Does the Use of the Mother Tangue Contrbute to Poor Performance in Language Arts in Primary School
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Female parent tongue teaching in master instructor education in Kenya: a language management critique of the quota system
Multilingual Education volume 4, Article number:11 (2014) Cite this article
Abstruse
Female parent tongue education (MTE) has been a subject field of rigorous debate for more half a century, in both industrialised and developing societies. Despite disparate views on MTE, in that location is an uneasy consensus on its importance in educational systems, especially in the foundational years. Using the Language Management Framework, the article provides a critical appraisal of MTE discourses in relation to primary teacher education and the quota system of student teacher pick and instructor deployment in Kenya. The article argues that from a language management perspective, these two mechanisms are critical in sustaining and promoting MTE in Kenya, and perhaps elsewhere.
Introduction
Despite many studies that evidence that it makes good sense to begin a child's education in his or her ain language, the age-former tradition of teaching a child in a linguistic communication other than the commencement language or teaching in a child's start language only in the lower classes of master school nevertheless persists in many African countries. This practise has led to poor scholastic attainment, often manifested in loftier repeat or failure charge per unit, poor performance in examinations, and maladjustment to the globe of work. Marginalisation of African languages is an inevitable outcome since they are not used for meaningful pedagogy. A await at other parts of the world shows that what goes on in Africa in terms of language of pedagogy is an aberration. Even small countries in Europe use their languages every bit languages of instruction, even if the children have to acquire another language such as English or French. This is not but a matter of national pride; it is a sound educational principle to proceed from the familiar to the new. This is precisely what linguists and educationists have been advocating for Africa. The fears of a multiplicity of languages and the uneconomic price of didactics in several languages, which are oft invoked to counter the feasibility of educational activity in indigenous languages, take been shown to be pseudo issues, equally strategies can be, and have been, devised for selection and development of languages besides as for product of instruction materials at relatively reasonable cost (Bamgbose [2009], p. 13).
The in a higher place quotation easily sums up Mother Natural language Education (future, MTE) quandary in many an African state. The article interrogates this quandary in Kenya from a language direction perspective. From this perspective, primary teacher education and the quota organization are identified as approaches and/or frameworks that can be harnessed to accost the MTE quandary in Republic of kenya, and mayhap elsewhere.
The discussion is presented in 5 parts. The first part presents the theory and practice of language management and an overview of the debates and controversies attendant to quotas in educational activity in Africa. The second role presents a general overview of the discourse on MTE and culminates in a synopsis of MTE in Republic of kenya. The third part discusses main teacher education in Kenya every bit well equally the quota organization in Kenya's education. Role four interrogates the positive office that is played past main instructor education and the quota system in MTE in Republic of kenya. The final part highlights policy and pragmatic lessons that can be drawn from the positive role of quality primary teacher education and the quota organization in MTE in Republic of kenya.
Linguistic communication management: exploratory word of theory and practice
Linguistic communication management theory and practice have long been developing. A key figure in the epistemology of language management theory and exercise is J. V. Neustupny, who has written extensively on the subjects since the 1960s (cf. Neustupny [1968]; [1978]; [1983]; [1984]; [1985]; [1989a]; [1989b]; [1993]; [1995]; [1999]). Other contributions to this theory and practice include Mwaniki ([2004]) and Spolsky ([2009]).
According to Neustupny and Nekvapil ([2003]), language management theory originates in the "language correction" theory adult in the 1970s and 1980s mainly past Neustupny and Jernudd, and it grew as an extension and adjustment of language planning theory. In this theory, the word direction refers to a wide range of acts of attention to "linguistic communication problems". In the language planning theory of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s "language problems" were problems of language in the narrow sense of the word. "Current linguistic communication management theory aims to incorporate not only the whole of language, defined in the traditional narrow sense, but a broad range of additional bug implicating soapbox and communication in intercultural contact situations" (Neustupny and Nekvapil [2003], p. 185. Further, Neustupny and Nekvapil ([2003]) distinguish between uncomplicated and organised management of language. Linguistic communication management theory maintains that, in principle, language problems originate in simple management and from in that location they are transferred to organised management. Finally, "the results of organised management are once again transferred to discourse: without correcting individual discourse, the whole management process would brand little sense" (Neustupny and Nekvapil [2003]), p. 185.
The second prominent feature of linguistic communication management theory, according to (Neustupny and Nekvapil [2003]), pp. 185 – 186, is its processuality (Neustupny and Nekvapil [2003]), p. 185. Both elementary and organised management are seen as developing in a number of stages. They embark with the difference from the norm, with different participants often possessing different norms or 'expectations'. Following the deviation stage, the difference may be noted: a noted divergence may exist evaluated, and subsequently an adjustment plan selected. In the last stage, the program may exist implemented. The third feature of linguistic communication management theory is the establishment of a hierarchy between language (in the narrow sense), communication and socioeconomic management. "Language management alone makes lilliputian sense. A fourth feature is the insistence on the recognition of the multiplicity of interests inside a community. Language direction is not a valueless, objective 'scientific' process" (Neustupny and Nekvapil [2003]), p. 186.
