Transformation Plan promotes six years of mother-tongue-based bilingual
education and conversational trilingualism, statement by Education MEC Cameron
Dugmore
22 August 2007
The Western Cape Education's (WCED's) Language Transformation Plan will
promote six years of mother-tongue-based bilingual education and envisages that
all learners in the Western Cape will by the end of grade nine have some basic
conversational trilingualism.
Significantly, all schools will for the first time, submit a comprehensive
School Language Policy and Implementation Plan to the department by 10
September. The plans will be studied by officials who will respond to the
schools in the fourth quarter. We are encouraging schools to provide at least
six years of mother-tongue-based bilingual education wherever practicable.
Research has indicated that this is long overdue. There is clear evidence
that learners need a minimum of six years of tuition in their mother tongue in
order to achieve enough language skills to cope with the linguistic challenge
of learning through the medium of a second language. The WCED has set up 16
project schools, which have enthusiastically adopted this policy, in
consultation with parents and which are already reporting obvious changes in
classroom behaviour and academic performance.
They report, for example, that the learners are far livelier in class, now
that they can learn through the medium of isiXhosa and that their academic
performance is improving. The model is being used effectively in the trilingual
and bilingual schools in the project group as well. All eyes will be on these
schools later in the year when they will write, for the first time, the WCED
grade six assessment tests in isiXhosa. Schools are reportedly looking forward
to improved scores on the numeracy tests and to demonstrating that their
problem has not been with numeracy as such, but with the language of
assessment.
Evaluators note that it is not just learner self-esteem, which is growing
but that educator esteem is on the increase as well. Lecturers at University of
the Western Cape (UWC) are impressed by the enthusiasm and commitment of the 16
teachers from these schools who have been enrolled by the WCED in an "Advanced
Certificate of Education" in language studies.
Dr Neville Alexander, who serves on my Provincial Language Consultative
Committee, notes that this is a really promising model. He delivered a lecture
to about 70 teachers from the project schools who came to Cape Town for a
Saturday seminar to discuss research plans and found their enthusiasm and
dedication infectious.
The project schools indicate that virtually the only constraint they are
experiencing is the lack of text books in isiXhosa after grade three. In this
regard I approached publishers last year with a view to getting partnerships
going. I have found that the publishing houses were ready to commit and some
are ready with books, which schools are ordering now as part of the current
WCED special project to put two text books into every classroom from grades
four to seven in all schools in quintiles one to four (in which the Project
Schools all find themselves).
In pursuit of the second target at least conversational trilingualism, I
want to announce that a volunteer cohort of about 30 to 40 teachers has been
working on a provincial learning programme for the teaching of isiXhosa as a
second additional language. The department seconded a core group of teachers
for a week but beyond that the work has been voluntary.
The core group has been implementing their draft programme and report that
their lessons are going very well. In the past one of the problems with the
teaching of isiXhosa at the primary school has been that teachers have had to
work out their own programmes. They have struggled with standards and often
also struggled with enthusiasm levels amongst learners and even a lack of
enthusiasm amongst colleagues and principals. The material developers feel that
this will soon be a thing of the past. The new documents will be sent to
schools this term and the WCED plans to meet with principals in the new term to
set challenges for the further roll out of isiXhosa teaching in schools.
The next task to be tackled by the WCED team will be a similar project to
develop a programme for Afrikaans second additional language. There have even
been requests for a similar product to support isiXhosa First additional
language. There are promising indications that isiXhosa will grow in status
across all sectors in the province. If we have more schools offering tuition
through isiXhosa and if results improve then clearly confidence will grow.
If English speakers and Afrikaans speakers are all also learning isiXhosa
and Xhosa-speakers add Afrikaans to their curriculum then some of the barriers
that we now experience will fall away. This is truly a nation-building process
in pursuit of the vision of a Home for All. To prepare for this period the WCED
provided week-long orientation courses to all relevant officials in the first
quarter. Three representatives from each school the principal, the chairperson
of the school governing body and a teacher all attended a day-long
workshop.
By the end of the quarter over 3 500 people had training of some kind. The
WCED printed 500 000 leaflets addressed to Xhosa-speaking parents and has
distributed half of these already. In the next fortnight the remainder will go
out at taxi ranks, bus and train stations and at a range of other outlets. This
will be part of a major media blitz, including radio messages, to encourage all
parents to enrol their children in mother-tongue learning. Parents also need to
know that it is both their duty and their right to get to their children's
schools to make sure that the policy submitted on 10 September is one, which
has been fully consulted.
We have prepared a video in isiXhosa to address some of the issues. In it
the national Minister, Naledi Pandor, firmly endorses the plan. Other prominent
supporters featured on the video are Archbishop Desmond Tutu, writer Sindiwe
Magona, Dr Nokuzola Mdende, Professor Abner Nyamende and Vuyani Ngcuka. Because
decisions about the language of learning and teaching are vested in the
parents, the WCED has taken the matter of advocacy very seriously. A key thrust
maintained by almost all the contributors who included members of the
Provincial Representative Council of learners for example, is that the time is
ripe for people to claim the chance to learn through their mother tongue as a
'right.'
Although much of the thrust is into the isiXhosa community the effort is
very much geared to the Afrikaans-speaking parents who have increasingly been
enrolling their children in English classes. The message is clear � whatever
your mother tongue is, the more time you have to build up conceptual clarity
through your home language the better are your educational and life chances in
the long run.
Eventually we need to see results in real terms; we want empowered learners
who can achieve to their full potential. We are really excited as we look at
the beginning of a new society one where all languages are held in high regard
and where children and adults can use and develop their languages with dignity.
The days of having text books in isiXhosa only up to the end of grade three
must be a thing of the past."
Until all of us in this province can speak one another's languages well
enough to communicate with one another in full, we will be limiting our own
economic growth. If isiXhosa has a low status in the market-place, then its
speakers will continue to sacrifice their mother tongue in favour of the
perceived benefits of other languages. We want our Afrikaans citizens likewise
to be able to embrace their own language with confidence. We must grow language
to grow people to grow the economy.
Issued by: Department of Education, Western Cape Provincial Government
22 August 2007
