LEARNING IN MOTHER TONGUE KEY FOR KIDS

THERE is an axiom that says: “You cannot enrich the poor by impoverishing the rich.” Using this as an approach to education, “You cannot uplift the quality of education of the previously disadvantaged by dragging down the quality of education of the previously advantaged.”

This then leads to the debate on mother language education. To start off by referring to practical results: The top scoring learner from a public school for 2016 was an Afrikaans-speaking boy from an Afrikaans high school. The top scoring learner from a public school last year was an Afrikaans-speaking girl from an Afrikaans high school. This clearly demonstrates the power of mother-tongue education.

The concept was backed up in a Unesco study, The importance of mother tonguebased schooling for educational quality. The UN, in order to support this notion, instituted International Mother Language Day which occurs on February 21 annually.

There has been a troubling move to push aside indigenous languages, and to replace them, in the South African context, with English as the primary language. The following are comments about this: “Unfortunately… there are people in South Africa who think speaking and learning in English means you are well-educated, and so they, often unwittingly, support the abandonment of their children’s mother tongue.

“Successful education for most African children remains elusive, in part because of the trend to move away from teaching in the mother tongue.”

“Socio-linguist Thabo Ditsele is quoted in the Daily Maverick as saying ‘teaching chil- dren in a language that is not their mother tongue appears to disrupt cognitive ability and interferes with the learning process’.” This is especially true for the more abstract and difficult subjects such as maths and physical sciences.

About the second language of education and use: Unesco refers to it as “L2”, and it is only logical that L2 in South Africa will be English. The aim should be that all learners, and persons, be conversant in English as their second language (where English is not the home language, or L1).

The following comment reasons that a good ability for L2 is reliant on a good ability for L1: “The more highly developed the first language (L1) skills, the better the results in the second language (L2), because language and cognition in the second (L2) build on the first (L1).”

But what about the primary language ( L1)? To again move to the politically-in- correct language Afrikaans, it started as a kitchen, or gibberish, language, but improved to become, arguably, the highest-developed indigenous language of Africa.

My argument is that there should be a concerted effort, based on the Unesco vision, for the development of other African languages, so that these can be truly global languages. My opinion, and also those of many linguistic groups, is that the quality of education in South Africa must be uplifted by, among others, the upliftment of all indigenous languages.

Imker Hoogenhout

wake of the announcement of fee free education by President Jacob Zuma, one of the relevant questions that beg serious consideration is that of career choices. The chaotic scenes in some of the institutions of higher learning point to the fact that the youth are hungry for education and keen on changing their lives for the better. However, the reality of many unemployed graduates shows that acquiring education does not necessarily translate into them securing employment. The single biggest determining factor is the extent to which the acquired skills are needed both in the private and public sectors. Research has shown that the economic future of South Africa is very much dependent on the level of skills we have in, for instance, sciences and engineering in the water sector. It is bizarre that an economy that prides itself as the leader on the continent should rely on importing skills from elsewhere.

As we are said to be earnestly in the Fourth Revolution, we cannot afford to be lagging and the starting point is to encourage prospective students to take up careers that drive the development of the country.

For South Africa to be reckoned with in the Fourth Revolution, it desperately needs to produce an army of graduates with skills.

The catalyst and the backbone for this envisaged growth remains water. However much we meticulously make plans for our prosperity as a country, the truth is that without water we will never move an inch. Water is the be all and end all for job creation and economic transformation agenda of the country.

It is for this reason that the Department of Water and Sanitation is assisting young people to pursue careers in the water sector.

Initiatives being implemented to draw youth into the water sector include the Baswa Le Meetse, the Aqua endure and the South African Youth Water Prize (SAYWP) competition. Last year, the SAYWP saw three youths from Limpopo representing South Africa at the Stockholm International Water Institute in Sweden.

This exposed them to ideas and careers in the water sector. This opportunity inspired them to have the confidence to finding solutions on issues that confront the country, especially water scarcity.

It is thus our hope that the youth flooding institutions of higher learning consider a career in the water sector. As other sectors are growing, the water sector’s skill base is falling and in dire need of replenishment.

The prospective students are the only hope for our dream of building a nation with skills that are relevant to our development.

Hosia Sithole Department of Water and Sanitation (Gauteng)