Multilingualism is a central pillar of the South African Constitution, of the new democratic dispensation and to foster inclusive nationhood.
Recognising previously mis-recognised indigenous languages is an important measure of social justice or reparations. Recognising previously mis-recognised indigenous languages, bringing equality for the previously marginalised languages, restoring the dignity of the speakers of these past marginalised languages and making the languages – and the cultures associated with them — more known to other communities.
In many multilingual societies around the world there are calls for “mother tongue” education, at least in the early school years. Many multilingual countries are exploring ways to introduce “mother tongue” education to lift formerly marginalised languages to equality with dominant colonial languages. But some countries are pushing for “mother tongue” language education to improve poor educational outcomes — or for both reasons.
Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, has been advocating for multilingual education based on the “mother tongue” from the earliest years of schooling, saying it improves learning outcomes and academic performance. Research from the Indian Statistical Institute reported learners educated in their mother tongue experienced a 12% improvement in reading skills and a 20% increase in mathematics proficiency compared with those learning in their second language. This is due to learners having lesser cognitive burdens.
Multilingual countries have tried to grapple with the issue of “mother tongue” education to foster language equality and nation building in different ways.
Commitment to multi-ethnicity
In Singapore, the Chinese population forms 75% of the population. Singapore has expressly prioritised a commitment to multi-ethnicity as the country’s dominant identity, rather than governing the country as a Chinese majority nation. Singapore’s independence movement, the governing People’s Action Party, has sought to establish itself as a multiracial movement that is genuinely multi-ethnic, unlike many African liberation and independence movements that may say they are overseeing multi-ethnic nations, but in reality they see their countries as one-ethnicity-dominated nations.
In Singaporean schools, English is the common learning language, and “mother tongue” languages, whether Mandarin, Malay or Tamil, are treated as additional languages.
In India, school “mother tongue” is part of a three-language formula that mandates learning of a regional language or mother tongue, Hindi (or another Indian language), and English. India has 12 official languages, but many more other languages. India has a Right to Education Act adopted in 2009, which says the medium of instruction at school should be in the child’s mother tongue, where practical.
India has been unable to effectively implement this policy because of resource constraints, lack of language teachers and the many languages in the country. However, several Indian states, such as West Bengal, Karnataka and Odisha have introduced regional language education as the medium of instruction.
China is a multi-ethnic country with 56 officially recognised ethnic groups, with the largest being the Han Chinese. China has promoted a “bilingual education” policy that emphasises Standard Chinese or Mandarin as the primary medium of instruction, alongside the study of minority languages. More recently, the Chinese government has introduced language reforms, called the draft “Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress” to promote the use of Standard Chinese in both the spoken and written language among the country’s minority groups.
The draft Chinese “Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress”, submitted in early September to China’s highest legislative body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, is “an urgent requirement to foster a strong sense of community among the Chinese nation and advance the construction of a unified national identity”, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua.
Fostering common national identity
In Switzerland, learners are required to learn their regional language and at least one other national language, in addition to English. Switzerland has four official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh. This Swiss policy is based on achieving the goal of “mother tongue” plus two other languages. The multilingual object of the Swiss language policy is to foster a common national identity.
In Mauritius, the primary language of school instruction is English, despite Mauritian Creole being the home language of the majority, although there are efforts to integrate Creole as a school instruction language.
South Africa’s goal should be multilingualism. Multilingualism in SA must focus on supporting learning and promoting a common South African identity. The broad objective must be to build a strong early foundation in a child’s home language while also developing strong proficiency in English and a regional language. It is critical that SA introduce a multilingual learning system, whereby all school learners take up a regional African language.
Multilingualism must also be introduced at higher education levels. All students at higher education institutions should take an African language with which they are not familiar. Furthermore, workplaces should, as part of their in-house skills development programmes, also make it compulsory for employees to learn an additional African language.
South Africa has progressive constitutional and policy frameworks, like the 1997 Language in Education Policy, that support multilingualism. However, implementation has failed due to a lack of political will, the collapse of state capacity and widespread societal beliefs that English is superior to African languages. Major practical challenges to introduce multilingualism are South Africa’s failing education system, lack of quality teachers, lack of funding, a shortage of textbooks and other learning materials in African languages.
Another challenge is that ANC governments have often pushed through policies based on ideology and wishful thinking, and without estimating the impact or consequences, which led to these policies failing and exacerbating the problem.
Any multilingualism must be introduced pragmatically, rather than ideologically or with wishful thinking.
Inclusive nation building undermined
The ANC’s poor governance, corruption and development-destroying policies caused public service, state-owned entity and infrastructure failure, the collapse of the rule of law, the deindustrialisation of the country and poor education and skills development outcomes, and have undermined inclusive nation building.
Furthermore, the ANC, rather than actively pushing for an inclusive post-apartheid multi-ethnic South African nation like Singapore’s People’s Action Party, has governed the country as an African majority nation. The ANC’s transformation and empowerment policies have not made nurturing world-class education, skills and human development for previously disadvantaged communities their single most important empowerment and transformation strategy.
The ANC’s transformation and empowerment policies have prioritised ensuring that ANC elites through cadre deployment dominate the higher echelons of the public service, monopolise state contracts, and get slices of existing white companies as part of black economic empowerment.
ANC government transformation and empowerment policies have not been pragmatically formulated to benefit the largest number of previously disadvantaged communities, but have rather benefited small ANC-connected African leader elites.
These above-mentioned ANC-induced failures have undermined inclusive nationhood.
The failure to implement effective multilingual education is a symptom of a broader crisis, caused by ANC governance failures, which also plunged South Africa’s state school education system into chaos.
The post-apartheid education system has struggled to improve the quality of teaching, boost reading among the youth, and expand problem-solving skills. Furthermore, there has been an ongoing decline in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education in state schools, and a failure to produce world-competitive education for school leavers, making it difficult to address complex issues like language policy effectively.
Nevertheless, even if multilingualism is introduced it will not solve South Africa’s existing education problems. Multilingualism will fail if it is introduced in the current failing education system. Worse, if multilingualism is introduced without dramatically improving the education system, it is likely to worsen educational outcomes. DM
This is an extract from William Gumede’s recent Daily Maverick webinar in partnership with the Inclusive Society Institute, discussing the role of mother tongue education in our democracy.