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Introduction of Mandarin: A Miracle Waiting To Happen Modidima Mannya, The New Age, Johannesburg, 14 April 2015 We are living in an age of miracles and yet they always come as a surprise. In this age of miracles, we wonder whether one of the greatest miracles should not be the total transformation of our education system and society. And one wonders whether this transformation must not, like charity, begin at home. And one wonders whether it should not address one of the key challenges facing our society – the diversity needed in our education system. In this age of miracles, the government is well behind schedule to introduce a system of ensuring that with the diversity of the languages we have, citizens are able to get service in government institutions in their language of choice and in one they understand better. In this age of miracles, the implementation of mother-tongue instruction remains a distant wish. In this age of miracles, the teaching of African languages in some schools both private and public remains an optional extra. But then a miracle is about to happen – the introduction of Mandarin in our schools in 2016. It is a miracle because it appears easier to introduce Mandarin than to introduce mother-tongue instruction, which has been proven scientifically to enhance learning and teaching. It is a an even bigger miracle bearing in mind that the current curriculum is predicated on the ability of parents and guardians to play a more active role and make a more sizeable contribution to the learning process. It makes it an even more massive miracle bearing in mind that our mathematics and science profile is not that enterprising compared with other countries. We are still grappling with teacher development, education infrastructure and generally the provision of adequate resources to our schools to realise the desired education outcomes. It is ironic that a UNESCO International Conference on Language held in Suzhou, China, from June 5-6 reached the following profound conclusions: • Good quality language education is the most effective means for enhancing language abilities. • Quality language education needs well-trained teachers, innovation and continued research, especially on the use of ICT for language teaching. • Instruction in the pupil’s mother tongue is fundamental to improving educational outcomes; participants agreed that mother-tongue-based education needs to continue at least through primary education. • Quality language education implies paying greater attention to the needs of all pupils and in particular those who are visually and hearing impaired. Turn back the clock to 1976 and the effect of the Bantu Education Act of 1953, with its sole purpose of ensuring that the social and economic class structure of the apartheid system was reinforced. Black students were to be taught in Afrikaans. Apartheid is partly gone and the Afrikaans project was defeated. Mandarin is not meant to be the new Afrikaans of modern-day South Africa. But its introduction has major implications for our children, the education system and society. It will of necessity put more pressure on a system already under tremendous pressure. The world has a new order. We are part of that new order and in our own right have developed new friendships and relations with other nations. But it would be naïve to assume that our newfound relations have only positive spinoffs. As matters stand, a category of our children who attend school at former Model C schools have a label. This label represents the social impact of their being taught under a different culture. This must be so, because the people who teach them in those schools, wittingly or unwittingly, impart their own cultural values on those children. Children live what they see. The teaching of any language involves, of necessity, teaching the culture of the people of that language. Not that it is wrong to teach and learn other languages and cultures. We have our own major backlog in teaching our own languages and cultures, never mind that we have not even considered teaching other languages and cultures of the peoples of Africa, despite our sense of being a major player on the continent. What is at issue is whether in the final analysis this is about making our children competitive globally, or the start of the process of a form of subjugation. It would be interesting for the Chinese to introduce our languages in their schools. Our National Development Plan, which is supposed to be our blueprint, has identified the key interventions required to address the challenges in our basic education system. This Mandarin project is not one of them. It is equally not one of the identified interventions required to address the challenge of meeting our desired education outcomes. It can only be curious why it has become such a priority. It matters not who will fund it. It matters that our priorities must always be right. • Modidima Mannya is a legal practitioner and former head of Eastern Cape education From: http://tnaepaper.co.za/ -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. 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