Mwaniki ([2004]) identifies four aspects of such a framework, namely: the theory; the method; the discipline; and the do. Language management theory is a complex of theoretical precepts deriving from decision-making theory, sociological and linguistic theories, modernisation theory, systems theory, disquisitional theory, management theory, phenomenology and human evolution theory, all seeking to understand and explain the interactive dynamics of linguistic communication in society and language and society. Linguistic communication management theory, especially in multilingual societies, aims at formulating approaches that can be deployed to accost language-related challenges.
Language management method is both a complex of methods and a particular way of doing linguistic and social science. As a subject area, language management is an organized body of cognition that preoccupies itself with questions relating to the theoretical adequacy of language policy and planning theory and method; and how these bear on on language policy and planning implementation, especially in multilingual settings. Every bit a exercise, language direction is a disquisitional and creative deployment of strategies designed to accost linguistic communication-related challenges and harness linguistic communication resources, particularly in multilingual settings. As such, its ultimate goal is the enlargement of people'southward choices, whether at the macro levels of governance, development and commonwealth or at the micro levels of individual liberty and advocacy, and service admission broadly divers.
Another contribution to language direction theory and practice is Spolsky ([2009]). In this contribution that takes a processual arroyo that conceptualises language management theory and practice equally a logical development from language policy and planning theory and practice, Spolsky ([2009]) submits that language policy is all about choices and the goal of a theory of language policy is to account for the choices fabricated by individual speakers on the basis of rule-governed patterns recognised by the speech communication community (or communities) of which they are members. "Some of these choices are the effect of management, reflecting conscious and explicit efforts past language managers to control the choices" (Spolsky [2009]), p. ane. Farther, language management requires a detailed understanding of multilingualism and social structure, as well as of multidimensional social and demographic space (Spolsky [2009]), p. 260.
Inside the context of the current word, mother tongue didactics is understood to comprehend the employ of mother tongues for the educational activity of children in formal institutions, i.e. schools. This view does not imply that the crucial part of non-formal institutions like the home and neighbourhood in female parent natural language instruction is not best-selling. Rather, the view is deliberate because of the variables under consideration in this discussion – quality teacher pedagogy and the quota system; and how these two variables bear upon on MTE. Admittedly, quality teacher education and the quota system intersect with MTE inside formal institutions, i.e. schools.
Quotas in instruction in Africa: debates and controversies
The debate on quotas, divers as differential access policies (Gould [1974]), in African education has been live and well for every bit long as formal pedagogy has been around on the continent. Considering for a fact that in many parts of Africa formal education is, in the words of Foster ([1980]), p. 201 perhaps the most important contemporary machinery of stratification and redistribution and does not just only reverberate extant patterns of social and economic differentiation, just rather powerful independent forces in the creation of new and emergent groupings based on the variable possession of power, wealth, and prestige; these policies accept also been accompanied past a fair share of controversies. As a manner of introducing the discussion on quotas subsequently in the commodity, some of the debates and controversies around quotas in didactics in Africa as found in the literature are sampled in this section. The discussion ends with a mention of how the quota organisation works in practise in Kenyan education.
In 1 of the earliest studies to ever explore the issue of quotas in African education, Clignet ([1970]), p. 431 – 432 documents that in pre-independence Africa, many territories tried to obtain an ethnically even distribution of school populations by introducing a arrangement of ethnic quotas or by placing new schools in regions predominantly occupied by underprivileged peoples. As such, from the inception of formal education systems in Africa, the contend on quotas and concomitant policies have largely been framed in political terms. With regard to this, and with a specific reference to Eastern Africa, Gould (ibid, p. 374) notes that 'opportunity to attend schools varies considerably from ane expanse of each state to some other and from one ethic and social group to some other. A central political issue has, therefore, been concerned with promoting geographical and social equality of opportunity by reducing considerable regional and social disparities in admission to education which exist where education is not universal'. Immediately afterward independence, such policies were seen as of import in mediating the tensions between different races and indigenous groups. This remains truthful deep into the 2nd half century of political independence in much of Africa. In other instances, a system of regional quotas is seen as having 'the effect of reducing rural/urban imbalance in admissions and creating greater opportunities for socially disadvantaged students (Gould, ibid, p. 386). Yet, to critics, quotas have been seen as 'discriminating against merit and substituting institutionalised ethnicity and regionalism' (Gould, ibid, p. 375).
Writing on trends and new priorities in economics of education in developing countries Blaug ([1979]) identifies geographical and social quotas equally a basis for educational option and ultimately as determinants for admission to pedagogy. From this perspective, quotas are associated with educational reform that seeks to set new priorities as African countries deal with successive social and economic challenges in a fast evolving global milieu. The classification of quotas into geographical (spatial) and social is also shared by Foster (ibid). However, Foster (ibid, p. 206 – 207) cautions that quotas may not be the panacea of addressing all access complexities in African pedagogy by observing that 'enquiry indicates that inequalities in the spatial distribution of education which are, in big measure, a role of variable levels of local need, practise not occur in a random or unpredictable style: they are systematically linked to other aspects of modify; they are extremely long-lasting, and not easily susceptible to major transformation; and in practice, disparities tend to widen rather than diminish at intermediate levels of development'. As such, 'the use of ethnic and socio-economic quotas is one solution, just often such measures plough out to be just as inequitable as those that they intended to remove' (Foster [1980]), p. 236.
