Does the Use of the Mother Tongue Leads to Poor Performance in Language Arts in Primary School
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Female parent tongue educational activity in primary instructor teaching in Kenya: a language management critique of the quota arrangement
Multilingual Education volume iv, Article number:11 (2014) Cite this article
Abstract
Mother tongue education (MTE) has been a bailiwick of rigorous debate for more than one-half a century, in both industrialised and developing societies. Despite disparate views on MTE, there is an uneasy consensus on its importance in educational systems, peculiarly in the foundational years. Using the Language Management Framework, the article provides a critical appraisal of MTE discourses in relation to principal instructor education and the quota organization of student teacher option and instructor deployment in Kenya. The commodity argues that from a language management perspective, these two mechanisms are critical in sustaining and promoting MTE in Kenya, and possibly elsewhere.
Introduction
Despite many studies that show that it makes practiced sense to brainstorm a child's didactics in his or her own language, the age-old tradition of educational activity a kid in a language other than the beginning language or educational activity in a child's commencement language only in the lower classes of chief schoolhouse all the same persists in many African countries. This practice has led to poor scholastic attainment, oft manifested in high repeat or failure charge per unit, poor performance in examinations, and maladjustment to the globe of work. Marginalisation of African languages is an inevitable upshot since they are not used for meaningful teaching. A look at other parts of the world shows that what goes on in Africa in terms of linguistic communication of education is an abnormality. Even small countries in Europe utilise their languages as languages of instruction, even if the children accept to acquire another language such as English or French. This is not just 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 accept been advocating for Africa. The fears of a multiplicity of languages and the uneconomic cost of instruction in several languages, which are often invoked to counter the feasibility of education in indigenous languages, have been shown to exist pseudo problems, as strategies can be, and have been, devised for pick and development of languages equally well as for product of teaching materials at relatively reasonable cost (Bamgbose [2009], p. 13).
The above quotation easily sums upwards Mother Tongue Pedagogy (hereafter, MTE) quandary in many an African land. The article interrogates this quandary in Kenya from a language direction perspective. From this perspective, primary teacher educational activity and the quota system are identified as approaches and/or frameworks that can be harnessed to accost the MTE quandary in Kenya, and possibly elsewhere.
The discussion is presented in five parts. The first function presents the theory and practice of language direction and an overview of the debates and controversies bellboy to quotas in education in Africa. The 2d part presents a general overview of the discourse on MTE and culminates in a synopsis of MTE in Kenya. The third part discusses principal teacher education in Kenya equally well every bit the quota organization in Kenya'due south education. Role four interrogates the positive part that is played by master teacher education and the quota system in MTE in Kenya. The final part highlights policy and pragmatic lessons that can be fatigued from the positive office of quality primary teacher education and the quota system in MTE in Republic of kenya.
Language management: exploratory discussion of theory and practice
Linguistic communication direction theory and practice have long been developing. A key figure in the epistemology of language management theory and practice 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 linguistic communication planning theory. In this theory, the word management refers to a wide range of acts of attention to "language problems". In the language planning theory of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s "language problems" were issues of language in the narrow sense of the word. "Electric current language management theory aims to incorporate non only the whole of language, defined in the traditional narrow sense, simply a wide range of additional problems implicating discourse and communication in intercultural contact situations" (Neustupny and Nekvapil [2003], p. 185. Further, Neustupny and Nekvapil ([2003]) distinguish between simple and organised management of linguistic communication. Linguistic communication management theory maintains that, in principle, language problems originate in simple management and from at that place they are transferred to organised direction. Finally, "the results of organised management are again transferred to soapbox: without correcting private discourse, the whole management procedure would brand petty sense" (Neustupny and Nekvapil [2003]), p. 185.
The second prominent feature of language management theory, co-ordinate to (Neustupny and Nekvapil [2003]), pp. 185 – 186, is its processuality (Neustupny and Nekvapil [2003]), p. 185. Both simple and organised management are seen as developing in a number of stages. They commence with the deviation from the norm, with different participants often possessing unlike norms or 'expectations'. Post-obit the difference stage, the departure may be noted: a noted departure may exist evaluated, and subsequently an aligning plan selected. In the last phase, the plan may be implemented. The third feature of linguistic communication management theory is the establishment of a bureaucracy between linguistic communication (in the narrow sense), communication and socioeconomic management. "Language direction alone makes little sense. A quaternary characteristic is the insistence on the recognition of the multiplicity of interests within a customs. Linguistic communication management 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 practice. Language management theory is a complex of theoretical precepts deriving from decision-making theory, sociological and linguistic theories, modernisation theory, systems theory, critical theory, direction theory, phenomenology and human development theory, all seeking to sympathize and explain the interactive dynamics of linguistic communication in society and language and society. Language management theory, especially in multilingual societies, aims at formulating approaches that can be deployed to accost language-related challenges.
