Language Policy and Planning – the Tanzania Experience (original) (raw)
Related papers
Language policies and practices in Tanzania and South Africa: problems and challenges
International Journal of Educational Development, 2004
The authors of the present article are engaged in a research project funded by the Norwegian Research Council. In this project the language policies of Tanzania and South Africa, as well as the practices of these policies in the classroom are analyzed. The article gives some preliminary results from the project. While the language policies of Tanzania are described as confusing, contradictory, and ambiguous, the language policies of South Africa seem clearer and more progressive. In Tanzania, Kiswahili is seen as the national language, while both Kiswahili and English are official languages. The issue of language has, however, disappeared from the constitution in Tanzania. In the constitution of South Africa, 11 languages are official and seen as equal. But when it comes to practice in the classroom in both countries, the majority of the learners struggle to learn academic content because of the foreign medium that is used as the language of instruction from secondary school onwards in Tanzania and already from the fourth grade in primary school in South Africa. The research reported here shows that whatever the official policies may be the teachers in the classrooms will use whatever language they and their students feel most comfortable with. Examples are given here of the coping strategies teachers and learners use in both countries like translations, code-mixing and code-switching. At the end of the day the learners have to write their exams in English however. The language in education policy in most African countries lead many African pupils to fall even further behind. What seems to be a learning problem or a matter of bad grade, drop out and repetition is really a language problem.
Language Policy for Education and Development in Tanzania
This paper examines language policy in Tanzanian schools and its effect on education, equality and economic development. I begin with an overview of language policy from colonization to the present, mapping out the relative positions of English and Swahili in education over the years. I go on to explore the failings of educational language policy as it now stands, focusing on the jarring transition from Swahili-medium primary school to Englishmedium secondary school. I highlight the most common arguments on both sides of the debate between English and Swahili in secondary schools. I then delve into the field of language economics, illustrating the procedure for finding the private return on language skills. I develop a model of an economy with excess demand for one particular language, applying it to the case of English in urban Tanzania. Although there is currently no data available to test this model I propose a basic outline for future research in the area. I go on to consider the macro effects of improved English education on the economy as a whole. Finally, I return to the question of how to fix the sequence of language education in Tanzanian schools in order to improve content learning and equity, guided by suggestions by . I then evaluate the policy alternatives based on their expected effect on the quality of education and the distribution of income in Tanzania, and suggest some small measures the government could take if it chose to maintain the status quo. * * I would like to thank my advisors, Ted Fernald and Rob Hollister. I would also like to thank K. David Harrison and Bronwyn Woods for their valuable comments, and Tina Mtui, Oswald Mashindano and Denis Rweyemamu for their insights into language policy in Tanzania.
The Failure of Language Policy in Tanzanian Schools
Because many African countries lack a common indigenous language to serve as the national language and medium of instruction, European colonial languages such as English, French, and Portuguese have been used to foster postcolonial multiethnic unity. Tanzania shares with many African countries a colonial legacy in which English is used as an official language and as the medium of instruction in secondary and tertiary levels of education. However, Tanzania is also distinctive in having an indigenous language, Kiswahili (also known as Swahili), which is spoken by most Tanzanians, is the national language, and is the medium of instruction in primary schools. Equating the use of a foreign language with good education is common throughout Africa. After independence, countries such as Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia insisted on English as the medium of instruction from the first grade,1 even though vernacular languages had been used in the first few grades during British colonial rule. As Mazrui and Tidy note, it is ironic that independent African countries have sought to introduce English into the educational system earlier than did the British, based on the perceived need to expose students to English at an early age when they learn language best.2 The disturbing anomaly of such a policy is that, after primary school, many Africans have little use for English since they do not go on to higher education. In Kelly's view, the policy of using English as a medium of instruction in Zambia has actually impaired learning.3 The same might be said for Tanzania, where belief in the superiority of education in English affects education in all subject areas, and perhaps especially in the social studies, normally considered the vehicle for forming a new multicultural national identity in postcolonial states. This belief in the superiority of education in a foreign language, while often not acknowledged by policy makers, is very evident in their policies. One is reminded of Ngugi's observation that "The choice of language and the use to which language is put are central to a people's definition of themselves in relation to their natural and social environment, indeed in relation to the entire universe."4 Language policies of African nations must address the question of decolonizing the mind, so it is encouraging to note that educators in South Africa consider this problem seriously and assert that education can be imparted in any language.5 In this article, I argue that Tanzania's language policy in education, formulated in 1960 from the British colonial education system, is no longer consonant with present realities because English is no longer an effective medium in secondary schools. I argue, furthermore, that the language problem is symptomatic of the larger crisis of a neglected education system in Tanzania, and that Kiswahili has become the scapegoat for declining standards of education. My conclusions are based on my examination of policy decisions and implementation as reported in documents of the ruling party, the Ministry of Education, and research reports, along with my years of experience as a secondary school teacher in Tanzania in the 1980s.
