05 Apr 2022

Minister of Basic Education has told Parliament that implementation of a policy on using mother tongue as a medium of instruction in schools would commence in January next year.
Responding to a question in Parliament on Friday, Mr Fidelis Molao said the decision  followed approval of the Local Languages Policy in Education by Cabinet last month.
He said there were 13 approved languages for phase one, which included Shiyeyi, Thimbukushu, Ikalanga, Shegkalagari, sign language, Chiikuhane, IsiNdebele, ChiShona, Naro, OtjiHerero/OtjiMbanderu, Afrikaans, Nama and Khwedam.

He said initially the languages would be introduced as a medium of instruction for pre-primary up to Standard Two.
He indicated that training of teachers and identifying schools to start with was ongoing along with the development of learning materials in preparation for 2023.
Furthermore, Mr Molao said the ministry had started developing orthographies for the remaining phase two languages, adding that such languages were in two categories because of their level of development in terms of orthographies.

Category one languages, he said, were those with orthography which required to be finalised including Jul ’hoan, Rugciriku, Tjebirwa, Shua, Nambya, Gjwi, Glwi, Gllana, !Xoo, Silozi, Chegwapong and Sotho.

Meanwhile, he said category two languages did not have any available orthography so they had to be documented from start and they included Khoisan languages such as Cua, Tshwa, Sasi and Ts’ima.
In addition, he said 13 teachers had been trained and 200 would undergo training next month.
Mr Molao was answering a question asked by MP for Ngami, Mr Carterpillar Hikuama, who wanted to know progress made towards the commencement of the Local Languages Policy. ENDS