Linguistic communication management method is both a circuitous of methods and a particular fashion of doing linguistic and social science. As a subject field, language management is an organized trunk of knowledge that preoccupies itself with questions relating to the theoretical adequacy of language policy and planning theory and method; and how these bear upon on language policy and planning implementation, especially in multilingual settings. Every bit a practice, language management is a critical and creative deployment of strategies designed to address language-related challenges and harness linguistic communication resources, specially in multilingual settings. As such, its ultimate goal is the enlargement of people's choices, whether at the macro levels of governance, development and democracy or at the micro levels of private liberty and advancement, and service admission broadly defined.
Another contribution to linguistic communication management theory and practice is Spolsky ([2009]). In this contribution that takes a processual arroyo that conceptualises language direction theory and practice as a logical evolution from language policy and planning theory and practice, Spolsky ([2009]) submits that language policy is all nearly choices and the goal of a theory of language policy is to account for the choices made by individual speakers on the basis of dominion-governed patterns recognised by the voice communication community (or communities) of which they are members. "Some of these choices are the result of direction, reflecting conscious and explicit efforts past linguistic communication managers to control the choices" (Spolsky [2009]), p. 1. Further, language management requires a detailed understanding of multilingualism and social structure, also as of multidimensional social and demographic space (Spolsky [2009]), p. 260.
Within the context of the current discussion, mother tongue education is understood to encompass the use of mother tongues for the education of children in formal institutions, i.e. schools. This view does not imply that the crucial function of non-formal institutions similar the home and neighbourhood in female parent tongue education is not acknowledged. Rather, the view is deliberate considering of the variables under consideration in this discussion – quality instructor education and the quota system; and how these two variables touch on MTE. Admittedly, quality teacher education and the quota system intersect with MTE within formal institutions, i.e. schools.
Quotas in education in Africa: debates and controversies
The debate on quotas, defined as differential access policies (Gould [1974]), in African education has been alive and well for as long as formal education 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 mechanism of stratification and redistribution and does not just simply reflect extant patterns of social and economic differentiation, only rather powerful independent forces in the creation of new and emergent groupings based on the variable possession of power, wealth, and prestige; these policies have also been accompanied by a off-white share of controversies. Every bit a way of introducing the discussion on quotas later in the article, some of the debates and controversies around quotas in education in Africa as found in the literature are sampled in this section. The discussion ends with a mention of how the quota organization works in practice in Kenyan education.
In one of the earliest studies to e'er explore the upshot of quotas in African education, Clignet ([1970]), p. 431 – 432 documents that in pre-independence Africa, many territories tried to obtain an ethnically fifty-fifty distribution of school populations past introducing a system of ethnic quotas or by placing new schools in regions predominantly occupied by underprivileged peoples. As such, from the inception of formal didactics systems in Africa, the debate on quotas and concomitant policies accept 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 i expanse of each country 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 access to teaching which exist where education is not universal'. Immediately after independence, such policies were seen as important in mediating the tensions between different races and ethnic groups. This remains true deep into the second one-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). However, to critics, quotas have been seen equally 'discriminating confronting merit and substituting institutionalised ethnicity and regionalism' (Gould, ibid, p. 375).
Writing on trends and new priorities in economics of teaching in developing countries Blaug ([1979]) identifies geographical and social quotas every bit a basis for educational selection and ultimately as determinants for access to educational activity. From this perspective, quotas are associated with educational reform that seeks to ready new priorities as African countries deal with successive social and economic challenges in a fast evolving global milieu. The nomenclature of quotas into geographical (spatial) and social is too shared by Foster (ibid). However, Foster (ibid, p. 206 – 207) cautions that quotas may non be the panacea of addressing all access complexities in African teaching by observing that 'research indicates that inequalities in the spatial distribution of didactics which are, in large measure, a function of variable levels of local demand, do not occur in a random or unpredictable fashion: 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 turn out to be simply as inequitable as those that they intended to remove' (Foster [1980]), p. 236.