Other inquiry such every bit Dovlo ([2004]) conceptualise quotas as a coping strategy in educating and preparation of professionals especially in societies that have a history of systemic exclusion of certain sections of society from sure professions such equally wellness care education. In such cases, quotas are used because 'pure academic merit has been faulted for producing elitist professionals because candidates coming from deprived communities with poor educational infrastructures are simply unable to compete with candidates from aristocracy urban schools' (Dovlo [2004]), p. xiii. Echoing earlier inquiry such every bit the 1 already cited, and with specific reference to Nigeria, Ukiwo ([2007]) argues that quotas in teaching are a means of ameliorating regional, ethnic and religious inequities which when unattended have a debilitating effect on the national project. From this perspective, quotas are an important mechanism in spreading access to pedagogy as well every bit serving strategic national development aspirations such as national integration and cohesion. However, Ukiwo ([2007]) is besides alive to the controversies bellboy to quotas in education in Africa including: engendering disunity and polarisation of the state; the questionable redistributive potential of quotas; and the promotion of mediocrity because oftentimes merit is sacrificed at the altar of political imperatives. These broad contours of the debates and controversies effectually quotas in education in Africa find further corroboration in Tanye ([2008]) and Morley et al. ([2009]).
Within the Kenyan teaching system quotas have been an indelible policy nexus specially in secondary and mail service-secondary education levels. At the secondary school level, as Yakaboski and Nolan ([2011]) correctly document, government schools are divided into three categories bundled in a bureaucracy with a quota organization in place for admission. At the top are the national schools that consist of a tiny minority of prestigious public funded schools, establish mostly in Republic of kenya's larger cities. And then there are provincial schools in the middle, and finally the largest and lowest ranking grouping are the commune schools. Under the national schoolhouse quota system, there must exist equal numbers of students from each district in an effort to address equal access for regional and tribal admissions. Nether the current quota system, which has been in place since the 1980s, the provincial schools must admit 85 percent of their students from their localities. And so, commune schools blot the students who exercise non perform well to join national and provincial schools. Quoting Siringi ([2011]), Yakaboski and Nolan ([2011]), p. 5 document that a consequence of this quota system is that information technology discourages parents from enrolling their children in private primary schools, which have a college educational quality, but the top national secondary schools tin can just admit 25 per centum from private schools. The quota system extends to primary teacher preparation colleges. However, the controversies bellboy to quotas in Africa'due south didactics are also manifest in debates on quotas in Kenyan education system with Opiyo ([2010]) cited in Yakaboski and Nolan ([2011]), p. 5 opining that the system perpetuates tribal and ethnic segregation rather than promoting diversity. These controversies still, the current word holds the informed view that the quota arrangement, especially as applied in primary teacher didactics especially with regard to student teacher selection and instructor deployment, is disquisitional in sustaining and promoting MTE in Kenya. The discussion returns to this argument toward the end of the article.
Mother tongue education: an overview of a discourse through time
The UNESCO meeting of specialists on the use of vernacular languages in instruction in 1951 (UNESCO [1951]), whose study was published in 1953, is easily and understandably cited as an incipient signal in the discourse on MTE. Since then, a lot of inquiry has been done on MTE and literature on the subject abounds. Reviews of this literature can be found in a sizeable percentage of works that tackle the bailiwick of MTE. It is non the purpose of the current overview to replicate these reviews. Rather, this overview seeks to outline the dominant themes in the discourse on MTE. In doing so, the following discussion attempts to propose a taxonomy that captures the width and breadth of the soapbox on MTE every bit embedded in the literature. The discussion adopts the critical, post-structuralist view of discourse as 'ways of understanding and amalgam the social globe' (Martin-Jones and De Mejia [2008]), p. xiii. For the purposes of this word, the dominant discourses in MTE tin can be identified every bit the historiographical/comparative discourse; the pedagogics/educational activity discourse; the policy soapbox; the human rights/social justice discourse; and the evolution discourse. These discourses are briefly elaborated in the following give-and-take.
