[Lgpolicy-list] [lg policy] South Africa: Learning language of equal rights

Mon Dec 1 15:44:21 UTC 2014

Learning language of equal rights [image: iol news pic race and classroom]
INSLA A typical classroom situation where school children from different
races interact on a daily basis in South Africa. Picture:Paballo Thekiso

*Children of the Class of 1976 are losing out as most formerly white
schools offer only Afrikaans and English, writes Thabo Leshilo*

Last Friday a colleague’s daughter told me excitedly: “Today I wrote the
last Afrikaans paper of my whole life.” Her face was a picture of relief. I
shared her joy.

She then spoke animatedly about her frustration at having been forced to
learn Afrikaans, with which most black children struggle. She spoke like
someone who had endured 12 years of torture.

Her story touched a raw nerve. I have been grappling with the same vexed
issue ever since my son and daughter started school in the north of Joburg.

Sepedi, our home language, and other indigenous languages are not taught at
schools in the area.

They offer English and Afrikaans only, with the high school making a feeble
attempt at providing isiZulu from Grade 10 only – way too late for a child
wanting to do well in Grade 12.

My son also struggles with Afrikaans.

May I hasten to add that the problem is not Afrikaans in itself, but its
imposition and the lack of choice.

And, being viewed as a necessary evil – to be endured to pass – does the
language no favours.

Thousands of former exclusively white public schools have carried on as if
the official defeat of apartheid in 1994, which heralded an era of
reconciliation and nation-building, did not register on their radar
screens.

They reluctantly accept the “encroachment” of black children into “their”
schools – on their own terms.

Their attitude is: “We know your constitution recognises 11 languages, but
not here. At our school, we recognise only two – English and Afrikaans.
Take it or leave it – or, as you people say, finish and klaar.”

This is while they wax lyrical about the goodness of Nelson Mandela,
praising him for having helped avert a bloody race war.

The schools continue to be led by the same people – or people with a
similar laager mentality – who have yet to appreciate the dynamics of
living in a multicultural, multilingual African society.

The importance of preparing children to function comfortably in a diverse
society and workplace, where black people are increasingly in ascendancy,
is lost on them.

Yet they are charged with nurturing young minds and have the nerve to call
themselves educators.

The school meetings I have attended over the years have left me with the
distinct impression that a major part of the problem lies with their
dangerously reductive concept of education – which is to prepare the pupils
to enter the University of the Witwatersrand. In fact, a principal at high
school said as much at an information evening.

And, to enter Wits, the children need to pass only two languages – English
and Afrikaans. The school ticks the box.

Forget about holistic education and children having to be developed into
sensible, well-rounded and decent human beings in their professional lives
and in relation to other people.

The school also remains vehemently opposed to introducing soccer to the
pupils, dismissing it as a sport for thugs. Yet it sees nothing wrong with
taking our children on a tour of Old Trafford Stadium, the home of
Manchester United, whenever the school visits Europe.

But I digress.

Who would have thought that, 20 years into black majority rule, our
indigenous languages would continue to be marginalised, reduced to the
periphery of the education mainstream – despite a constitution that
enshrines the equality of 11 official languages?

Those of us who have not bought into the notion that our languages are
inferior and want to see them continue to develop and thrive are having to
do with teaching them at home, without the support of an education system.

For all the nice talk from the Department of Basic Education this week
about the “incremental introduction of home languages” into the education
system, isiZulu, Sesotho, Sepedi, Setswana, isiXhosa, isiNdebele,
siSiswati, Xitsonga and Tshivenda continue to be treated to a large extent
as if they do not exist.

It is against this backdrop that the department’s announcement on Monday
about increasing the pass mark for Grades 7, 8 and 9, as part of its
efforts to improve the quality of education at public schools, was greeted
with ambivalence among many black parents in previously white suburbs.

To pass, pupils in these grades will have to achieve at least 50 percent in
their home languages and at least 40 percent in their first additional
languages, compared with 40 percent and 30 percent before.

This is a welcome development to anyone who appreciates the importance of
quality education, if our children are to succeed in today’s fiercely
competitive, globalised knowledge economy.

But it was as if the department was not talking to many of us living in
previously white suburbs.

The announcement begged many questions: What of the thousands of black
children at formerly white public schools that do not offer any of their
home languages?

How will the 50 percent home language and 40 percent additional language
requirements apply to them?

Which of the two privileged languages, English and Afrikaans, will then be
treated as their home language, and on which grounds?

And, more pointedly: Why are African languages being neglected on the
government’s watch, 20 years into democracy?

Department spokesman Elijah Mhlanga said: “The department has addressed
this matter through the incremental introduction of African languages
(policy).

“We know that there are 3 700 schools (among) the 25 000 public schools
that do not offer an African language. The success of the incremental
introduction of African languages will depend on the availability of
teachers.

“A statement from the department said (the policy had) gained momentum with
the finalisation of plans to continue the pilot programme in Grade 2 in
2015.”

The department says that across eight provinces, 228 schools that did not
offer African languages before have successfully implemented the policy’s
pilot in Grade 1 this year.

The policy aims to promote and strengthen the use of African languages by
all pupils by introducing them incrementally in Grades 1 to 12.

“(The policy) seeks to improve proficiency in previously marginalised
African languages, raise the confidence of parents to choose languages for
their children, and increase access to languages beyond English and
Afrikaans.”

Mhlanga correctly points out that in 2004 the UN Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organisation highlighted that the language of instruction and
language policy were critically important to effective learning.

“We’ve done our homework particularly conscious of the importance of
languages and communication in promoting social cohesion and
nation-building,” he reiterated.

The pilot programme will be expanded to Grade 2 in the 228 pilot schools
next year.

The plan is to phase in full-scale implementation in the more than 3 738
schools that do not offer an African language in 2016.

Something is finally being done to address the anomaly. It is about time.

Until then, though, many of us and our children will have to grin and bear
it, continuing to make a plan on the margins of the education system.

And, some of us – the generation who revolted against the imposition of
Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in 1976 – will continue to field
awkward questions from our brothers and sisters in the African diaspora
about why their children cannot learn any of our indigenous languages at
our schools as they attempt to immerse themselves in the culture of their
host country.

* Leshilo is a freelance journalist and editor.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media

http://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/learning-language-of-equal-rights-1.1788460#.VHyMNsm-7IU

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