Other research such every bit Dovlo ([2004]) conceptualise quotas every bit a coping strategy in educating and training of professionals peculiarly in societies that take a history of systemic exclusion of sure sections of social club from certain professions such every bit health 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 just unable to compete with candidates from aristocracy urban schools' (Dovlo [2004]), p. 13. Echoing earlier enquiry such every bit the one already cited, and with specific reference to Nigeria, Ukiwo ([2007]) argues that quotas in teaching are a ways of ameliorating regional, indigenous and religious inequities which when unattended take a debilitating issue on the national project. From this perspective, quotas are an of import machinery in spreading admission to teaching likewise as serving strategic national development aspirations such as national integration and cohesion. Withal, Ukiwo ([2007]) is too alive to the controversies attendant to quotas in education in Africa including: engendering disunity and polarisation of the country; 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 around quotas in education in Africa detect farther corroboration in Tanye ([2008]) and Morley et al. ([2009]).
Within the Kenyan teaching system quotas take been an indelible policy nexus particularly in secondary and post-secondary education levels. At the secondary school level, equally Yakaboski and Nolan ([2011]) correctly certificate, government schools are divided into iii categories arranged in a hierarchy with a quota system in place for access. At the top are the national schools that consist of a tiny minority of prestigious public funded schools, found mostly in Kenya's larger cities. Then there are provincial schools in the middle, and finally the largest and lowest ranking group are the district schools. Under the national school quota system, in that location must be equal numbers of students from each district in an effort to address equal admission for regional and tribal admissions. Under the current quota organisation, which has been in place since the 1980s, the provincial schools must admit 85 percent of their students from their localities. And so, district schools absorb the students who practise not 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 it discourages parents from enrolling their children in individual primary schools, which have a college educational quality, merely the top national secondary schools can only admit 25 pct from private schools. The quota organization extends to chief teacher training colleges. Still, the controversies attendant to quotas in Africa's education are as well manifest in debates on quotas in Kenyan teaching arrangement with Opiyo ([2010]) cited in Yakaboski and Nolan ([2011]), p. v opining that the organisation perpetuates tribal and ethnic segregation rather than promoting diversity. These controversies notwithstanding, the current discussion holds the informed view that the quota organization, specially every bit applied in primary teacher didactics especially with regard to student teacher option and teacher deployment, is critical in sustaining and promoting MTE in Kenya. The give-and-take returns to this argument toward the end of the commodity.
Mother tongue education: an overview of a soapbox through time
The UNESCO meeting of specialists on the use of vernacular languages in education in 1951 (UNESCO [1951]), whose report was published in 1953, is easily and understandably cited as an incipient point in the discourse on MTE. Since then, a lot of research has been washed on MTE and literature on the subject abounds. Reviews of this literature tin be found in a sizeable pct of works that tackle the subject of MTE. It is not the purpose of the electric current overview to replicate these reviews. Rather, this overview seeks to outline the dominant themes in the soapbox on MTE. In doing and then, the following discussion attempts to advise a taxonomy that captures the width and breadth of the discourse on MTE as embedded in the literature. The discussion adopts the critical, post-structuralist view of discourse as 'ways of understanding and constructing the social globe' (Martin-Jones and De Mejia [2008]), p. xiii. For the purposes of this discussion, the dominant discourses in MTE tin can be identified as the historiographical/comparative discourse; the pedagogics/didactics soapbox; the policy discourse; the man rights/social justice soapbox; and the development discourse. These discourses are briefly elaborated in the following give-and-take.
