| This invited paper was originally presented as part of the first IRA Multilanguage Literacy Symposium, held in July 2002 in Edinburgh, Scotland, following the 19th World Congress on Reading. Find other papers from this symposium here. |
Researchers, Beware of Your Assumptions! The Unique Case of South African Education
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| With the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994, 11 languages were granted “official language” status. Before that, during the apartheid era, only English and Afrikaans enjoyed this status. After 1994, the following indigenous languages were added to the list: IsiZulu, SiSwati, IsiNdebele, IsiXhosa, SeSotho, SePedi, SeTswana, TshiVenda, and XiTsonga. People in other countries assume that these languages now enjoy equal status with English and Afrikaans in practical terms. But although the language policy of the country insists that indigenous languages be equally used, English still dominates in all spheres — including as the language of instruction in schools. This is so because many people still feel English proficiency is essential to educational success, occupational achievement, and socioeconomic mobility. Even though research has shown that children who use their first language for basic education develop good general linguistic proficiency, this may not be the solution for countries like South Africa.
In most developed countries, the dominant language is the language of the majority of the people. Researchers from other parts of the world tend to assume that this also applies to African countries. In South Africa, English is dominant — but it is a language of the minority of the people. |
Related Postings
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Background on the Medium of Instruction | Availability of Resources | Curriculum Development | The Gender Gap | Conclusion | References
Background to the Medium of Instruction in South African Schools
Very few primary schools in any African country use indigenous languages as a medium of instruction. In most primary schools in South Africa, the medium of instruction is English. Numeracy and life skills are taught in English, and indigenous languages are taught as subjects. In secondary schools, the medium of instruction is also usually English, and indigenous languages are taught as subjects. (There are also many South African schools that teach every subject in Afrikaans; there are even Afrikaans universities.)
Currently, the Department of Education is investigating the possibility of introducing indigenous languages as the medium of instruction at South African universities and technikons (polytechnics). (The criteria for the selection of languages, amongst the nine indigenous ones, is not known.) African linguists are starting to want the same thing for South African children, and are assuming that parents and children see it the same way. Many researchers believe that the situation of domination by English needs to change. But it clear that the majority of African parents and children won’t accept a mother tongue as the medium of instruction, despite its benefits, unless perceptions about English supremacy change.
African Parents’ Perceptions of First Languages as the Medium of Instruction
Many researchers assume that all indigenous African people would welcome the use of their own language as the medium of instruction, and that they see instruction in English as an imposition. But not all African parents support instruction in indigenous languages. Many parents think that if their children are fluent in English, they will get good jobs, since English is the language of business and opportunity. Parents feel that if their children are not sufficiently competent in English, this will hinder their opportunities for upward social and economic mobility.
Because of this, South Africa sees an exodus of African children to schools that had formerly been white, colored, or Indian only, where they are exposed to more English usage. It’s true that African children at these schools become fluent in English and can compete with their white counterparts, but they lose their identity and their culture is crushed. Parents are raising Zulu children, for example, who cannot speak their own language. These children do not understand Zulu idiomatic expressions and proverbs; one has to clarify them in English. One Zulu boy who started school in English cannot construct a single Zulu sentence without using English words. The boy is abused emotionally because, during gatherings of his extended family, cousins call him a “coconut” — a white boy trapped in a brown skin. He feels alienated from his family.
Among young people, especially in urban areas, it has become fashionable to speak English in public, even in the presence of elderly people who do not understand this language. African youth who cannot speak English or those who are not particularly fluent become envious and make an effort to “improve” themselves. This situation poses a threat to indigenous languages as languages of communication. And as the older generation leaves the world one by one, there won’t be any people left to speak the indigenous languages in our country. A language, like a species, can head for extinction if it is threatened by a powerful invader, if it no longer has a large enough or young enough or economically viable enough population to speak it and if its habitat is destroyed (Echo, 2003).
Parents are reluctant to accept schooling in the mother tongue because they know cases in which people have had unsuccessful job interviews because they couldn’t express themselves well in English. Job interviews are never conducted in indigenous languages in South Africa. Maybe people need to lobby and come up with strategies to change the view that mother tongues are inferior to English.
