[lg policy] Namibia: English Furthers Education Crisis

Sat Aug 8 14:55:46 UTC 2015

Namibia: English Furthers Education Crisis

THE YEARNING for national unity in a post-colonial social formation (and
the enmity towards standard Afrikaans) inspired the Namibian government to
settle for English as the official language of the country. This,
regrettably, also induced a lack of political will to realise the
prevailing multilingual policy in schools.

The ghost of Hendrik Verwoerd - who epitomises bigotry and substandard
education - spooked the Namibian authorities amply for them to show little
eagerness towards multi-lingualism over the past 25 years. So,
ill-advisedly, a multilingual strategy that could have been dissimilar from
that of colonial rule was disregarded and gave rise to dreadful
consequences.

Despite the benefit of belated decolonisation, the Namibian establishment
neglected to differentiate between multilingualism in the context of
apartheid education and that of a post-colonial arrangement.

A substantial number of students in contemporary Namibia displays a
linguistic or cognitive phenomenon known as subtractive multilingualism,
i.e. that the learning of another language (in Namibia's case, usually
English) impedes the first language. So, despite excellent non-verbal
intelligence and adaptive functioning, such students are not competent in
any system of communication - including their home language - and therefore
their higher cognitive functions (conceptual thinking, logical memory, and
so forth) are inadequate.

This, unfortunately, contributes to overflowing special classes in
mainstream schools, an overreliance on remedial teachers, occupational
therapist and child psychologists, as well as extreme failure levels and
elevated dropout figures.

In short, the paradigm of English as language-of-teaching has cognitively
crippled a whole generation of post-colonial Namibian youth - in particular
those from low socio-economic backgrounds. This is hardly surprising as all
the scientific research points towards a situation where cognitive
advancement and education in general should take place in the home
vernacular. This clarifies why the usage of the English as
medium-of-instruction adds to the Namibian pedagogical disaster.

Andree-Jeanne Totemeyer, in her research on multilingualism and the
language policy for Namibian schools (2010), declared uncompromisingly that
the English language strategy "has therefore until now not contributed to
national development".

Likewise, another study by Priscilla Harris entitled Language in Schools in
Namibia (2011) determined that a "major review of the (English) language
policy is needed to stop continuing failure among learners".

How could it be otherwise if as much as 98% of teachers are not fluent in
the English system of communication? Since Garieb-Afrikaans has been the
lingua franca of Namibia since the middle of the 19th century, less than 2%
of Namibians speak the queen's vernacular as their first language.

It is similarly imperative to probe what kind of English is being passed on
to the next generation. Most Namibian teachers articulate a formalistic
type of English that hampers expression. The highly structured nature of
the colonial English that these teachers were subjected to exaggerated
syntax in an effort to smother critical thinking and the stream of
consciousness generally.

The trepidation that separate language streams in primary schools could
further the animation of ethnocentrism, though, is quite valid. The
practical application of multilingualism in rural areas would especially be
an enormous challenge.

Nevertheless, a solution might be to harmonise or re-standardise all
relevant Namibian dialects and in the process to considerably reduce the
number of indigenous vernaculars that have to be imparted in schools. This
would not only simplify the pedagogical conundrum, but also counter
ethnocentrism.

Surely, multilingualism in a politically-independent society could promote
values of nation-building and progressive multiculturalism. In exceptional
cases, nonetheless, when a student cannot be accommodated in terms of being
taught in his or her mother tongue, that young person could be educated in
English (or a language of choice depending on the availability of a
teacher).

Furthermore, there is simply no reason why most primary school pupils
cannot become fluent in English through taking it as just another school
subject.

It is time, moreover, for all Namibians to realise that local vernaculars
can be expanded just like any other language on the globe. The example of
Japan is instructive in that the country translated all the major world
literature into their language and in this way advanced their own
vernacular. Languages could be grown through translations. So, the writing
of books - especially textbooks - in Namibian systems of communication
could create more employment for, say, writers, publishers and translators.

For, if truth be told, the rejuvenation of Namibian languages concerns the
cultural liberation of all the people of the Land of the Brave. Now there
is something that ought to be a matter of principle.

- Shaun Whittaker is a clinical psychologist

http://allafrica.com/stories/201508070699.html

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