Historiographical/comparative soapbox
I of the dominant discourses in MTE is what can exist characterised as the historiographical/comparative soapbox. From the perspective of historiographical discourse, MTE carries the burden of history and is cognisant of this. The historiographical soapbox seeks to locate MTE within historical space. In doing and then, information technology depicts MTE as e'er being alive to the historical circumstances in which it has evolved; and as being a correspondent to the historical circumstances in different polities. This discourse underlines the linking of MTE with country germination, where the entrenchment of MTE in a land's didactics arrangement is conceptualised as one of the key mechanisms of consolidating the nation land. This view has been especially dominant in the Western conceptualisation of the inextricable relationships betwixt language and the nation country and the office of education in socialisation, usually within a 'unilingual' country. The emergence of multiculturalism has tended to challenge this perspective, only 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. Information technology is a term associated in principle with the values of equality, tolerance, and inclusiveness toward migrants of ethnically unlike backgrounds. From this perspective, multiculturalism is a social doctrine that distinguishes itself as a positive alternative for policies of absorption, connoting recognition of the citizenship rights and cultural identities of indigenous minority groups and, more generally, an affirmation of the value of cultural diversity (Kymlycka [1995]). Information technology is noteworthy that multiculturalism is a defining feature in the onetime colonised globe. In this part of the world, multiculturalism is a way of life and not an unintended social and cultural consequence of large-scale immigration. The historiographical discourse on MTE in the quondam colonised earth takes cognisance of the disruptive nature of colonialism and colonial languages to the educational activity systems of sometime colonial polities – with polities defined as democratic nation-states with specific and entrenched forms of government. Information technology uses the disruptive logic of colonialism and colonial languages as a basis to argue for the recognition and promotion of indigenous languages in education in these polities. In advancing the case for MTE in these onetime 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 diversity in creating viable nation states.
Closely related to the historiographical discourse in MTE is the comparative discourse. This soapbox seeks to compare MTE regimes in unlike polities; and in the process identifies the challenges attendant to actualising MTE likewise every bit identifying success stories. In this comparative try, this discourse is live to the dialectics of history and MTE in different polities. This discourse is anchored on a need to identify and consolidate an inventory of what works and what does not work in MTE, while remaining cognisant of the peculiar circumstances in dissimilar polities. This soapbox 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 written report of didactics is called pedagogics. However, specifically, pedagogics entails "a written report of the phenomena of pedagogy, where pedagogy ways the education of a kid by a responsible adult person" (Harmse [1982]), p. 13. As a part-subject of pedagogics, "didactics is scientific reflection centring on educative educational activity-learning acts in the school and the related aspects such as didactic principles (education principles), pedagogy and learning materials (knowledge) development and pedagogy methods" (Duminy and Sohnge [1982]), p. 22. Among general didactic principles, which include totality, individualisation, involvement and motivation, perception, environmental teaching, and selection, mother-tongue teaching features prominently. For children, language provides the ability to start, in a much more than efficient and differentiated way, a dialogue with their world, and as well with the people in their earth. Through mother natural language, a kid gains a whole cultural heritage, which will, to a big extent, determine his further thinking, feelings, desires and attitudes.
The pedagogic-didactic soapbox argues for the primacy of mother tongue in teaching and learning. However, the link between the role of mother tongue in education and learning is non a simple and straightforward i. At the get-go of a schoolhouse career, a kid still has a relatively limited knowledge of mother natural language. A child may know enough of the language for his/her ain needs at that stage, simply ahead lies a corking deal of difficult work – not only in his/her female parent natural language, but also on his mother natural language as a subject. It is merely through purposeful and systematic instruction that the linguistic efficiency and skill brought from home tin can be heightened and extended. The logic of the primacy of female parent tongue in teaching and learning is premised on the understanding that mother tongue is the most effective vehicle or carrier of all other things that the child is expected to learn from school. Farther, mother tongue is also the basis upon which all other learning is anchored. As Duminy and Sohnge ([1982]), p. 57 observe:
When linguistic communication germination is not upward to standard, one cannot expect much from the teaching-learning setting. Kickoff, the necessary foundation of linguistic communication formation must exist present, and this foundation tin never exist meliorate laid than within the sphere of the mother natural language. Training in the female parent tongue enables the socio-emotional life of the child to unfold smoothly, and at the aforementioned time helps the kid towards independent and logical thinking.
Policy discourse
Policy, specially public policy, underlies much of the research and writing around MTE. Public policy is divers equally "a long series of more or less related choices, including decisions non 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 determination. A policy usually involves a series of more specific decisions, sometimes in a rational sequence. Even when the sequence is more erratic, a policy is typically generated by interactions among many, more than or less consciously related, decisions. The written report of a policy usually involves tracing multiple interactions among many individuals, many groups, and many institutions. Policy also involves action as well as inaction. In other words, policy makers may fail to act and/or take deliberate decisions not to human action. Policy as inaction is, however, more difficult to pin down and analyse than policy equally activity, since it involves perceived behaviour and intent. Policy can exist seen as the overarching concept, whilst legislation or acts, regulations, and instructions can exist seen every bit purpose- and process-specific derivatives of public policy.