Challenges of the implementation of language policies in southern Africa: what is the way forward?
Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2016
At the attainment of independence, most African governments adopted the colonisers’ foreign languages as official languages to be used in business, the judiciary, education, local government and parliament. Examples of foreign languages that have dominated local languages in Africa are English, French and Portuguese. This paper argues that indigenous languages in Southern Africa, which is the focus of the survey, have low variety status vis-a-vis foreign languages for a variety of reasons, the major being the challenges faced in the implementation of the language policies in these countries. While the survey found that there are language policies in the country studied, it can be concluded that having a language policy in place is not congruent to its implementation and its desired effects. The study recommends adopting the Tanzanian language policy model that formalised Swahili as a national language for all purposes. To all intents and purposes, the Swahili model has been a reso...
State Ideology and language in Tanzania (TPCS draft 2013)
this, the assumption of ideally monolingual societies and so on -the chapters in this book will engage at length with these language-ideological assumptions. These assumptions obscured several critical processes in the reality of sociolinguistic life: that not 'language' but 'register' is the 'stuff', so to speak, of language in society; that language is only to a certain extend 'makeable', that as soon as a language is distributed throughout a large number of users it will tend to explode into numerous new sub-varieties, and so forth. Above all, the language-ideological fundamentals of language planning tend to obscure the duty of researchers to actually see and interpret what goes on -how real language is used by real people in real social environments.
Humania Del Sur [Southern Humanities], 2020
Language has long been an important dimension of civil society in Tanzania, where English is the language of secondary and tertiary schooling, even as the majority of people use Swahili. Femina Hip is a non-governmental organization (NGO) active in Tanzania with its popular magazine Fema. Th is paper examines how a 2011 Fema article ignited lively discussion of Tanzanian language policy and planning among students on study abroad from Austria, China, and other countries, and their Tanzanian professor of Swahili language and literature. Their discussion critiques the Fema article, and explores the conundrum of Tanzania's language-in-education policy through personal reflection. Resumen: Descubriendo la política del lenguaje en la educación como un reto para el compromiso civil tanzano Resumen El idioma ha sido durante mucho tiempo una dimensión importante de la sociedad civil en Tanzania, donde el inglés es el idioma de la educación secundaria y terciaria, incluso cuando la mayoría de las personas usan swahili. Fémina Hip es una organización no gubernamental (ONG) activa en Tanzania con su popular revista Fema. Este estudio examina cómo un artículo de Fema de 2011 encendió una discusión animada sobre la política y planifi cación del idioma tanzano entre los estudiantes que estudian en el extranjero desde Austria, China y otros países, y su profesor tanzano de lengua y literatura swahili. Su discusión critica el artículo de Fema y explora el enigma de la política de lenguaje en educación de Tanzania a través de la refl exión personal. Palabras clave: Educación, idioma de instrucción, política lingüística, subordinación lingüística, Swahili.