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Use Of African Languages In Schools Called For in Africa
By Assumpta Massoi
Inter Press Service
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ES SALAAM, Apr 11 (IPS) - Language experts in Sub-Saharan Africa
have called on governments in the region to put into place policies
to ensure that African languages, like Swahili, are used as
a medium of instruction in schools. |
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Delegates who attended an international workshop on languages
here recently said the absence of such policies makes it extremely
difficult to develop local languages. They said strategic plans
had to be put into place to ensure that more use of the languages
was made in schools. |
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The
conference, which drew participants from Africa, Europe, the
United States and Asia, said countries would develop faster
if their people used a medium of communication which they were
conversant with. |
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South Africa was commended for adopting a multilingual language
policy in 1996 in which nine African languages of the country
-- Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Sesotho sa Leboa, Sesotho
Siswati, Setswana, Xitsonga and Tshivenda -- were included
among 11 official languages.
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''Language is a basic human right and everyone has the right
to express themselves in a language they feel comfortable with
at all levels,'' states one of the conference resolutions which
calls on governments in Africa to develop indigenous languages
for use at all educational levels and at national meetings.
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Prof David Massamba of the University of Dar es Salaam said
decisions like South Africa's requires political will. He said
there was no use putting policies in place that were not implemented.
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He cited the example of the use of Swahili in the Organisation
of Africa Unity (OAU) sessions which was proposed by cultural
ministers over six years ago and agreed to by African leaders.
Yet not one leader has attempted to address the OAU in Swahili.
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Tanzania's
former president, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, was scathingly about Africans
who believe the development of science and technology calls
for the abuse of their own languages. |
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''Africanism is more than having a black skin. It also encompasses
the language, tradition and customs. We should not rely on other
people's efforts of develop their languages to develop ourselves,''
he said. |
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Oliver Stegen, a language expert with the Summer Institute of
Languages (SIL) based in Tanzania's nominal capital, Dodoma,
says the advancement of local languages is crucial because children
understand better if they are taught in their first languages. |
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He said English was not as important as African languages as
very few Tanzanians had the opportunity to study abroad. If
anything, he said, English should be taught as a subject and
not used as the medium of education. ''Developed countries advance
faster because they use their own languages,'' he said. |
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Rugatiri Mekacha from the University of Dar es Salaam says Swahili
was first declared the national language in Tanzania in 1969.
However, since then no clear cut policy has been put into place
regarding language usage. |
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''We only have the cultural policy of 1997 which, among other
things, calls for the development of native languages so that
they can be used from primary to tertiary education levels.
It also says special programmes will be installed to develop
Swahili, at the same time ensuring that other foreign languages
are not dumped.'' |
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Mekacha says so far the government has neither taken steps to
implement this nor include the language issue in the Constitution.
''Every day in court people who do not know English are having
their rights breached ... At least the government should ensure
citizens use the language they are familiar with.'' |
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Tanzania's Vice President, Omar Ali Juma, called on TUKI, the
country's 70-year-old institute of research for Swahili, to
develop Swahili terminology so that it can be used at all levels,
political, social and economical. |
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In Kenya where Swahili was declared the national language in
1974 by the late president Jomo Kenyatta, the situation is no
better. Clara Momanyi of Kenyatta University says a new language
has developed which is Swahili mixed with English and this is
used by most people including the media. She says the danger
is that the original language will die out. |
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In Uganda programmes to advance the use of Swahili have not
gone far. Professor Ruth Mukama from Makerere University said
Uganda has three times declared Swahili a national language,
but there are lots of obstacles including the fact that many
people want English to be the formal medium of communications.
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''Only recently the government introduced a white paper calling
for the use of Swahili in primary schools. We will wait and
see if there will be any policy put into place to implement
this,'' says Mukama |
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Christine Gahamanyi of Rwanda's state-owned radio station said
Swahili was introduced in the country during German-rule, when
the colonial power used soldiers from the Indian ocean coast.
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However, with the Belgians, French came up and Swahili was regarded
as a language for conmen. ''But nowadays with the return of
refugees following the 1994 genocide, Swahili speakers have
increased and the negative attitude towards it are no longer
there, people feel proud to speak it,'' says Gahamanyi. |
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An African language expert, Mbulugeni Madiba from South Africa,
said the only solution to promoting African languages is that
if countries that share the language were to cooperate to develop
it. ''We need to centralise efforts to modernise our languages,''
Madiba says. |
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This article is free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced
provided that Inter Press Service is credited. |
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