Historiographical/comparative discourse
One of the dominant discourses in MTE is what can be characterised every bit the historiographical/comparative discourse. From the perspective of historiographical discourse, MTE carries the burden of history and is cognisant of this. The historiographical discourse seeks to locate MTE within historical space. In doing so, it depicts MTE as always being alive to the historical circumstances in which it has evolved; and every bit being a contributor to the historical circumstances in different polities. This soapbox underlines the linking of MTE with state germination, where the entrenchment of MTE in a country's education system is conceptualised as ane of the key mechanisms of consolidating the nation state. This view has been specially dominant in the Western conceptualisation of the inextricable relationships between language and the nation land and the role of educational activity in socialisation, commonly within a 'unilingual' state. The emergence of multiculturalism has tended to challenge this perspective, but not to replace it. In the West, multiculturalism is strongly associated with a growing realisation of the unintended social and cultural consequences of large-scale immigration. It is a term associated in principle with the values of equality, tolerance, and inclusiveness toward migrants of ethnically different backgrounds. From this perspective, multiculturalism is a social doctrine that distinguishes itself as a positive culling for policies of assimilation, connoting recognition of the citizenship rights and cultural identities of indigenous minority groups and, more generally, an affidavit of the value of cultural multifariousness (Kymlycka [1995]). Information technology is noteworthy that multiculturalism is a defining feature in the former colonised world. In this part of the globe, multiculturalism is a way of life and not an unintended social and cultural event of large-scale immigration. The historiographical discourse on MTE in the old colonised world takes cognisance of the disruptive nature of colonialism and colonial languages to the education systems of former colonial polities – with polities divers as autonomous nation-states with specific and entrenched forms of government. It uses the disruptive logic of colonialism and colonial languages as a basis to fence for the recognition and promotion of ethnic languages in education in these polities. In advancing the case for MTE in these sometime colonial polities, the historiographical discourse traces the historical circumstances attendant to the creation of different nation states and the impact of these historical circumstances on MTE; while acknowledging the pervasive multiculturalism and accompanying multilingualism in these polities and the primacy of diverseness in creating viable nation states.
Closely related to the historiographical discourse in MTE is the comparative soapbox. This discourse seeks to compare MTE regimes in different polities; and in the process identifies the challenges bellboy to actualising MTE likewise as identifying success stories. In this comparative endeavor, this soapbox is alive to the dialectics of history and MTE in different polities. This soapbox is anchored on a demand to place and consolidate an inventory of what works and what does not piece of work in MTE, while remaining cognisant of the peculiar circumstances in different polities. This discourse seeks to use both what works and what does not work for MTE as signposts for the actualisation of MTE across polities.
Pedagogics/didactics soapbox
The pedagogic-didactic discourse underlines much of MTE philosophising. In more general terms, the study of educational activity is called pedagogics. Nonetheless, specifically, pedagogics entails "a study of the phenomena of teaching, where pedagogy means the didactics of a child by a responsible developed person" (Harmse [1982]), p. thirteen. As a part-discipline of pedagogics, "didactics is scientific reflection centring on educative education-learning acts in the school and the related aspects such every bit didactic principles (teaching principles), teaching and learning materials (knowledge) evolution and didactics methods" (Duminy and Sohnge [1982]), p. 22. Among full general didactic principles, which include totality, individualisation, interest and motivation, perception, environmental teaching, and selection, mother-tongue teaching features prominently. For children, language provides the power to beginning, in a much more efficient and differentiated way, a dialogue with their world, and also with the people in their globe. Through mother tongue, a child gains a whole cultural heritage, which will, to a large extent, determine his further thinking, feelings, desires and attitudes.
The pedagogic-didactic discourse argues for the primacy of mother tongue in teaching and learning. Nonetheless, the link betwixt the role of mother tongue in teaching and learning is not a simple and straightforward one. At the offset of a school career, a child all the same has a relatively limited knowledge of mother tongue. A kid may know enough of the language for his/her ain needs at that stage, but ahead lies a great deal of hard work – not just in his/her mother tongue, but also on his female parent tongue as a subject. It is merely through purposeful and systematic teaching that the linguistic efficiency and skill brought from home can be heightened and extended. The logic of the primacy of female parent natural language in teaching and learning is premised on the understanding that mother tongue is the virtually effective vehicle or carrier of all other things that the kid is expected to larn from school. Further, mother tongue is also the footing upon which all other learning is anchored. As Duminy and Sohnge ([1982]), p. 57 observe:
When language germination is not up to standard, one cannot await much from the teaching-learning setting. First, the necessary foundation of language germination must be nowadays, and this foundation tin can never exist better laid than within the sphere of the mother tongue. Training in the mother tongue enables the socio-emotional life of the child to unfold smoothly, and at the aforementioned time helps the child towards independent and logical thinking.
Policy discourse
Policy, particularly public policy, underlies much of the research and writing around MTE. Public policy is defined as "a long serial of more or less related choices, including decisions not to act, made by governmental bodies and officials" (Dunn [1981], p. 46). According to Van Der Waldt ([2002]), pp. 87 – 88:
Policy is larger than a decision. A policy unremarkably involves a serial of more specific decisions, sometimes in a rational sequence. Even when the sequence is more erratic, a policy is typically generated by interactions amid many, more or less consciously related, decisions. The study of a policy normally involves tracing multiple interactions amidst many individuals, many groups, and many institutions. Policy also involves action besides as inaction. In other words, policy makers may fail to human activity and/or take deliberate decisions not to human action. Policy as inaction is, yet, more hard to pivot downwards and analyse than policy as action, since it involves perceived behaviour and intent. Policy can be seen every bit the overarching concept, whilst legislation or acts, regulations, and instructions can exist seen as purpose- and procedure-specific derivatives of public policy.
Underpinned by policy discourse, much of MTE research and literature has preoccupied itself with the following:
- i.
A description of policies, often language-in-didactics policies, which inform MTE in many a polity.
- two.
A description of the factors that underlie MTE policies in different polities.