Underpinned past policy soapbox, much of MTE research and literature has preoccupied itself with the post-obit:
- i.
A description of policies, often language-in-education policies, which inform MTE in many a polity.
- ii.
A description of the factors that underlie MTE policies in dissimilar polities.
- iii.
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 dissimilar 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 farther serves the entrenchment of their power, elites do not implement policies that seek to undercut their power. Inasmuch as the foregoing is the rule of the thump everywhere, it is more credible in the developing world. In these polities, elites [who are oftentimes a creation of an educational, economic and political system premised on Western values] oft use female parent natural language for political mobilisation, only revert back to other languages, peculiarly Western languages, for the business of governance. In infrequent cases where elites arouse for MTE, as is the example with the Afrikaner elite in S Africa, it is because the educational, political and economic fortunes of these elite are inextricably tied to their mother tongue. Regrettably, to many developing world aristocracy, mother tongue does non characteristic in the project of modernising their countries. The masses in the developing world too view mother tongue with suspicion – as a way of confining them to the lower echelons of educational, political and economic achievement. This is a pitiful state of affairs, only it is the case. To reverse this tendency in the developing world, there is need for MTE research that understands the intricacies of public policy processes that underpin MTE with the view of illustrating that MTE does not necessarily undermine the ability of the elites, but rather serves the greater good of preparing the agile citizens in a modernising autonomous state.
Human rights/social justice soapbox
The idea of human rights is ane of the most powerful in gimmicky social and political soapbox. It seeks to overcome divisiveness and sectarianism and to unite people of different cultural and religious traditions in a unmarried movement asserting human values and the universality of humanity, at a time when such values are seen to be nether threat from the forces of economical 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 just, peaceful and sustainable world (Ife [2001]).
An important aspect in classifying any claim as a human being right is that anything classified as a homo right has priority over other claims of right. To make a merits on the ground of human rights, the post-obit criteria must be met:
- i.
Realisation of the claimed correct is necessary for a person or grouping to be able to achieve their full humanity, in common with others.
- two.
The claimed right is seen either as applying to all of humanity, and is something that the person or group challenge the correct wishes to utilize to all people anywhere, or as applying to people from specific disadvantaged or marginalised groups for whom realisation of that right is essential to their achieving their full human being potential.
- three.
There is substantial universal consensus on the legitimacy of the claimed right; it cannot be called a 'human right' unless there is widespread support for it across cultural and other divides.
- iv.
It is possible for the claimed right to be effectively realised for all legitimate claimants. This excludes rights to things that are in limited supply.
- v.
The claimed right does not contradict other rights (Ife [2001]), pp. 10 – 11.
The higher up criteria have largely framed the homo rights soapbox in MTE. MTE is claimed equally being necessary for a person or a grouping (especially the minorities and the marginalised) to exist able to achieve their full humanity, in common with others. MTE is as well seen as applying to all humanity and it is desired for all people anywhere and everywhere. Further, the human rights discourse in MTE holds the view that MTE is essential for people from the minorities and the marginalised to attain full human potential. Proponents of the human rights discourse in MTE have been able to mobilise support to the extent that in that location is substantial universal consensus on the legitimacy of MTE as a man right. They further argue that with proper institutional back up, peculiarly from governments, information technology is possible for MTE as a human being right to be realised for all legitimate claimants, especially at the foundational years of pedagogy; and that the correct to MTE does not contradict other rights.
Closely related to the man rights soapbox in MTE is the social justice soapbox. Substantially social justice relates to the principle that every effort should exist fabricated to ensure that individuals and groups all enjoy fair access to rewards. Information technology is about creating a more equitable, respectful and but social club for everyone. Notwithstanding, social justice is not necessarily nigh equality. It tin be almost providing equal opportunities to access an unequal reward construction. In a gild committed to the ideals of social justice, it is recognised that fair treatment and equal opportunities for everyone can but be brought well-nigh by imposing restrictions on the behaviour of some individuals or groups (Furlong and Cartmel [2009]), pp. 3 – four. From a social justice discourse perspective, MTE is a style of ensuring individuals and groups enjoy fair admission to teaching in a manner that is equitable, respectful and just for everyone.
