25 Jul 2021

The Ministry of Basic Education will soon start nation-wide consultations on the use of 11 identified local languages as media of instruction at pre-primary level until Standard 2 to allow for smooth transition. 

Minister of Basic Education Mr Fidelis Molao said during a briefing Thursday that the languages were proposed for Phase 1 implementation with effect from next year since they were highly developed in terms of orthography and reading materials. 

He said the languages were also used in other neighbouring countries as media of instruction in schools and were included in the curriculum as subjects. 

The proposed languages are Seyei, Sembukushu, Sekalaka, Sekgalagadi, Sesobeya, Setebele, Afrikaans, Naro, Seshona, Seherero and Sign language. 

Mr Molao noted that so far the ministry had been working on a draft of Botswana Languages policy for education to guide implementation. 

The policy is done in collaboration with language experts mostly from University of Botswana. 

He said identified languages would be used in teaching different subjects and after some time the languages would then be included in the curriculum as subjects. 

“For example, Sekalaka would be used to teach but not taught and would be included as a subject in the second phase,” he said adding that Setswana would continue to be taught as a compulsory subject and remain a national language. 

He said research had shown that if local languages were used as medium of instruction in schools, children were more likely to understand better, hence government’s efforts to come up with a draft that would lead to implementation of the initiative. 

He also said this was also part of the efforts to promote local languages and culture in general. 

Minister Molao explained that the government would continue working on improving other languages to also use them in schools. 

Director of Curriculum Development and Evaluation in the Ministry of Basic Education, Mr Shadrack Majwabe said about seven researches had been carried out in Botswana, Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe as well as Asia and the findings came out the same. 

He highlighted that the findings of all the researches showed that most of the learners in Africa, particularly in Southern Africa did not fail the content of examinations but failed the language used in exams. 

“Our students would now understand better when the medium of instruction is their local languages,” he said. Ends