- 3.
A prescriptive rendition of what should be the best MTE policy for different polities.
- iv.
A bemoaning of the lack of appropriate MTE policies in different polities.
A singular failure of MTE research and literature which is premised on the policy soapbox has been the lack of recognition of the political nature of public policy. In many polities, the political infrastructure is controlled by the elites. Unless it further serves the entrenchment of their power, elites exercise not implement policies that seek to undercut their ability. Inasmuch as the foregoing is the dominion of the thump everywhere, it is more than apparent in the developing earth. In these polities, elites [who are frequently a creation of an educational, economic and political system premised on Western values] oft use mother natural language for political mobilisation, just revert dorsum to other languages, especially Western languages, for the business organisation of governance. In infrequent cases where elites agitate for MTE, equally is the case with the Afrikaner elite in South Africa, it is because the educational, political and economic fortunes of these elite are inextricably tied to their female parent tongue. Regrettably, to many developing earth aristocracy, mother tongue does not feature in the project of modernising their countries. The masses in the developing world also view mother natural language with suspicion – as a way of confining them to the lower echelons of educational, political and economic achievement. This is a sad state of affairs, but information technology is the case. To opposite this trend in the developing world, in that location is need for MTE inquiry that understands the intricacies of public policy processes that underpin MTE with the view of illustrating that MTE does non necessarily undermine the power of the elites, but rather serves the greater good of preparing the agile citizens in a modernising democratic country.
Man rights/social justice soapbox
The thought of human rights is one of the most powerful in contemporary social and political discourse. It seeks to overcome divisiveness and sectarianism and to unite people of different cultural and religious traditions in a single movement asserting homo values and the universality of humanity, at a fourth dimension when such values are seen to exist under threat from the forces of economic globalisation and religious fanaticism. The idea of human rights, by its very appeal to universally applicable ideas of the values of humanity, seems to resonate across cultures and traditions and represents an important rallying cry for those seeking to bring about a more only, peaceful and sustainable world (Ife [2001]).
An important aspect in classifying any claim as a human right is that anything classified as a human correct has priority over other claims of right. To make a claim on the ground of human being rights, the post-obit criteria must exist met:
- i.
Realisation of the claimed correct is necessary for a person or group to exist able to achieve their total humanity, in common with others.
- 2.
The claimed right is seen either as applying to all of humanity, and is something that the person or group challenge the right wishes to apply to all people anywhere, or equally applying to people from specific disadvantaged or marginalised groups for whom realisation of that correct is essential to their achieving their full human potential.
- three.
There is substantial universal consensus on the legitimacy of the claimed right; it cannot be chosen a 'human correct' unless there is widespread back up for it beyond cultural and other divides.
- iv.
It is possible for the claimed right to be finer realised for all legitimate claimants. This excludes rights to things that are in express supply.
- v.
The claimed right does not contradict other rights (Ife [2001]), pp. 10 – xi.
The above criteria take largely framed the human being rights discourse in MTE. MTE is claimed as existence necessary for a person or a group (particularly the minorities and the marginalised) to exist able to achieve their full humanity, in common with others. MTE is likewise seen as applying to all humanity and it is desired for all people anywhere and everywhere. Further, the man rights discourse in MTE holds the view that MTE is essential for people from the minorities and the marginalised to attain full man potential. Proponents of the human rights discourse in MTE have been able to mobilise back up to the extent that in that location is substantial universal consensus on the legitimacy of MTE as a human right. They farther argue that with proper institutional support, especially from governments, it is possible for MTE equally a human right to be realised for all legitimate claimants, especially at the foundational years of education; and that the right to MTE does not contradict other rights.
Closely related to the man rights discourse in MTE is the social justice discourse. Essentially social justice relates to the principle that every endeavour should be fabricated to ensure that individuals and groups all enjoy fair admission to rewards. It is nearly creating a more equitable, respectful and just guild for everyone. All the same, social justice is not necessarily about equality. It tin can be about providing equal opportunities to access an diff reward structure. In a society committed to the ideals of social justice, it is recognised that off-white treatment and equal opportunities for everyone tin but be brought about by imposing restrictions on the behaviour of some individuals or groups (Furlong and Cartmel [2009]), pp. 3 – 4. From a social justice discourse perspective, MTE is a way of ensuring individuals and groups enjoy fair admission to education in a mode that is equitable, respectful and just for anybody.
Development discourse
Some other compelling discourse in MTE is the evolution discourse, both in its traditional nuance that conceptualised development every bit 'modernisation' and the gimmicky nuance of development as 'human being evolution'. Modernisation posited that all societies' progress in a linear fashion from a traditional state to modernity, with models of development based on historical processes that had taken place in the industrialised world. Historically, modernisation is the procedure of change towards those types of social, economic and political systems that have adult in Western and North America from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth and have spread to other European countries and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the South American, Asian and African continents. To the newly contained nations of the Third Earth, it held out the promise of a guided transition to the land of developed industrial social club. This perspective embodies a simplistic dichotomy between the traditional and the modern, with modernisation depicted equally the process of moving from the former to the latter (Haines [2009]). Co-ordinate to UNDP ([1999]), pp. 15–16:
Human evolution can simply be seen every bit a procedure of enlarging choices. Every day, human beings make a series of choices – some economic, some social, some political, some cultural. If people are the proper focus of development efforts, then these efforts should be geared to enhancing the range of choices in all areas of human endeavor for every man existence. Homo development is both a procedure and an upshot. It is concerned with the procedure through which choices are enlarged, merely it likewise focuses on the outcomes of enhanced choices. Human development thus defined represents a simple notion, but one with far-reaching implications. Development of the people involves building man capacities through the evolution of human resources. Development for the people implies that the benefits of growth must be translated into the lives of people, and development by the people emphasises that people must be able to participate actively in the processes that shape their lives.