Development discourse
Another compelling discourse in MTE is the development discourse, both in its traditional nuance that conceptualised development as 'modernisation' and the gimmicky nuance of development as 'human being development'. 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 earth. Historically, modernisation is the process of change towards those types of social, economic and political systems that have adult in Western and Northward 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 independent nations of the Tertiary World, it held out the promise of a guided transition to the state of adult 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:
Man development can only be seen every bit a process of enlarging choices. Every day, human beings brand a serial of choices – some economical, some social, some political, some cultural. If people are the proper focus of development efforts, and then these efforts should be geared to enhancing the range of choices in all areas of human endeavour for every man being. Man development is both a process and an consequence. Information technology is concerned with the process through which choices are enlarged, but information technology also focuses on the outcomes of enhanced choices. Human being development thus divers represents a unproblematic notion, merely 1 with far-reaching implications. Development of the people involves building homo capacities through the evolution of human resources. Evolution 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 every bit 'modernisation' explains why in many polities in the developing world MTE is only 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 but necessary precursor of education in western languages. This orientation to evolution which informs many an education organization in the developing globe accounts for the crises of MTE in developing world polities. Homo development on its part accounts for the renewed interest in MTE in many polities in the developing world. MTE is conceptualised equally an integral role of enlarging people's choices within and outside the education organization.
Mother tongue instruction in Kenya – an overview through time
All the discourses outlined in the previous section are manifest in MTE literature and research on Republic of kenya. An issue that is also evident in the MTE literature and inquiry on Republic of kenya as Bunyi ([2005]), p. 131 aptly points out is that:
As in virtually all African countries, the hegemony of the colonial linguistic communication English in pedagogy has remained an enduring legacy of colonialism in Kenya. Current medium-of-didactics policy in Kenya is that in linguistically homogenous school neighbourhoods, the indigenous language of the expanse is to be used from standard 1 – three; in linguistically heterogeneous school neighbourhoods, such as is the example in urban areas, the national language Kiswahili or English is to be used. Where indigenous languages or Kiswahili are used as the medium of education from standard ane – 3, a switch to English is to be made at the beginning of standard 4.
The above MTE scenario in Republic of kenya is a issue 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 apply of only iv mother tongues for educational activity in Kenya. These were Kiswahili, Dholuo, Luhyia and Gikuyu. Later on, Nandi was added to cater for all Kalenjin languages. These languages were very few given that the country has approximately forty distinct languages. To cater for the whole state, each of the above mentioned languages had to be used by other related linguistic communication communities. For example, Kiswahili had to be used in the whole of the Declension Province and Gikuyu had to be used by Kikamba, Kimeru and Kiembu speakers. Equally the demand to apply other languages of education dictated, more female parent tongues were added to the list. This was the example with the Beecher Written report published in 1949. The committee under Archdeacon Beecher had been established to inquire into such problems as the scope, content and methods of African education. The written report, which was accepted by the Government in 1950, recommended that textbooks be provided in eight mother tongues (too 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.M.Chiliad (Tujifunze Kusoma Kikwetu – Permit us learn our mother natural language) series were introduced in fifteen mother tongues in 1968. The fifteen mother tongues are: Tesiot, Dholuo, Ekegusii, Gikuyu, Igikuria, Kalenjin, Kidawida, Kigiryama, Kiswahili, Kikamba, Kimeru, Lulogooli, Lubukusu, Oluluyia and Maasai. The assumption was and nevertheless is that the smaller mother tongues would be catered for past larger closely related ones. Currently, a total of 20-2 mother tongues take been identified for apply in the educational activity organisation 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.
Primary teacher pedagogy in Kenya
Since independence in 1963, the Government of Kenya has committed itself to the provision of acceptable, properly trained and motivated primary school teachers. In this respect, the Kenya Education Commission Report of 1964 (commonly known as the Ominde Commission) and subsequent instruction reports and policy documents have all reiterated the importance of matching teacher supply from diverse training institutions with the need in educational institutions. The Sessional Newspaper No. vi of 1988 on Education and Manpower Training for the Next Decade and Beyond, in particular, put significant emphasis on quality instructor training. The Sessional Newspaper No. 1 of 2005 too paid attention to effective instructor evolution and utilisation (Ministry of Education, Scientific discipline and Engineering science – Republic of kenya MOEST [2005]). According to the Kenya Education Sector Support Program (2005 – 2010), there are 21 public primary teachers' grooming colleges (TTCs) having an enrolment of almost 17,000 students and an annual production rate of about 8,500 teachers. This annual output is near at par with the almanac attrition charge per unit which is estimated at 8,000 teachers. The network of TTCs was established by government as part 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 educatee subsidies. Some of them also appoint in income generating activities. However, for them to operate normally, the regime, through the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), meets the tutors' remuneration and provides grants for tuition supplies, pedagogy practice and salaries for Board of Governors (BOG) employees. The list of TTCs in Kenya is shown in Table ane.
