American Sign Language Causing Problems In Botswana
Keikantse Lesemela | Monday May 12, 2014 16:05
Speaking to The Monitor, BoAD secretary, Boitumela Tshotlego said, they want the right policy that will be approved by cabinet because the foreign sign languages that the Ministry of Education Skills and Development (MOESD) is teaching them is causing the failure of many students.
“I am speaking as a deaf and on behalf of the deaf as their leader, we want our students to have better education not to go to school and fail and then go sit at home again, our rights should not be violated”, said Tshotlego.
She said many deaf people are failing but the MOESD is not taking any measures to solve the problem. “Our qualifications are not recognised, Standard Seven is treated the same way as Form Five.
Even when we go to tertiary schools we never pass because there are no qualified teachers and right structures in place. The Ministry of Education should understand that we are also people and we deserve better education like everyone,” said Tshotlego.
She said the MOESD should not go and train teachers with American Sign Language but they should understand that they have their sign language in Botswana and it is different from American Sign Language. “We do not want to be taught American Sign Language because we do not understand it and this is why most students fail. When we teach people this sign language they pass but when these teachers who are trained by MOESD teach us school curriculum we fail because they are teaching in a foreign language, which we don’t understand.”
Tshotlego said BSD is pushing it’s own agenda when advising Botswana Qualifications Authority about accreditation. “BSD is not advising BQA for the benefit of the deaf but they are just pushing their own agendas. There is supposed to be a system in place that is approved by the deaf”
BSD public relations officer, Oreneile Matsetse explained to The Monitor that sign languages differ according to the countries. “ Sign language is not universal, Different sign languages are used in different countries or regions. For example, British Sign Language (BSL) is a different language from American Sign Language and Americans who know sign language may not understand British sign language”, she said.
Matsetse said although these languages are different they are teaching the sign language that has been invented by Batswana. “We do not know anything about sign teachers in other schools but what I can confirm is that we as BSD we are teaching our students in Gaborone Institute of Professional Studies (GIPS) the same sign language we are teaching in our school here in Ramotswa”.