‘Teachers Not Consulted On Swahili’
Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union (BOSETU) vice president Mogomotsi Motshegwa said teachers unions have not been briefed on the inclusion of Swahili in the curriculum.
This came after President Mokgweetsi Masisi recently announced that Swahili has been incorporated into the country’s curriculum at the memorial service of Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli.
This, however, shocked some Batswana who started to inquire whether indeed Swahili has been incorporated in the country’s curriculum. The President said the Southern African Development Community (SADC) had previously agreed to adopt Swahili as one of the official languages.
“We have not been engaged on the matter. This is not the first time that announcement has been made. Maybe the government is still thinking about how it will be implemented as a policy. A statement was made as to the government’s intention since it was an agreement reached by SADC according to the President.
What we know is that if the government wants to implement it, a policy has to be made first and how it will be conducted or taught and the guidelines must also be clear.
Again, this will be shocking for us as teachers, because we had thought it will be necessary to teach in our mother tongue languages first to better students’ understanding first,” Motshegwa said.
BOSETU vice president said the mother tongue languages could help in the improvement of student results, because the students may understand some of the subjects better.
He said teaching Swahili will be a good move, but it is important to address important issues first that have been pending.
Contacted for clarification the Minister of Basic Education, Fidelis Molao referred The Monitor to an article, which appeared in the Daily News issue of September 7, 2020, in which he was responding to a question by Member of Parliament for Francistown South Wynter Mmolotsi who at the time was asking the minister how far the ministry was with the implementation of indigenous languages in schools and if they were considering the introduction of Swahili in schools as it was recently adopted by SADC.
The Daily News article reads: “Government has engaged stakeholders, conducted research and developed a draft School Language Policy as a commitment to the introduction of indigenous languages in schools.
Minister of Basic Education, Mr Fidelis Molao, told Parliament on Wednesday that the policy was a tool pertaining to the use of language in schools and not a National Language Policy.”
He said then that “it would guide implementation of indigenous languages in the school curriculum. Furthermore, he said in order for the school language policy to be finalised, it had to go through several relevant consultative processes that would be completed by end of this year [2020]”.
“Concerning Swahili, which was adopted as SADC’s fourth official language, Mr Molao said the priority was to start with local languages. He said the ministry would continue to introduce other languages such as Swahili over time depending on resources.”