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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:A Battle Lost in the Frontline
Author:Kashoki, Mubanga E.ISNI
Year:1994
Periodical:Africa Insight
Volume:24
Issue:4
Pages:287-292
Language:English
Geographic term:Zambia
Subjects:language policy
languages of instruction
Politics and Government
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Education and Oral Traditions
Ethnic and Race Relations
Abstract:During the colonial era language policy in Zambia was based on the principle that indigenous languages should assume primary importance in education. As far back as 1927, Bemba, Lozi, Nyanja and Tonga acquired a preeminent place in Zambian schools. The retreat from this frontline standpoint was sounded in 1961 when, at a Commonwealth conference held in Uganda, the view was posited that wherever English functioned as a second language, children should be exposed to it as early as possible. In many ex-British colonies, including Zambia, English teaching programmes and the number of British teachers of English increased significantly after independence. The Zambian Education Act of 1966 stipulated that English was to be the sole medium of instruction from the first years of formal education. This policy has had many negative consequences for Zambian society. One of these is that it denies the Zambian child a sociolinguistic environment in which it can grasp the fundamentals of spelling, mathematics, health, civics, science, religious education and other subjects either in his own mother tongue or in a language with a close affinity to his mother tongue. Instead, it provides a social recipe for rendering the child an illiterate frontline soldier in the cause of his own language, particularly in its written form. Ref.
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