[lg policy] South African Language Policy to Blame for Low Literacy, Maths Grades

[dzo at BISHARAT.NET]

This issue in S Africa is basically the same across the continent. It is arguably a major issue in Africa's development struggles, but not widely discussed. 

Laudable goals such as increasing numbers of children in school and the percentage of girls receiving formal education  could be productively linked to calls for first language / bilingual education. 

Information technology potentially reduces costs for materials development and dissemination, undercutting one of the longstanding arguments that it is prohibitively expensive to produce quality educational materials in African languages. 
 
Don Osborn

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Gareth Price <gareth.price at duke.edu>
Sender: lgpolicy-list-bounces at groups.sas.upenn.edu
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:50:44 
To: <lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu>
Reply-To: Language Policy List <lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu>
Subject: [lg policy] 
	South African Language Policy to Blame for Low Literacy,
	Maths Grades

THE government’s policy of second- language education was most to
blame for students’ underperformance in maths and low literacy levels,
academics said yesterday.

Neville Alexander, direct of the University of Cape Town’s Project For
the Study of Alternative Education, said that while language was not
the only problem facing SA’s students, it was the "fundamental issue"
and the state’s language policy was a "guarantee of failure".

Full story: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=148991

-- 
Dr. Gareth Price
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies
316 Languages Building, Box 90259
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708-0259
USA

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