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International Review of Education

, Volume 60, Issue 6, pp 777–792 | Cite as

Using African languages for democracy and lifelong learning in Africa: A post-2015 challenge and the work of CASAS

  • Birgit Brock-Utne
  • Malcolm Mercer
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

Africans speak African languages in their everyday lives while lessons in school are delivered in an exogenous language. In many places adult education is also carried out in a language the majority of people do not speak. The exogenous languages, which are the languages of the former colonial powers and mastered just by a small African elite, are used in most parliaments in Africa and in most newspapers. This problem is largely ignored by the international community. An argument often put forward against using African languages as Languages of Instruction (LOIs) is that there are so many of them, and it may be problematic to select one as an LOI. But is this really the case? And does one need to select one language? The main work of the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS) located in Cape Town has been to harmonise the written forms of most African languages so that these languages can be used as LOIs and as languages of government and the press. This paper examines in some detail the work undertaken by CASAS, its successes and challenges. It shows that the political process of getting the harmonised languages adopted is more difficult and unpredictable than the linguistic work itself.

Keywords

African languages Democracy Education Harmonisation Mother tongue Home language Language of instruction (LOI) Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS) 

Résumé

Exploiter les langues africaines pour la démocratie et l’apprentissage tout au long de la vie en Afrique: un défi pour l’après-2015 et l’action du CASAS – Les Africains utilisent dans leur quotidien leurs langues locales, alors que l’enseignement dans les établissements scolaires est dispensé dans une langue exogène. Dans de nombreux cas, l’éducation des adultes est réalisée dans une langue que la majorité des apprenants ne parlent pas. Les langues exogènes, celles des anciennes puissances coloniales maîtrisées par une petite élite africaine, sont utilisées par la majorité des parlements et des journaux. La communauté internationale ne tient presque aucun compte de ce problème. Un argument souvent avancé contre l’usage des langues africaines dans l’instruction est qu’elles existent en très grand nombre et qu’il serait difficile d’en choisir une comme langue d’enseignement. Mais en est-il vraiment le cas? Et est-il nécessaire de sélectionner une seule langue? La mission principale du Centre d’études avancées sur les sociétés africaines (Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society, CASAS) basé au Cap consiste à harmoniser les formes écrites de la majorité des langues africaines, de sorte à pouvoir les utiliser comme langues d’instruction, des gouvernements et de la presse. Les auteurs de cet article examinent d’assez près le travail accompli par le CASAS, ses réalisations et ses défis. Ils montrent que la démarche politique de faire adopter les langues harmonisées est plus difficile et imprévisible que le travail linguistique lui-même.

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Notes

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the staff of CASAS, Prof. Kwesi Kwaa Prah, Prof. Lazarus Miti, Prof. Silue Sassongo and the Administrative Head of CASAS, Ms Grace Naidoo, for the hospitality and cooperation we experienced in August 2012 and September 2013.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of EducationUniversity of OsloOsloNorway
  2. 2.British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE)PowysUK

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