The Language Question in African Schools

We are very proud that, for the first time, the new constitution affirms equality between South African languages, especially Khoi. After this, the San community will be the most exciting in many years. The experience of humiliation has been trampled on.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela, the language of education in schools and universities is changing rapidly, obviously this is a very current and interesting topic. But the South Africa More and more countries are teaching and running schools and universities in Africa. Former South African President Nelson Mandela prides himself on achieving equality. The new constitution stipulates the language of South Africa. Frankly speaking, in recent years, that he has ignored these methods. Occurs in the intermediate stages, there will be no equality Official language. If the official language is 'unequal privilege', all other languages will be discarded. In the following cases, everyone using the same official language is not the same. Obviously not all languages, but not all. I was asked to talk about the impact of language schools and university education: of course, I will, but from a very reasonable point of view, especially from the prohibition of discrimination and the right to education, international human rights, and many other aspects.

The meaning of the world and its influence Language is related to education. Quality education refers to education that reflects language In a globalized world. A globalized world does not mean that all of us must talk the exact same international language. The future is multilingual. Use mother tongue Students usually make sure they can learn other languages effectively, putting all this together, I will show why there is the fairly common practice of using more than one language around the world. Therefore, it has been widely confirmed in pedagogy that the mother tongue of children leads to encouragement, strength, and enthusiasm. Sucj students will achieve greater success.

The South African language policy in education has undergone a lot of changes since the Bantu Education Act was promulgated in 1953.This Act was a result of the acceptance of the recommendations of the Eisele Commission. The Commission had been set by the ruling party (National Party) to deal with the issue of the language of instruction in South African schools. The Act encouraged social and racial segregation by the introduction of separate education systems for different race groups. According to Luckett the Commission recommended that schooling for Africans should cost less and be of a lower standard than that offered to whites. Individual school's language policies are formulated by the school governing body (SGB), This is in accordance with the South African legal framework to de-centralised education and language policies.

Language policies must be set up within the country's constitutional framework and in according with language in education policy.  The government of that day prescribed that African languages would be used as media of instruction from the first year of schooling until Standard; thereafter English and Afrikaans (the only official languages) would take over as languages of instruction for both halves of the subjects. Luckett says that this policy was unpopular because it was understood by the African communities as a divide and rule strategy, a form of discrimination and social control. Owing to problems such as the shortage of textbooks in African languages, as well as the resistance of teachers, this policy was not properly implemented. There was therefore a need to modify this policy by way of limiting mother-tongue instruction to Standard 4. English and Afrikaans, however, remained the media of parallel instruction. Teaching in Afrikaans was problematic as very few teachers were able to use the language as a medium of instruction. The enforcement of this policy made it very difficult for learners to achieve their best in education. The 1976 uprisings in Soweto - a protest by students against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction - was a result of the government's top-down approach in policy formulation. This means there had never been consultation with Africans before the enactment of the policy. In 1979 the government offered the schools (after a consultation with the school boards) a choice of Afrikaans or English, through Act No. 90 of 1979. Mother tongue instruction would, however, be used up to Standard 2. Also, most black schools opted for English as a medium of instruction.

In conclusion, the issue of the language of instruction in African schools has not yet been resolved. Of course, it is important to know your native language, but the best option would be combined education: English and Afrikaans.