The following column from the Kampala paper, The Monitor, was seen on AllAfrica.com at http://allafrica.com/stories/200801221438.html . The author is opposed to mother tongue education.
Africa: Language Policy Hampering Unity The Monitor (Kampala) http://allafrica.com/stories/200801221438.html OPINION 22 January 2008 Posted to the web 22 January 2008 Anselm Wandega In a meeting with the Libyan President's special envoy Muktar al Cannas last week, President Yoweri Museveni said that it is not possible to have a single African government partly because there are some unresolved issues prime among which is a common language. At the beginning of term one last year, the ministry of education and sports imposed vernacular teaching on all primary schools, starting with Primary One. The vernacular teaching programme will continue to be implemented when schools open this year, with all the pupils taught in the languages of their respective locations until they complete Primary Three. The unfortunate aspect of the ministry's policy is that all the subjects on the curriculum of the said classes must be taught in the local languages for all the initial three years of the primary school cycle. To say the least, the ministry's edict is unpatriotic, ill-timed, and unkind. A critical look at the rest of Africa reveals that Uganda is one of the few African countries without a standard national language. It is disturbing enough that when one travels a few kilometres away from one's home district, he can no longer communicate conveniently. Speaking in English becomes the only alternative if he has ever gone to school as English is the symbolic educational language of Uganda. A Ugandan will find himself in another Ugandan community with whom he cannot freely talk or understand what they are saying - a Ugandan is a stranger in his own home country. Common linguistic system In my view, this is a serious problem that needs urgent overcoming, particularly through education, since most of Ugandan children go through the school system today. There is logic in doing this. Firstly, many adult Ugandans have had the misfortune of not experiencing a common linguistic system by which a village woman in Sironko can interact with a herdsman in Moroto or a baker in Arua. Evidence shows that very many pupils are dropping out of primary schools at an alarming rate around the country, some leaving school as early as Primary Three or Primary Four, and such would be children who have only been subjected to their home vernaculars. Clearly, this is a way of secluding them from the rest of the African society whereas education should be liberating people from their tribal units and giving them a national outlook. Thirdly, vernacular teaching limits the pupils' mobility within the nation. Citizens should be able to migrate without difficulty from one region to another for business, employment or settlement, but if one was to move with a Primary Two child from Kiruhura District to Abim District, it would be problematic still to secure the child's admission into a new school and catch up with the rest of the new class members. It would purely be a new beginning. How upsetting! Worse still, the vernacular teaching directive is so sectarian that it compels our children to think tribal before they can think national which is quite absurd. Are we building a nation or mere ethnic cocoons? A number of questions therefore arise. Is the vernacular teaching arrangement a product of a well-thought, consultative educational process or was it just imposed from abroad? Donors forcing us Donors have a tendency of forcing us to make mistakes using their financial power and, rather than miss the funding, we dance to their tune bluntly. It is time to put a stop to this behaviour and set our own priorities clearly which can only change if we must. A country's educational system should stick to its objectives, and especially ensure that at every level, schooling opens more and more opportunities for its beneficiaries other than blocking them. Short of this, the president's dream of having a united Africa will never be realised. The writer is a development worker Copyright © 2008 The Monitor. All rights reserved. **************************** Disclaimer ****************************** Copyright: In accordance with Title 17, United States Code Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material posted to this list for purposes that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. 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