A Note on Bilingualism
Internationally, there is growing support for use of the mother tongue to teach literacy. For learning to read and write, it is best to know the language one is taught in. Many people believe that to teach basic literacy in a language other than the mother tongue is a recipe for “pedagogic disaster” (Lauglo, 2001, online document). It also undermines and leads to extinction of learners’ culture. Furthermore, the findings of the Threshold Project (Macdonald, 1989) indicate that literacy performance in English is enhanced by strengthening cognitive and academic language skills in indigenous languages — such as isiZulu, in the case of the province of KwaZulu-Natal, where I come from.
Snow, Burns, and Griffin (1998, online document) suggests that the most effective way to build learners’ literacy skills is to begin by teaching them to read and write in their home language. She concurs with research findings that demonstrate that learners who acquire literacy in their first language and transition gradually to the national language perform better and faster academically than those learners who study only in a national language.
But whilst the mother tongue as a basis of education is upheld in South Africa, English is seen as the language of opportunity. People still feel that English proficiency is essential to educational success, occupational achievement, and socioeconomic mobility. Luckett (1991) argues that the use of mother tongue and English may help to encourage the development of bilingualism in South African homes. Bilingualism could be used to promote linguistic diversity. I think it could have the effect of easing social tensions, especially in South Africa, where apartheid created hatred among races for many years. Bilingualism could help in making diverse groups within the society more willing to work with one another. Dr. John Waiko (2001, online document) emphasized that our greatest national resource is the diversity of cultures in our countries. Diversity means more viewpoints to share, more ways of solving problems, more creative ideas, a greater ability to deal with change. He says that in countries where diversity is crushed, the nation may become weak and divided.
But it can be argued that South Africans have to ensure that this applies equally to both the dominant and the dominated cultures. This would mean that children from English-speaking families must learn indigenous languages, too. It is essential to be cognizant of the paradox of literacy and guard against cultural imperialism. This endeavor should not promote change of identity and cognitive style, which may conflict with the culture of the learner’s primary socialization. But one still needs to emphasize that learners should become literate in their first language in order to form a solid grammatical and cognitive base for learning a second language.
Many countries of the world are characterized by linguistic diversity. Very few countries are monolingual. Others pretend to be monolingual when in reality they have a recessive history of language extinction. For example, Scotland: It is an English-speaking country; its historical language, called Gaelic, is as good as extinct. Language extinction is one of the greatest threats to human heritage. The question is how to ensure that indigenous languages do not erode and die whilst we strive to become efficient in national languages like English.
Availability of Resources for Education
Generally, resources in South African schools are inadequate. This is the case despite demonstrated intentions in the country’s constitution to support a stronger culture of reading — for example, through literacy campaigns such as Masifunde Sonke. Masifunde Sonke is a Zulu phrase that means “let us all read.” This campaign was launched in 2000 to develop a culture of reading in the country, but there is very little reading material available, especially for poor people who cannot afford to buy books and magazines for themselves. Campaigns like this show great promise, but there is usually a lack of support from politicians, labor movements, and business. The publishing sector has been very reluctant to publish reading materials in indigenous languages, citing many reasons that doing so is not feasible. Some of these reasons include lack of human resources and sales, and the large costs involved in producing materials in 11 languages.
There is even a shortage of books written in English. Up to five children can be found sharing a book in a classroom. The situation is worse for reading materials written in indigenous languages. Therefore, “bedtime story” does not exist in the African home vocabulary, especially in rural areas. This situation does not foster the habits of reading for pleasure and, thus, African children are at a disadvantage at school and do not become competent in reading textbooks designed to develop knowledge in different learning areas. The socioeconomic gap becomes even wider when richer children move on to computer-based learning, while poorer students continue not to have access even to ordinary books. Thus, computer technology merely privileges the already privileged.
Many African parents tell stories from the oral tradition to their children. Folktales are important because they link children with their culture and help them to build a strong identity. But the typical patterns of meaning of oral stories are quite different from those of written stories. The elaboration of characters, events, and settings, and the relation of illustrations and text are highly distinctive in written stories. But an even more significant difference is the role of parent-child interaction in interpreting the meanings and words of written stories (Rose, 2003). Many African children are not exposed to this kind of orientation, which is crucial in preparing them to become independent readers and writers in school. The majority of children in South Africa start school without the necessary preliteracy skills. As a result, they have little concept of what reading means and have not developed the skills that make subsequent acquisition of literacy easier.