Mbaabu ([1996]), p. 22 citing Mutua [1987], p.xi) documents that "the Kenya main teacher pedagogy curriculum consists of the post-obit 13 subjects: Professional studies; English; Mathematics; Science; Art and Craft; Physical Education; Religious Didactics (Christian and Islamic); Home Scientific discipline; Music; Kiswahili; Geography, History and Civics (A combined form); Business Education; and Agriculture". The core courses amidst these are: Professional studies, English, Kiswahili, Religious Studies, Mathematics, Science and Physical Education. The optional subjects or electives are History, Geography, Agronomics, Home Science, Music, and Craft. In addition to the core subjects, each student is expected to take three optional subjects in the second yr. This curriculum was first introduced in 1986 and afterwards revised in 1994 and in 2004 afterwards the review of primary schoolhouse curriculum. "The revised curriculum as well addresses emerging issues in society such every bit: HIV and AIDS pandemic; drug and substance abuse; environmental education; man rights including children's rights; gender issues; engineering science in curriculum delivery; and alternative models of curriculum delivery" (Ministry of Pedagogy, Science and Technology – Kenya MOEST [2005]), p. 125. Although some scholars argue that there should exist an overt reference to pedagogics/teaching of mother natural language in the teacher-training curriculum, these are taught under professional person studies in which linguistic communication instruction (with specific reference to English and Kiswahili language teaching) constitutes a critical part of the curriculum.
The quota system in Kenya'south education
The quota arrangement in Republic of kenya's education has been a target of disparaging critique since it was introduced in the mid 1980s. As Amutabi ([2003]) documents, the quota organization remains ane of the most controversial inclusions in Republic of kenya's education organization. It was introduced into the country'due south pedagogy system with the option of students to join Grade One, the disbanded Form Five and colleges (diploma and document) as from 1985. Information technology was formally endorsed in 1987. The quota organization was precipitated past a number of factors, cardinal amongst them beingness strategic ethno-political and economic permutations in the period immediately after independence and the post Jomo Kenyatta presidency era. President Jomo Kenyatta, whose ethnic group, the Kikuyu (mainly bars in Primal Province), had developed the best schools had only been succeeded past President Moi, whose ethnic grouping, the Kalenjin (mainly confined in the Rift Valley Province), and others like Western and Coast Provinces has peradventure the worst schools in the whole nation. For case, during Kenyatta's fourth dimension in 1977, of the eleven secondary schools that took nigh students to university, five, namely Kagumo (92), Thika (76), Brotherhood Boys (72), Brotherhood Girls (60) and Nyeri (48), were in Central Province. Kagumo with 92 had more qualifiers to university that year than the whole of Western Province schools that had a combined full of 87. After a few years of President Moi's rule, the fortunes of other provinces has changed vis-à-vis Cardinal Province as the President had helped in edifice the best schools in the land especially among his ethnic group. Kabarak, Sacho, Moi Girls-Eldoret, Kapsabet Boys, Kipsigis Girls, Kabarnet Boys, Kapkenda Girls, were emergent giants and yet the positions in these schools were being shared equitably by students from areas like Fundamental Province that were previously privileged, hence perpetuating the imbalance. This had to stop and the Kikuyu had to be curtailed by confining them to Central Province if the other areas had to catch up.
A 1985 Presidential directive therefore stipulated that each school admits 85% of its students from the local area. This subsequently on became policy for the Ministry of Pedagogy. 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 problems and it provides the incubation and fertile ground for regional or indigenous nationalism. In an interesting commentary on the impact of the quota system on linguistic communication-in-education in Kenya, Amutabi ([2003]), p. 135 submits that "the quota system is blamed for the creeping of colloquial into secondary schools at a very alarming charge per unit. The poor operation in English language exams at the national level tin find explanation in this policy".
