BCP encourages tribalism
Correspondent | Tuesday April 1, 2014 12:37
* If the policy was to work, then all ethnic languages in Botswana should be published so that textbooks written in all local languages are made available.
* The major challenge will be lack of textbooks, trained teachers and a mixture of pupils in a class of different tribes in a school.
* If such a policy is to be operational, then teachers, like those from the Bakgaladi tribe will have to be transferred to Kgalagadi so that they teach the Kgalagadi language, which could end up encouraging tribalism in the country.
* The ministry of education will be required to do extra work of finding out the details of how many pupils are found in a class, and which language they speak.
* Fact is pupils speak their mother tongue at home, that’s the very first language that they learn from their parents, and therefore should be taught to speak something different from what they are used to once they get to the classroom.
* If pupils from Standard Five classes and below are to be taught in the mother tongue, it simply shows that when they reach upper classes they will still have problems even in the construction of English sentences. This may impact badly on their performance in national examinations since English is the medium of communication.
* Mother tongue speaking is always a reason why schools from rural areas perform poorly in languages compared to schools in urban centres.
* The policy will definitely affect teachers in general since they all come from different tribes and are teaching in a school with pupils of different tribes.
* We are in the digital era where computers are used even in primary schools, how will they operate these computers?
* To the BCP and anyone pushing for “mother tongue education in schools” I say to you; A good grasp of one’s mother tongue is an essential base for a child’s identity and their educational development, but teaching it in schools will be a stab on the technological advancements and the push for national integration.
* What are some of the reasons being given by the proponents of this archaic policy? I don’t see anything that can stand the test of time. This policy will just awaken the demon of tribalism. Everyone will start going back to their enclaves and be reminded which tribe they belong to.
* Teachers who are not from the dominant community in such a school will be somehow discriminated against, as they would have a big challenge of teaching in the local language despite having the necessary training on early childhood development. What about those whose parents belong to different tribes? Will the young children learn the father-tongue or the mother-tongue? Even in the village there has been a lot of inter-tribal marriages.
* Just when I thought we should all be looking forward to digital curriculum, the BCP is lambasting us with ‘mother tongue policy’.....! Give us a break......
* A Bantustan (also known as Bantu homeland, black homeland, black state or simply homeland) was a territory set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia), as part of the policy of apartheid.
Ten Bantustans were established in South Africa, and 10 in neighbouring South West Africa (then under South African administration). The main objective was to concentrate the members of designated ethnic groups, thus making each of those territories ethnically homogeneous as the basis for creating “autonomous” nation states for South Africa’s different black ethnic groups.
* The call by the BCP is for government to introduce a policy that pupils in lower classes be taught in their respective mother tongues. I am not sure the real motivation for this policy change, though some of us actually learned in our mother tongues.
* As a parent with children in the lower primary classes, I was naturally interested. Why on earth would you want to teach in the mother tongue? Is it so that the children can understand the concepts better? Is it so that we can retain our culture? Is it so that children can learn the mother tongue or is the BCP just being mischievous?
This new policy proposal by the BCP will re-awaken the tribal identity? Most people are able to communicate in either Setswana or English, however broken it is. This policy is misplaced and it belongs to only one place -—the archives as the subject of history.
Most of us who live in urban centres, rarely speak in the mother tongue. Instead the mother tongue is mixed up with bits of English and Setswana; this is despite having been taught in the mother tongue in the first years of primary schooling. I think it is foolhardy to expect the performance of public schools to become any better at this rate. It is like moving two steps forward and 100 steps backward.
I remember that during my secondary school days at Shashe River Secondary School it was evident all students who came from the same schools, tended to group together based on one major thing —tribe and by extension their language. Our children deserve to have a different exposure than we had, even those in the village.
Although I do not mean every window of opportunity to learn mother tongue should be discarded, it should be in a way that it has minimum or no impact on their classwork and their respective learning.
I am proud of my cultural heritage, but I would not like to limit what my children would like to achieve in future. Should they want to learn the mother tongue or father tongue, they will learn when the time comes. We can’t trade with the mother tongue in this era of globalisation. In addition, culture is dynamic, I am Kalanga, but we do not have opposition members who can think logically, they just oppose/blame without giving realistic options.
Setswana is spoken by 78.2 percent of Batswana as a home language; an expression almost synonymous with the mother tongue. English on the contrary is spoken by about 2.2 percent of the population as a home language.
On any given day listen to GabzFM, DumFM, YaronaFM, and RB2. The dominant language is English. Radio Botswana, though it has a fair amount of English, largely uses Setswana. The print media is also dominated by English. Consider our newspapers: Mmegi, The Monitor, The Botswana Guardian, The Midweek Sun, The Sunday Standard, The Telegraph, The Weekend Post and the Botswana Daily News; they all report in English.
Check the magazines whether international or local, they are dominated by one language only: English.
Go to parliament and take a number of copies of parliamentary hansards and see that parliamentary debates are predominantly in English. Consider our laws; you will find most here: http://www.laws.gov.bw/.
Court proceedings are also conducted in English. Majority of Churches use both Setswana and English for sermons, notices and songs. The English Bible is much more common than the Setswana one. The point with this linguistic characterisation is that although English is spoken by about 2.2 percent of Botswana’s population, it is used in most of her domains. While Setswana is spoken by over 78.2 percent of Botswana’s population it is used in very limited domains and is seen by some as an impediment to the development of minority languages.
I have heard the complaint that speakers of minority language raise; that they have been thrust into the education system which is alien to them since it teaches in Setswana which they do not speak at home.
I find this contention most bizarre because these concerns emanate from persons who do not complain about English, which does not only dominate the curriculum, but also dominates all spheres of their lives. The teaching of Mathematics, Agriculture, Social Studies and Science is not in the Setswana language in schools – actually the Setswana terminology for such subjects is still rudimentary.
It is in English. But why is it common for minority language activists, including some researchers, to overlook the English problem/challenge and zoom on the matter of Setswana as an impediment?
If you listened to their arguments, or read their research papers you would assume that the English language was far much easier to grasp for students than Setswana. You will also assume that instruction in Botswana schools was in Setswana and not in English.
How are we to explain this fixation and bitterness towards the Setswana language? It appears the problem is in part an ethnic one. Those who complain against Setswana and not English are in effect complaining not against the language per se, but against the Tswana speaking people. That is why some of them in language debates seize on matters of constitutional provisions which recognise certain tribal groups to the exclusion of others.
MacDonald Peloetletse BDP - However I write in my personal capacity.