WE know SunEducation readers can read English, but what about Mzansi’s other languages?
South Africa celebrated International Mother Language Day this week.
Professor Nerina Bosman and Suléne Pilon from the University of Pretoria’s faculty of humanities said the day was aimed at celebrating and respecting cultural diversity and multilingualism.
“Multilingualism is often seen as a problem and, as a result, many children worldwide are not educated enough in their mother tongues. This is mostly the case in South Africa,” said Bosman.
Mother language day started in 1952 when Pakistani students demanded that Bengali be recognised as an official language along with Urdu.
But the question of mother languages and education is a sensitive question in all parts of SA.
“The debate is often emotional and is emphasised by race,” said Bosman and Pilon.
Most black students didn’t get their education in their mother tongue and struggle with English at tertiary level, experiencing a “double study” burden – often indicated as one of the major causes for poor academic performance.
Decades of research by Unesco and others have found that a child’s mental and academic development greatly benefits if at least their first eight years of schooling is in their first language and it’s better if it’s the language of instruction at tertiary level too.
The argument is that children should be taught in their mother language so that their brains can master complex ideas before learning another language such as English.
Fortunately, the younger the child, the easier it learns new languages. So this is not an argument to exclude any other language but to promote what is best for children – in fact, the more languages a child learns, the better it is for that child’s development!
This is about preserving the rich heritage of our country in a way that benefits the future.
