A teacher instructs pupils under the new Education Policy ,instruction at all levels of education will be given in Kiswahili.
We are lucky to have one common language that comfortably has united us all – a big nation formed from about 120 plus tribes. As days passes by, Kiswahili is becoming a mother tongue of many Tanzanian children. But why Kiswahili has not been made the language of teaching at all levels of education more than 50 years after independence? Are those reasons now overtaken by time? Are we feeling uncivilised for not using Kiswahili as a medium of instruction for our children? I think none of these reasons is applicable.
Tanzania is among a few countries in Africa, which is graced with a language that can be used by almost all its inhabitants as a national language that can also be used as medium of instruction. Kiswahili, which is a Bantu oriented, but substantially borrowed a lot from other foreign languages happens to be an original language of Tanzanians unlike other African countries, which use foreign languages that came with colonisers.
We are lucky to have one common language that comfortably has united us all – a big nation formed from about 120 plus tribes. As days passes by, Kiswahili is becoming a mother tongue of many Tanzanian children. But why Kiswahili has not been made the language of teaching at all levels of education more than 50 years after independence? Are those reasons now overtaken by time? Are we feeling uncivilised for not using Kiswahili as a medium of instruction for our children? I think none of these reasons is applicable.
I remember in 2006, after Benjamin Mkapa became the third President of Tanzania, the Tanzania Kiswahili Council (Baraza la Kiswahili Tanzania-BAKITA) asked Mkapa to use his influence as Head of State to allow Kiswahili to be used as a medium of instruction for all levels of education.
Trickily, Mr Mkapa simply responded by preferring a national debate on the issue to use his influence to impose BAKITA’s request. Ironically, BAKITA never initiated such a debate that probably would convince many people that Tanzania was ready for using Kiswahili as a medium of instruction at all levels of education in both public and private educational systems. Almost 20 years later, the need for using Kiswahili as teaching language still goes on, now is a policy issue that Kiswahili should be preferred to English. I don’t think so.
Recently, President Jakaya Kikwete’s speech during the inauguration of new Education and Training Policy last month was highlighted by perception that Kiswahili now has officially been declared to be used as medium of instruction for all education systems, taking the place of English in secondary schools and higher learning institutions. For many people, such news was a shocking one, asking why and how we are going to make it.
Paradoxically, many wondered, where Tanzania is going to place itself in the world in this era of globalisation without a fluency English language for its people. Was it an unnecessary exaggeration made by media outlets that the new policy is after Kiswahili alone as the medium of instruction?
However, reading the new policy on education between lines, one realises that the wording of this policy is rather confusing by emphasising that both languages - Kiswahili and English - must be strengthened and continued to be used as the media of instruction, but at the same time the goal is to make Kiswahili the teaching language at all levels (See policy statement 3.2.19 and 3.2.20).
For many years, Kiswahili has been and is still used as the medium of instruction for primary schools only, though later on English was allowed to be used as the medium of instruction for primary schools, particularly those privately owned. Before the liberalisation of education in the 1990s, we had one system of education in Tanzania, using Kiswahili as the teaching language for primary schools and English used for secondary schools up to university level.
Following the liberalisation of education in the late 1990s, things changed. All private schools from pre-school to university level are using English as the medium of instruction, while the public sector has remained with Kiswahili at primary school level, but all meet again with English from secondary school to higher learning institutions.
Fortunately enough, the coming of the new Constitution (the proposed Constitution) has already made Kiswahili a formal language for all national and government communications (see Article 4). Ironically, the coming Constitution does not make Kiswahili the teaching language at all levels of education. This will make Kiswahili as an optional language, when it comes to teaching purposes. Why the framers of the draft Constitution and the then proposed Constitution did not see a compelling need of making Kiswahili both a national language for all communications and also a teaching language at all levels of education? They know it is impossible to impose such a constitutional restriction in this era of liberalisation of education in the world under high influence of globalisation.
However, reading careful the new policy on education and training, it seems to recommend Kiswahili to take the place of English as the medium of instruction, but probably this is envisaged in the long-run. Both the policy issue and background information preceding two policy statements cited above emphasise the need to strengthen both Kiswahili and English as the medium of instruction. In conclusion it says: “Kwa hiyo, kuna umuhimu wa kuimarisha matumizi ya lugha za Kiswahili na Kiingereza kwa kuzifanya kuwa lugha za kufundishia katika ngazi mbalimbali”. In English: “Therefore, it is important to strengthen the use of Kiswahili and English to be languages for teaching at all levels”. Nevertheless, the policy shows that the goal is to have Kiswahili alone as the medium of instruction probably in the long-run. It says: Lengo ni “kutumia lugha ya Kiswahili katika ufundishaji” (the goal is to use Kiswahili as medium of instruction). Perhaps this is what was highlighted by media outlets during the inauguration of the policy that the policy aims at making Kiswahili alone the teaching language at all levels of education. Does it make any substantial logic to make Kiswahili the medium of instruction at all levels of education in this era of globalisation? I do not think so.
There are so obvious many reasons why we should prefer English as the medium of instruction at all levels of education to Kiswahili. First, during this era of liberalisation of education, the government cannot force Kiswahili to be the medium of instruction for private schools.
Though both the old education policy and the Education Act, 1978, clearly state that Kiswahili is the medium of instruction for all primary schools in the country, that law has been broken and now English is used as the teaching language at all private pre and primary schools. Second, from the 1990s to date, teaching of English as a subject in all government schools was declining and that is what motivated the elite to send their children to neighbouring countries like Kenya and Uganda to acquire fluency of English so as to meet global demand.
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