The traditional nuance of evolution as 'modernisation' explains why in many polities in the developing world MTE is merely for the first few years of schooling earlier transition to education in other languages, usually western languages. Within this framework, MTE is conceptualised as being a simplistic only necessary forerunner of didactics in western languages. This orientation to evolution which informs many an educational activity system in the developing world accounts for the crises of MTE in developing earth polities. Human development on its part accounts for the renewed interest in MTE in many polities in the developing world. MTE is conceptualised as an integral part of enlarging people's choices inside and exterior the education arrangement.
Mother tongue education in Kenya – an overview through time
All the discourses outlined in the previous section are manifest in MTE literature and enquiry on Kenya. An issue that is besides evident in the MTE literature and inquiry on Kenya as Bunyi ([2005]), p. 131 aptly points out is that:
As in about all African countries, the hegemony of the colonial linguistic communication English in educational activity has remained an enduring legacy of colonialism in Kenya. Current medium-of-instruction policy in Kenya is that in linguistically homogenous schoolhouse neighbourhoods, the ethnic language of the area is to be used from standard 1 – 3; in linguistically heterogeneous school neighbourhoods, such as is the instance in urban areas, the national language Kiswahili or English is to be used. Where ethnic languages or Kiswahili are used every bit the medium of education from standard 1 – 3, a switch to English is to be made at the beginning of standard iv.
The higher up MTE scenario in Kenya is a consequence of cumulative policy omissions and commissions through fourth dimension. Mbaabu ([1996]) provides a cursory overview of these by documenting that the Phelps Stokes Commission of 1924 recommended the use of but 4 female parent tongues for education in Kenya. These were Kiswahili, Dholuo, Luhyia and Gikuyu. Afterward on, Nandi was added to cater for all Kalenjin languages. These languages were very few given that the country has approximately forty singled-out languages. To cater for the whole country, each of the above mentioned languages had to be used past other related language communities. For example, Kiswahili had to be used in the whole of the Coast Province and Gikuyu had to be used past Kikamba, Kimeru and Kiembu speakers. Equally the need to use other languages of instruction dictated, more mother tongues were added to the list. This was the case with the Beecher Report published in 1949. The committee under Archdeacon Beecher had been established to inquire into such bug every bit the scope, content and methods of African education. The report, which was accepted by the Government in 1950, recommended that textbooks be provided in eight mother tongues (as well Kiswahili). The mother tongues were Kidawida, Kikamba, Gikuyu, Maasai, Kimeru, Nandi (Kalenjin) Oluluyia (Luhyia) and Dholuo. Other languages recognised by the Beecher Report are Giriama, Pokot, Galla, Sagalla, Taveta, Suk, Kisii, Tende, Tesiot, Boran, Turkana, and Somali. For these languages the Beecher Written report recommended that textbooks be translated for initial stages only. This tradition of using a few mother tongues and increasing the number as the need dictates has been followed up to now. The T.Grand.K (Tujifunze Kusoma Kikwetu – Let us learn our mother tongue) serial were introduced in 15 female parent tongues in 1968. The xv mother tongues are: Tesiot, Dholuo, Ekegusii, Gikuyu, Igikuria, Kalenjin, Kidawida, Kigiryama, Kiswahili, Kikamba, Kimeru, Lulogooli, Lubukusu, Oluluyia and Maasai. The assumption was and still is that the smaller female parent tongues would be catered for by larger closely related ones. Currently, a full of 20-two female parent tongues have been identified for employ in the education system in Kenya. They include: Tesiot, Dholuo, Ekegusii, Gikuyu, Igikuria, Kalenjin, Kidawida, Kigiryama, Kiswahili, Kikamba, Kimeru, Lulogooli, Lubukusu, Oluluyia, Maasai, Elmaa, Pokot, Sabawoot, Ngaturkana, Somali, Ludirichi, and Kiembu.
