17 Sep 2020

Government has engaged stakeholders, conducted research and developed a draft School Language Policy as commitment to the introduction of indigenous languages in schools.

Minister of Basic Education, Mr Fidelis Molao, told Parliament on Wednesday that the policy was a tool pertaining to the use of language in schools and not a National Language Policy.

He said it would guide implementation of indigenous languages in the school curriculum. Furthermore, he  said in order for the school language policy to be finalised, it had to go through several relevant consultative processes that would be completed by end of this year.

Concerning Swahili, which was adopted as SADC fourth official language, Mr Molao said priority was to start with local languages.

He said the ministry would continue to introduce other languages such as Swahili over time depending on resources.

He was responding to a question by Francistown South MP, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi, who asked the minister how far the ministry was with implementation of indigenous languages in schools and if they were considering the introduction of Swahili in schools as it was recently adopted by SADC. 

He also asked when the draft language policy would be released. ends