[lg policy] South Africa: INSIGHT: Mother-tongue schooling a vital factor in better results

[Harold Schiffman]

INSIGHT: Mother-tongue schooling a vital factor in better results
10 February 2012
DARYL BRAAM

THE matric results receive much  public attention because, among
other reasons, they are generally  regarded as a litmus test for the
health of the educational system. Commentaries are based on by how
many points we move up or down the  percentage ladder. This percentage
increase should not be disregarded since  only 24.3% of matriculants
qualify for university entry.

 Universities, therefore, have to invest in  compensatory measures to
develop the  writing and analytical abilities of those  who did not
have the required literacy  level. Most do not have English as a first
 language. Proficiency in English is a gatekeeping function for
university entry and  secondary schools in particular , model  their
language medium practices along  these monolingual lines.

Our history of language medium policy  demonstrates the positive
impact that a  mother-tongue-based approach has on  matric results.
The languages of teaching  and learning are not the only factor that
come to bear on educational outcomes.  There are several, but
alongside having  knowledgeable, disciplined and caring  teachers it
is probably the most significant variable.

Schooling is characterised by class  structure, as with most schools
across the  world, and in South Africa this structure  features a
bimodal pattern of achievement. Schools in middle class environments
perform on par with countries such  as Germany and the US , whereas
schools  in working class environments under-perform.

Brahm Fleisch, an academic from Wits  University, discusses this
bifurcation feature in detail in his book, Why South African
schoolchildren underachieve. He correlates this feature with Thabo
Mbeki’s  idea of a dual economy which provides a  useful lens for
analysing school performance. Drawing on this idea of a dual  economy,
it is noteworthy that schools in  the so-called second economy have
mainly  African language speakers - and I include  low-prestige
varieties of Afrikaans as an  African language.

 African language pupils obtain much  lower results because they have
to grapple with a curriculum that is in either a  second or third
language for them. There  is political irony in the language policy of
 mother tongue education, which was implemented at the time of the
Bantu Education Act (1953).

 This act was framed by a separatist  ideology and geared to exclude
African  language speakers from participation in  the economic and
political domains. However, the language medium policy eventually led
to good results which was unintended by the apartheid government.

The year 1948 was the start of bringing  in separate mother-tongue
schools for English, Afrikaans and African languages.

Secondary schooling in the early apartheid years was achieved by few people.

Primary schooling in mother tongues  was extended to eight years as
part of an  intention to keep people within demarcated boundaries.
Secondary schooling  was conducted mostly in English.

An interesting co-incidence happened in  1953 when the Bantu Education
Act was  passed as it coincided with a Unesco published report that
advocated the use of  “vernacular languages in education”.

The political leadership used this research to justify its position on
mother- tongue education, albeit that its motive  was oppressive in
the extreme sense, as it  deliberately wanted to use education to
generate a cheap labour pool among  speakers of African languages.

One of the consequences was that African language speakers deplored
the mother tongue principle as it symbolised inaccessibility to
knowledge and upward social mobility. Access to English was  viewed
synonymously with access to  knowledge and therefore, in the
liberation  movement as well as among the post- apartheid political
elite, English became  the language of liberation and of politics.

Coming back to my main point that history demonstrates the fundamental
role  that African languages play in education,  the benefits of the
eight years of mother  tongue education for African language  speakers
thwarted the motives of the  apartheid government.

Under a divide and rule strategy separate mother tongue schools were
set-up  to keep people and their languages separate. Textbooks in
Xhosa (and other languages) were produced and children were  taught in
their mother tongue for eight  years and were being taught English
very  well as a subject. Matriculants emerged  proficient in their
mother tongue as well  as in English.

Kathleen Heugh, a well-known author on  language policy in South
Africa, found the  results of matriculants increased from  43.5% in
1955 to 83.7% in 1976 among African language speakers. Using African
languages and having committed teachers  made academic success
possible for that  cohort of matriculants. Her research also  observes
that apartheid architects were unaware that three decades on from the
1950s  international research would reveal that  the way they applied
the language-in-education policy was precisely what produces  good
academic results and bilingual citizens. The post-apartheid government
 turned all separatist orientated policy on its  head and legislated a
multilingual language  policy which, when applied to education,  meant
a mother tongue approach.

However, the education system departs  from this constitutional
provision in practice and runs the education system on the  premise of
a second language. This is one  of the critical factors that
perpetuate the  pattern that schools in the “second economy” achieve
in the region of a 50% pass  rate. Developing children who know their
mother tongue as well as English is an  essential developmental task.

Currently the Eastern Cape department  of education, with all its
problems, is the  only provincial department in the country  taking
the project of multilingual education seriously. The department has
launched a project to advance mother- tongue based education for the
first six  years of schooling. Whether we are a parent, teacher or an
education specialist, we  know intuitively that children learn best
when we approach learning in a language  that they understand best.

It is my view that mother-tongue based  education is an essential
educational and  societal task for us to undertake as a  community if
we seek to build a better  place for all.

http://www.dispatch.co.za/news/article/2865

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
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)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list