Chief teacher instruction in Republic of kenya
Since independence in 1963, the Regime of Kenya has committed itself to the provision of adequate, properly trained and motivated master school teachers. In this respect, the Kenya Pedagogy Commission Report of 1964 (commonly known as the Ominde Commission) and subsequent education reports and policy documents have all reiterated the importance of matching teacher supply from diverse preparation institutions with the demand in educational institutions. The Sessional Newspaper No. 6 of 1988 on Education and Manpower Training for the Adjacent Decade and Across, in particular, put pregnant accent on quality teacher training. The Sessional Paper No. 1 of 2005 also paid attention to constructive teacher evolution and utilisation (Ministry of Education, Science and Engineering science – Kenya MOEST [2005]). Co-ordinate to the Kenya Education Sector Support Plan (2005 – 2010), there are 21 public master teachers' training colleges (TTCs) having an enrolment of about 17,000 students and an annual production rate of near 8,500 teachers. This almanac output is most at par with the annual attrition rate which is estimated at 8,000 teachers. The network of TTCs was established by government every bit office of its commitment to providing qualified, competent and adequate teachers to all primary schools in the land. TTCs are financed primarily through government grants and student subsidies. Some of them also appoint in income generating activities. However, for them to operate commonly, the government, through the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), meets the tutors' remuneration and provides grants for tuition supplies, teaching practice and salaries for Board of Governors (BOG) employees. The list of TTCs in Kenya is shown in Table one.
Mbaabu ([1996]), p. 22 citing Mutua [1987], p.11) documents that "the Republic of kenya primary instructor education curriculum consists of the following 13 subjects: Professional studies; English; Mathematics; Science; Art and Arts and crafts; Physical Education; Religious Pedagogy (Christian and Islamic); Home Scientific discipline; Music; Kiswahili; Geography, History and Civics (A combined course); Business Teaching; and Agronomics". The core courses among these are: Professional studies, English, Kiswahili, Religious Studies, Mathematics, Science and Physical Teaching. The optional subjects or electives are History, Geography, Agriculture, Home Scientific discipline, Music, and Arts and crafts. In add-on to the cadre subjects, each student is expected to accept three optional subjects in the 2d year. This curriculum was first introduced in 1986 and later on revised in 1994 and in 2004 subsequently the review of primary school curriculum. "The revised curriculum also addresses emerging issues in guild such as: HIV and AIDS pandemic; drug and substance abuse; ecology teaching; human rights including children's rights; gender issues; technology in curriculum delivery; and alternative models of curriculum delivery" (Ministry of Education, Science and Engineering science – Kenya MOEST [2005]), p. 125. Although some scholars contend that there should be an overt reference to pedagogics/didactics of mother tongue in the teacher-training curriculum, these are taught nether professional studies in which language pedagogy (with specific reference to English and Kiswahili linguistic communication teaching) constitutes a critical part of the curriculum.
The quota organisation in Kenya'due south education
The quota organization in Republic of kenya'southward education has been a target of disparaging critique since it was introduced in the mid 1980s. As Amutabi ([2003]) documents, the quota organization remains one of the most controversial inclusions in Kenya's education system. It was introduced into the country's education system with the selection of students to join Form One, the disbanded Course Five and colleges (diploma and certificate) every bit from 1985. It was formally endorsed in 1987. The quota system was precipitated by a number of factors, central amid them existence strategic ethno-political and economic permutations in the period immediately later on independence and the post Jomo Kenyatta presidency era. President Jomo Kenyatta, whose ethnic group, the Kikuyu (mainly confined in Central Province), had developed the best schools had just been succeeded by President Moi, whose ethnic group, the Kalenjin (mainly confined in the Rift Valley Province), and others similar Western and Coast Provinces has perhaps the worst schools in the whole nation. For case, during Kenyatta's time in 1977, of the xi secondary schools that took most students to university, v, namely Kagumo (92), Thika (76), Alliance Boys (72), Brotherhood Girls (60) and Nyeri (48), were in Central Province. Kagumo with 92 had more qualifiers to university that twelvemonth than the whole of Western Province schools that had a combined total of 87. After a few years of President Moi's rule, the fortunes of other provinces has changed vis-Ã -vis Central Province equally the President had helped in edifice the best schools in the country especially amid his ethnic grouping. Kabarak, Sacho, Moi Girls-Eldoret, Kapsabet Boys, Kipsigis Girls, Kabarnet Boys, Kapkenda Girls, were emergent giants and however the positions in these schools were being shared deservedly by students from areas like Central Province that were previously privileged, hence perpetuating the imbalance. This had to end and the Kikuyu had to be curtailed by confining them to Cardinal Province if the other areas had to grab up.
A 1985 Presidential directive therefore stipulated that each school admits 85% of its students from the local area. This later on became policy for the Ministry building of Education. It was pointed out by the politicians that this new directive would give the local people an opportunity to fully develop the schools in their region, knowing that they would benefit them more than everyone else. But this was a negation of the policy of national integration that was recommended in the Ominde Report of 1964 and to which the education planners had been committed since independence. It had said that local schools were likely to produce strong local and tribal feelings, which are destructive of a sense of nationhood. Amutabi ([2003]) further documents that the quota system promotes regionalism because it encourages localised approaches to issues and it provides the incubation and fertile basis for regional or ethnic nationalism. In an interesting commentary on the impact of the quota organisation on language-in-education in Kenya, Amutabi ([2003]), p. 135 submits that "the quota organization is blamed for the creeping of colloquial into secondary schools at a very alarming rate. The poor performance in English language exams at the national level tin find explanation in this policy".
