For many children in Africa the reality is that they are taught in primary school in a language that they don’t understand. An article in the Learning English section of the Guardian Weekly uses a specific situation to bring a sense of reality to the mother tongue education argument.
On a hot Friday afternoon at Katine primary school, in north-east Uganda, Santa Awiyo points her large wooden ruler at the blackboard as her year-three pupils chorus the words she has written in white chalk. ” Idwe pore ngapo, igwen me sukulu gi . . . “
The paragraph, written in Kumam, the local dialect of this rural region, refers to the importance of school uniform and is part of a lesson that combines language and social studies.
The article highlights the way that curriculum reform together with mother tongue language policy makes a difference when allied with first language teaching.
Until 2007 all primary teaching in Uganda was in English, now the new policy
dictates that during the first three years of primary education pupils must be taught using the mother tongue of their area as the medium of instruction, with English taught as a separate subject, before switching to English-medium instruction in year four.
The reform is criticised by some, but as the article shows the differences between rural and urban school teaching is not just a matter of language. The paucity of teaching materials in English and the sociolinguistic environment affect learning outcomes. The challenge for the education reformers in Uganda is now to develop sufficient educational materials – in English and local languages.
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