak a variety of indigenous
and nonindigenous languages, is overstated, says Dr Heugh. "The
Pansalb (Pan South African Language Board) sociolinguistic survey of
2001 shows that this issue has been grossly exaggerated, mainly by
people located in Pretoria and Johannesburg, and since these are the
centres close to power people forget what it is like in most rural
areas."

Pansalb has recommended since 2001 that children learn in their mother
tongue for the first six years, with English as a subject, and switch
only when they are proficient enough in it.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201006230497.html

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