Again, many researchers assume that the little that is available in terms of resources will be protected. But it is common in African schools that the few books available are stolen or torn. Schools with good quality buildings have been vandalized, and in some cases, computers and other resources have been stolen and classrooms burnt. Vandalism is common in schools situated in communities wracked by poverty, unemployment, political violence, and gang warfare.
Shortage of classrooms and overcrowding are also issues that traumatize children, teachers, and parents in South Africa. In rural areas there are classes as huge as 90 learners with only one teacher, a situation inconceivable in developed countries. Again, there are a lot of rural schools that have classrooms but have been vandalized.
There are also teacher shortages in South Africa, where numerous teacher training colleges have closed for a variety of reasons:
Another influential factor was the need to redress the inequalities of apartheid. Before 1994, teacher training colleges were racially segregated. Transformation and restructuring was essential, since the well-resourced institutions (historically white) produced the best teachers while the under-resourced institutions produced teachers of poor quality whose major subjects were not demanded by the market. I would argue that one of the reasons for disestablishment of teacher training colleges was to reinforce the four main pillars of transformation, that is, equity, democracy, efficiency, and responsiveness.
Further, South Africa is also not immune to the influence of globalization. The global economy has had an impact on learning in broad ways. Education has become a culture of consumption because it is seen as a commodity that can be adapted to what the market demands. Thus, the training of teachers does not occur in a vacuum. What one learns or wants to learn, what opportunities are available, and the manner in which one learns are all to a large extent determined by the society in which one lives (Merriam & Caffarella, 1991). To bring about change, the government has formed a single coordinated system of higher education (which include teacher training) encompassing universities, technikons (polytechnics), and private providers.
The shortage of teachers in critical learning areas like mathematics and science has been a problem for some time. A limited number of teachers are trained by South African universities and technikons, but the demand still exceeds the existing supply. This state of affairs is exacerbated by HIV/AIDS, which is killing lots of teachers. Welch and Gultig (2002) argue that the shortage of teachers will lead to knee-jerk, short-term responses by the state and the individual institutions. The desperate nature of the situation may be detrimental to the status of the teaching profession and education in general because untrained people may be employed in an attempt to relieve the shortage.
A further assumption pertains to governance and parental involvement. The South African Schools Act of 1996 lays down that all schools must establish governing bodies on which parents have the largest numerical representation. In secondary schools, learners are to be represented. While research indicates that schools benefit from a generalized form of parental support, the majority of African schools do not have consistently active and engaged parent groups.
Curriculum Development in South Africa
Before 1994, educational opportunities were not equal for all children in South Africa. This inequality started in 1953, when the apartheid government introduced Bantu Education, inferior educational opportunities designed for black children. Schools were divided along the lines of race, location, sex, and class. Education was designed to mould both black and white children into apartheid citizens with values appropriate to this society (Ndhlovu et al., 1999). To achieve this, black children were exposed to a curriculum that taught them vocational skills and how to carry out instructions, to prepare them to be subordinate and fit well in a white- dominated society. White children were provided opportunities to become well educated academically, learned how to give instructions, and went on to become engineers and managers. Education was used by the apartheid government to strengthen policies of separate development.
In April 1994, South Africa’s first democratic elections were held. This marked the beginning of a new era. From this day, it was clear for everyone that segregated education could no longer continue. It was important for the new government to bring about changes that would allow the country to move away from discrimination, intolerance, and prejudice. The new constitution had to fight against racism and sexism, and devise strategies to bring about equity and work toward building a just and democratic society. Education was seen as one of the tools for bringing about change. A new curriculum, aimed at overcoming the wrongs of the past, came into being. This new curriculum, known as Curriculum 2005, stresses the need to move from a traditional to an outcomes-based approach. This curriculum is used in mainstream schooling, as well as in adult education programs.
Since its inception, Curriculum 2005 has experienced contradictory responses from many people, including teachers, learners, and parents. On the one hand, some people are enthusiastic about the changes in education and they see the new curriculum as a move toward quality learning. There are even people from outside the education sector who have taken tremendous interest in this education reform. People hoped for the best and were excited about changes as they were introduced, especially because Curriculum 2005 was more participatory (though not always at the grassroots level) than the exclusive and undemocratic approaches that were used in the past.