While acknowledging the import of Amutabi's ([2003]) analysis, the electric current discussion does non subscribe to the deductions which can be characterised as simplistic. At that place are many contingent factors that contribute to the increment in indigenous consciousness and poor performance in strange languages even in polities that do non have a quota system in identify. If anything, contemporary inquiry characterises development trajectories that are overly centralised [the anti-thesis of a quota arrangement] as being responsible for "rootless growth" – which causes people's cultural identity to wither. In some cases minority cultures are being swamped by dominant cultures whose power has been amplified by growth. In other cases governments have deliberately imposed uniformity in the pursuit of nation-building – say, with a national language. This can be unsafe. The violence in the former Soviet Union and in the Balkan states of the quondam Yugoslavia is a tragic legacy of culturally repressive governance. The nations that take held together best, from Switzerland to Malaysia, are oft those that take recognised cultural diverseness and decentralised economic and political governance to endeavor and encounter the aspirations of all their people (UNDP [1996]), p. 4. It is from this perspective of the viability of decentralised/devolved governance structures that the quota organisation in Kenya's education system is conceptualised every bit a positive element that can be harnessed for MTE.
Principal teacher education and the quota system in MTE discourses in Republic of kenya
Two factors contribute to the maintenance of quality in chief instructor grooming in Kenya. First, curriculum development, monitoring and evaluation are centrally managed past the Kenya Institute of Educational activity (KIE). This ensures a uniform implementation of the curriculum in all the 21 TTCs. Secondly, qualification examinations for all TTCs, which are centrally administered, are the sole preserve of the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC). These 2 factors ensure that, save for private attributes; a primary school teacher in Kenya is as good as the next ane. The implication of these ii factors to MTE in Kenya is that all primary schoolhouse teachers are professionally prepared in a standardised way to actualise MTE.
The quota system can be harnessed in support of MTE in Kenya in two key ways. Starting time, because the quota system is used in the recruitment of teacher trainees it ensures that all Kenya'due south linguistic communities are represented in the cohort of approximately 8,500 teacher trainees who join and graduate from the 21 TTCs every year. This translates to having all the female parent tongues spoken in Kenya represented in the main teacher grooming system. In effect, every linguistic community in Republic of kenya has a pool of qualified primary school teachers who can finer teach mother natural language and teach in mother tongue. The net result of this dynamic is that teachers from Kenyan TTCs can teach effectively in their own mother tongues. Secondly, with the quota system being in place in the recruitment of teachers where the responsibleness of teacher recruitment is delegated to school committees of primary schools, the tendency of school committees is to recruit teachers who hail from the catchment area of the school. The probability of such teachers being conversant with the language of the catchment surface area (effectively the designated mother tongue of the school) is very loftier.
Conclusions (policy and pragmatic lessons)
In the introduction it was observed that in line with the cadre preoccupation of language management of seeking to codify approaches and/or frameworks that tin can exist deployed to harness language resources in society, quality chief teacher education and the quota system tin can be harnessed to address the MTE quandary in Kenya, and possibly elsewhere. The preceding discussion illustrates this observation. The word also brings to the fore the following:
- i.
Linguistic communication management provides a versatile framework of interrogating the dynamics bellboy to language in gild in general and language-in-didactics specifically.
- ii.
Soapbox is an important construction in interrogating phenomena. Information technology is critical in seeking to understand and analyse language-in-education dynamics in full general and MTE in particular.
- iii.
Quality principal instructor educational activity is a basic requirement in actualising MTE in any polity.
- iv.
The notion of quotas, controversial as it may be, can exist harnessed to positively advance MTE agenda.
- v.
There is need for ethnographic and phenomenological enquiry to investigate and document what works and what does not piece of work for MTE in different polities.
MTE discourse is critical and is leap to remain so for a long time especially in the developing world. That this is the case is hardly surprising for every bit Mwaniki ([2010]) pointedly submits, more than than a century later the onset of the colonial project in much of the developing world that has unequivocally sought to replicate the ethnolinguistic homogenisation project of Western and Fundamental Europe, it can safely be submitted that this projection has failed to produce the 'desired' results of ethnolinguistic homogenisation. Despite polities in the developing world pursuing unilingual and/or bilingual policies which are largely inimical to MTE, multilingualism has not vanished in this part of the globe. Information technology may just be fourth dimension to acknowledge failure of the ethnolinguistic homogenisation project of the final 100 years; and the viability and resilience of multilingualism the developing globe. Such an acknowledgement will signal a new dawn for MTE in the developing globe. A resurgent MTE discourse will greatly do good from language direction.
Author's data
Munene Mwaniki holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of the Free State, South Africa. Currently he is a Senior Lecturer/Researcher at the Department of Linguistics & Language Practice, University of the Gratis State - Bloemfontein, Republic of South Africa. His inquiry focuses on sociolinguistics and Linguistic communication Management in Africa.
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Mwaniki, M. Mother tongue education in chief instructor education in Kenya: a language management critique of the quota system. Multiling.Ed. four, 11 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13616-014-0011-4
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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13616-014-0011-4
Keywords
- Linguistic communication Policy
- Female parent Tongue
- Chief School Teacher
- Fundamental Province
- Ethnic Linguistic communication
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