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Caution needed on promotion of Kiswahili
2007-05-15 09:35:42
By Prof. Issa Mcholo Omari
I have been closely following the debate with respect to the use of Kiswahili as the medium of instruction in the entire system of education in Tanzania.
Some arguments reflect naivety and absolute levels of absurdity while some have at least either some logic or evidence.
ome, on the other hand, reflect purely vested interest, or the holier than though tendencies of those committed to the cultural romanticism argument, which says; “We are not fully independent and culturally free if we do not use our national language”.
But this is an antiquated argument of the 1960s and 1970s.
To day, Tanzania has a firm identity, destination, and enjoys abundant multicultural diversity in a multiparty democracy, with tremendous regional and international respect.
We do not want to tamper with that, and the use of Kiswahili will not help but put Tanzania at a great disadvantage.
The latest substantive discussion on this issue is that of one, Young Kimaro, who wanted to challenge two argument – that English is essential for our remaining competitive, and that English was not good as a teaching tool in our schools. (Daily News 31/03/07: Yes to Kiswahili in secondary School).
She ( I guess it is a she) gives examples of Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Belgium, Japan, Korea and China as examples of countries that are highly competitive today and yet used their own languages to develop their economies and cultures.
First, this argument is rather naïve in that those countries adapted their own languages during a period when they were forced to be insular, with wars around them, fearing colonialism left and right.
Thus, nationalistic instincts prevailed over more global interest and perspectives.
In effect, they had no space to maneuver, and Japan, being an imperial power then, could never dare think of using another language.
Secondly, these same countries, to day, crave to have English medium schools, and many of their people are crazy about English.
Privately, some are regretting for having opted for local languages, and countries such as Malaysia and Philippines are resorting to English medium while China and Japan are sending students in thousands to English medium schools in UK and USA for the same reason,.
Furthermore, these countries are not efficiently and effectively competitive in the world market, especially in the intellectual world because their technologies, wisdoms, and knowledge are stored in their national languages.
They easily become out-flanked by Britain, America, Canada, and India, for that matter.
In fact, both Japan and China are feeling the pinch as they cannot engage very well in the current globalization undercurrents, including their labour force. It is greatly restricted in mobility and application in the international arena.
Kimaro’s argument gets a little bit abusive, which is unfortunate, when she says ours is a “dogged and uncritical pursuit of English,” thus she thinks she is the one who is critical and others are not.
This is quite absurd and naïve. Who does she think she is in the intellectual landscape in this country? No way.
Then her argument goes like this: “You have primary schools which produce illiterate teachers who are illiterate in English.
From students, who cannot follow instruction in English, you end up with a blind person leading another blind into a ditch of confusion.”
She says English is nice to have but it is no more than the cream on the cake that should not be mistaken for the cake itself.
Implicitly she agrees that you are better off if you could have both the cake and the cream but, alas, you cannot as you do not work hard enough!! But -- then why not work hard enough to have both?.
In this Kimaro is not wishing our kids well. She wants them to miss the cream!! Yet that is the best part of the cake!!!
But the kids also know it, and that is why, whenever asked to choose,they all say want “English medium. ”
Then Kimaro regresses into a tautology when she says `because of code switching in the classroom, from English to Kiswahili, then why not change altogether`.
Some of us who teach know that very well -- when we switch – we often go to tell stories and half baked truths as most technical knowledge is not available in Kiswahili.
Or we want to just enjoy a local flavour, regress into a defense mechanism.
In fact, in all technical subjects, it is just as hard to teach in Kiswahili as in English in secondary schools.
Try to teach chemistry, biology, and physics in Kiswahil!! Think of such technical Kiswahili as `saratani ya kongosho` for cancer of the prostate which I saw in a recent paper.
This can explain why at primary school level and in Grade A teacher training colleges, where the medium of instruction is Kiswahili, the pattern of performance is the same as where English is the medium of instruction!
Thus, the barriers to accessing and processing knowledge do not seem to lie with the language but elsewhere.
Let us look at the quality of out teachers and the supply of key teaching resources. Maybe that is where the problem is.
Kimaro wants us to go through the painful route of the Japanese, and, for that matter, the British, of borrowing, adapting, and crafting our own vocabularies and terminologies so as to use Kiswahili.
Why the pain in this historical epoch when English is becoming the language of the world which the Japanese today envy!!
Then Kimaro defeats her own argument when she marvels the human abilities to learn languages, including computer language. It is hard work but it can be done.
Then, instead of urging Tanzanians to work harder to master English language like their counterparts in Kenya and Zambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, she suggest that we resort to Kiswahili, and without evidence, she says that our kids will learn better, to our surprise.
But why are they not doing so in primary schools and teachers` colleges now, or in Kiswahili language papers?
We should challenge Kimaro here since we know that “practice makes perfect” and when there is need for it, they will learn and do better in both the language and in other school subjects.
These are the facts about language learning. When there is a need and an opportunity to practice, you will learn it!! That is what is happening in the neighbouring countries.
You just need to sort out the problem of teacher qualifications, competences, resources, and level of specialization in language teaching.
Then the problem will be gone, and more cheaply and positively, than the expensive route of translating textbooks as suggested by Kimaro, using donor money!!.
I was positively encouraged on 20/04/07 when the debate resurfaced in parliament, when the Deputy Minister for Information, Culture and Sports, Daniel Nsanzugwako was reported to have told the public that the debate was in the cabinet waiting for approval.
He was thoroughly rebutted by a senior cabinet minister, Margret Sitta, who said: `The matter has been there in talk, but as a government, we have not taken any decision.` Minister rightly points out that such a decision would be momentous and not that simple, needing national consensus` (The Citizen 20.04.07).
Again here are the Kiswahili fundamentalist from the cultural romanticism tradition clashing with pragmatist who will be on the firing line when it comes to implementation and accountability.
Last point, and the very last for today. The situation is not as grim and hopeless as Kimaro would like us to believe.
For some of us who get new cohorts of students every year whom we teach, we are seeing improvements over time as we pound on the students to master the language for their own survival.
What is true is that as we …massif and democratize higher education by making it more accessible and affordable to more people, you get increased variation or spread in performance.
Therefore, we should judge the groups over the whole spectrum of performance rather than on the basis of those few who are to the left of the distribution.
We have our stars as well to the right of the distribution.
Again, for us who do examine students from other countries, in Eastern and Southern Africa, written scripts are almost the same standards for university students.
It is in the orals, expression, and confidence to use the language where you get greater variations across countries.
Like the adage goes: The pessimist says the glass is half empty while the optimist says the glass is half full. I am an optimist.
Pessimists can keep their perspective but should not impose it in the naïve ones.
This may help the cultural romanticists to win the argument by default and plunge this country into the huge expenses of changing the medium of instruction without solving the problem at hand, which is under-performance, whose medicine is otherwise known.
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