On the other hand, Curriculum 2005 has been severely criticized, particularly with respect to the speed and scope of its implementation. A lot of people felt that too much was being done too soon. There are problems with regards to the lack of teacher training and resources. People have accused the government of flaws in the strategic and implementation plans. Moreover, the understanding and interpretation of the policy has not been the same amongst teachers, parents, curriculum designers, and government officials at different levels.
Many teachers, learners, and parents have expressed resentment toward the new approach. Researchers would assume that stakeholders, like educators, were part of the curriculum change. But there is still a lot of confusion in schools, while teachers attend frequent orientation workshops, leaving many classes unattended — sometimes for the whole week. This situation is not helping to improve the culture of learning that has been lacking in schools for many years due to the struggle against apartheid.
Huge debates similar to that created by Curriculum 2005 in South Africa have happened in other countries where teachers believe that policies intended to reform education are simply thrown at them (Taylor, 1997). Educators do recognize that changes in the country demand new educational policies, but what concerns them is the manner in which they have been effectively frozen out of policymaking issues. This raises a number of issues about policy processes in education. Shouldn’t teachers play a role in education policy processes? Teachers are expected to implement these policies but are seldom given the opportunity to explore them in relation to their own values and traditions.
According to Taylor (1997), implementation of policies can never be achieved in a vacuum. Since policies are part of a social environment, they can be expected to be ignored, resisted, contested or re-articulated to suit local circumstances.
Teachers and parents are at the receiving end of policymaking, and this causes frustration. The frustration that teachers experience is an indication of the fact that policy implementation is never straightforward. Researchers assume that policy implementation is always a link between policy production and policy practice. But this does not happen all the time, and problems arise because not all stakeholders are part of the policymaking process. The government needs to involve all stakeholders because it cannot produce desired changes on its own.
The Gender Gap
Many parents in African communities are very poor and cannot afford to pay school fees. When parents can pay school fees for one child, a son will be chosen and daughters lose out. Out of the millions of children in African countries who are not in school, the majority are girls. Most of these girls live in rural areas.
To educate girls is to reduce poverty (Annan, 2003). Research has taught us that there is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls. To educate girls is to educate the nation. To educate girls increases the chances of education for the next generation, because as they become mothers in the future, these girls will do more to back up their own children’s schooling — and especially their daughters’ education. It is important that African communities translate this into reality by getting as many girls as boys into primary and secondary classrooms.
There are forces that work against attempts to reduce the gender gap in African countries, including South Africa. One of these is HIV/AIDS. The enormity of the pandemic is such that many households are run by orphaned children, most of them girls. When both parents have died, the eldest girl stops going to school and takes care of the home and the younger siblings. There are cases where these orphans who run households are raped, as perpetrators are aware that they are alone and cannot defend themselves. Further, education is not free in South Africa, so the chances of the siblings going to school when they reach age six are slim. This situation is re-creating the education queue. It is increasing the number of children who cannot go to school, and thus contributing to illiteracy in the country.
If we are to succeed in our efforts to provide “Education for All,” we need to focus on more than providing sufficient education infrastructure and also take a stance in dealing with the ravages of HIV/AIDS. We need to do something about HIV/AIDS orphans, and fill our classrooms with girls as well as boys in order to give them all a fair chance.
Conclusion
This paper has argued that researchers should not make assumptions when developing research principles, because countries differ. Every country is unique, and what is a solution in one country, may not work in the context of another country.
The paper has argued that in the early years of basic education, the first language of a child is significant and instruction in that language has many benefits. What complicates things in South Africa is the fact that competence in English is as vital for survival as is the ability to be literate in the mother tongue (Lyster, 1992). English is the language of business, and learners need it for occupational achievement and socioeconomic mobility.
This paper has also argued that children from African homes, especially in rural areas, often have little or no experience in parent-child reading before starting school. This is due to the fact that many parents are illiterate, and there is also a huge shortage of reading material written in indigenous languages that could be used by the parents who can read. Thus, reading for pleasure is less likely to be a habitual practice in African families.