While acknowledging the import of Amutabi'south ([2003]) analysis, the current discussion does not subscribe to the deductions which can be characterised equally simplistic. There are many contingent factors that contribute to the increase in ethnic consciousness and poor functioning in foreign languages even in polities that do not have a quota arrangement in place. If anything, contemporary research characterises development trajectories that are overly centralised [the anti-thesis of a quota organization] as existence responsible for "rootless growth" – which causes people's cultural identity to wither. In some cases minority cultures are existence swamped past ascendant cultures whose power has been amplified past growth. In other cases governments have deliberately imposed uniformity in the pursuit of nation-building – say, with a national language. This tin be unsafe. The violence in the former Soviet Spousal relationship and in the Balkan states of the former Yugoslavia is a tragic legacy of culturally repressive governance. The nations that have held together best, from Switzerland to Malaysia, are often those that have recognised cultural diverseness and decentralised economic and political governance to try and meet 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 system in Kenya's teaching system is conceptualised as a positive chemical element that can be harnessed for MTE.
Primary teacher pedagogy and the quota system in MTE discourses in Kenya
Two factors contribute to the maintenance of quality in main teacher grooming in Kenya. First, curriculum development, monitoring and evaluation are centrally managed by the Republic of kenya Institute of Education (KIE). This ensures a compatible 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 two factors ensure that, relieve for private attributes; a main school teacher in Kenya is as good every bit the next one. The implication of these ii factors to MTE in Kenya is that all primary school teachers are professionally prepared in a standardised manner to actualise MTE.
The quota organisation can be harnessed in support of MTE in Kenya in 2 fundamental ways. First, because the quota system is used in the recruitment of instructor trainees information technology ensures that all Kenya's 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 mother tongues spoken in Kenya represented in the master teacher training system. In effect, every linguistic customs in Kenya has a puddle of qualified main schoolhouse teachers who can effectively teach female parent tongue and teach in mother tongue. The net result of this dynamic is that teachers from Kenyan TTCs can teach effectively in their own female parent tongues. Secondly, with the quota system beingness in place in the recruitment of teachers where the responsibility of instructor recruitment is delegated to schoolhouse 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 existence conversant with the linguistic communication of the catchment area (effectively the designated female parent tongue of the schoolhouse) is very high.
Conclusions (policy and pragmatic lessons)
In the introduction it was observed that in line with the core preoccupation of language management of seeking to formulate approaches and/or frameworks that can be deployed to harness linguistic communication resource in society, quality primary teacher instruction and the quota system can be harnessed to address the MTE quandary in Kenya, and possibly elsewhere. The preceding word illustrates this ascertainment. The discussion besides brings to the fore the post-obit:
- i.
Linguistic communication management provides a versatile framework of interrogating the dynamics attendant to language in society in full general and language-in-didactics specifically.
- 2.
Discourse is an important structure in interrogating phenomena. It is critical in seeking to understand and analyse linguistic communication-in-teaching dynamics in general and MTE in particular.
- iii.
Quality primary teacher pedagogy is a basic requirement in actualising MTE in any polity.
- iv.
The notion of quotas, controversial every bit it may be, can exist harnessed to positively advance MTE calendar.
- v.
There is need for ethnographic and phenomenological research to investigate and document what works and what does non work for MTE in different polities.
MTE soapbox is disquisitional and is bound to remain and then for a long time peculiarly in the developing world. That this is the instance is inappreciably surprising for every bit Mwaniki ([2010]) pointedly submits, more than a century after 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 Cardinal 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 non vanished in this role of the earth. Information technology may simply be time to acknowledge failure of the ethnolinguistic homogenisation project of the last 100 years; and the viability and resilience of multilingualism the developing world. Such an acknowledgement will betoken a new dawn for MTE in the developing earth. A resurgent MTE discourse volition greatly benefit from linguistic communication management.
Author'southward information
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 Section of Linguistics & Language Exercise, University of the Free State - Bloemfontein, Commonwealth of South Africa. His research focuses on sociolinguistics and Language Management in Africa.
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Mwaniki, M. Female parent tongue teaching in principal instructor education in Kenya: a linguistic communication management critique of the quota system. Multiling.Ed. 4, 11 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13616-014-0011-4
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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13616-014-0011-four
Keywords
- Language Policy
- Mother Tongue
- Chief School Teacher
- Cardinal Province
- Indigenous Linguistic communication
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