This paper has also looked at Curriculum 2005, which was introduced with the aim of meeting the challenges that existed due to a fragmented, inequitable, and culturally oppressive system of education under the apartheid regime. The new curriculum intends to promote the principles of equity, redress, and social empowerment. The paper has argued that this kind of reform cannot happen overnight — that is, it is a long-term project and needs careful planning. Any reform needs thorough research before it can be implemented. Research on educational change proves that it is difficult to implement in learning and teaching practices. It is difficult for teachers to change their practices and implement the reforms effectively. The whole process needs to involve all stakeholders and educational partners right from the start — for example, educational districts, regions, departments, educators, and parents. People tend to resent top-down educational reforms.
This paper has also highlighted the importance of attaining parity in the education of girls and boys. Research shows that millions of girls in African countries do not attend school. To achieve education for all, strategies for reaching out to millions of girls who are excluded from formal education need to be devised. Girls should be provided with their right to basic education.
Our country needs to design specific policies and programs, supported by proper implementation strategies, to deal with the challenges presented by multilingualism. A lot could be done to slow down indigenous language decline. Attempts to remedy this situation can include strategies such as efficient government policymaking, education, and advertising, which would in essence increase the status of the endangered languages.
References
Annan, K. (2003, July). A lesson the world will never forget. Talking adult education: Newsletter of the Adult Learning Network, p. 3.
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Echo [supplement to The Natal Witness]. (2003, August 28). Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: The Natal Witness.
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Lauglo, J. (2001). Engaging with adults [African Region Human Development Working Paper series]. Washington, DC: The World Bank, African Region. Available (retrieved September 2003): www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDS_IBank_Servlet?pcont=details&eid=000094946_01052204005370
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Luckett, K. (1991). “Ukufunda Ekhaya”: Developing a culture of literacy in South African homes. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of Natal.
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Lyster, E.S. (1992). An overview of the debates. In B. Hutton (Ed.), Adult basic education in South Africa (pp. 9-47). Cape Town, South Africa: Oxford University Press.
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Macdonald, C.A. (1989). Language in the primary school. Pretoria, South Africa: Human Sciences Research Council.
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Merriam, S.B., & Caffarella, R.S. (1991). Learning in adulthood: Adult learning and contemporary society. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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Ndhlovu, T.N., Bertram, C., Mthiyane, N., & Avery, N. (1999). Creating people-centred schools: School organization and change in South Africa [learning guide]. Cape Town: Cape Town, South Africa: South African Institute of Distance Education and Oxford University Press.
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Rose, D. (2003). Sequencing and pacing of the hidden curriculum: How indigenous children are left out of the chain. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of Natal.
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Snow, C.E., Burns, M.S., & Griffin, P. (Eds). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Available (retrieved September 2003): books.nap.edu/openbook/030906418X/html/index.html
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Taylor, S., Rizvi, F., Lingard, B., & Henry, M. (Eds.). (1997) The policy phenomenon. In Educational policy and the politics of change (pp. 1-21). London and New York: Routledge.
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Waiko, J. (2001). The value of traditional knowledge in the 21st century. Paper presented at the 1997 Waigani Seminar. Available (retrieved September 2003): www.pngbuai.com/600technology/information/waigani/w97-keynote.html
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About the Author
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Zanele Buthelezi (e-mail) works for the Centre of Adult Education at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg Campus, P.O. Box 100382, Scottsville 3209, South Africa. She develops educational materials for Learn with Echo, an adult education newspaper supplement produced by the centre. Her work includes writing educational text aimed at helping people to develop literacy skills. In addition, she is involved in layout, translation, editing, and proofreading of different kinds of material, outside Learn with Echo. Her other areas of interest include education for democracy, human rights and gender awareness, and how these can be combined with adult basic education. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in adult education at the University of Natal. Her current research interest is in the area of how language can be a barrier to learning and accessing information, with a specific focus on adult learners and illiterate people from historically disadvantaged and marginalized societies. Back to top |
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Citation: Buthelezi, Z. (2002, July). Researchers, beware of your assumptions! The unique case of South African education. Paper presented at the Multilanguage Literacy Symposium, Edinburgh, Scotland. Available: http://www.readingonline.org/international/inter_index.asp?HREF=edinburgh/buthelezi/index.html
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Posted November 2003
© 2003 International Reading Association, Inc. ISSN 1096-1232