Introduction
Language policy and education in Southern Africa has evolved, as it has elsewhere in Africa, through several stages: pre‐colonial, colonial, early independence and developments since UNESCO's 1990 Education for All Conference in Jomtien (see Alidou, 2004). The partition of Africa, accelerated after the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, resulted in a division of linguistic communities, often exacerbated by a renaming of ‘cross‐border’ languages in order to make further distinctions. While communities in Africa readily add to their informal multilingual repertoires, postcolonial language policies often reflect a tension between the use of indigenous languages and the language/s of colonial rule. The majority of countries in this region experienced British colonial rule for much of the first half of the twentieth century, if not longer, and hence English has come to occupy a significant position in: Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, South...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Alidou, H., Boly, A., Brock‐Utne, B., Diallo Y.S., Heugh, K., and Wolff, H.E.: 2006, Optimizing Learning and Education in Africa—the Language Factor. A Stock‐taking Research on Mother Tongue and Bilingual Education in Sub‐Saharan Africa, Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), Paris. http://www.adeanet.org/biennial‐2006/doc/document/B3_1_MTBLE_en.pdf
Alexander, N.: 1999, ‘An African Renaissance without African languages’, Social Dynamics 25(1), 1–12.
Alidou, H.: 2004, ‘Medium of instruction in post‐colonial Africa’, in J. Tollefson and A. Tsui (eds.), Medium of Instruction Policies: Which Agenda? Whose Agenda?, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah & London, 195–214.
Bamgbose, A.: 2000, Language and Exclusion: The Consequences of Language Policies in Africa, Lit Verlag, Münster, Hamburg & London.
Blommaert, J.: 1997, ‘Ideology and language in Tanzania: A brief survey’, in R.K. Herbert (ed.), African Linguists at the Crossroads (Papers from the Kwaluseni 1st World Congress of African Linguistics, Swaziland, 18–22. VII. 1994). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 501–510.
Brock‐Utne, B.: 2005, ‘The continued battle over Kiswahili as the language of instruction in Tanzania’, in B. Brock‐Utne and R.K. Hopson (eds.), Languages of Instruction for African Emancipation: Focus on Postcolonial Contexts and Considerations, CASAS, Cape Town & Mkuki na Nyota, Dar es Salaam, 57–87.
Cluver, A.: 1996, ‘Language Development in South Africa’, A Report written for the LANGTAG Report: Towards a National Language Plan for South Africa, Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, Pretoria.
Cummins, J.: 1984, Bilingualism and Special Education: Issues in Assessment and Pedagogy, Multilingual Matters, Clevedon.
DoE: 1997, Language‐in‐Education Policy, Department of Education, Pretoria.
DoE: 2002, Revised National Curriculum Statement Grades R‐9 (Schools) Policy. Languages English—First Additional Language, Department of Education, Pretoria.
Doughty, C. and Long, M. (eds.): 2003, The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, Blackwell, Maldin, Oxford, Melbourne & Berlin.
Gorman, T.: 1974, ‘The development of language policy in Kenya with particular reference to the educational system’, in W. Whiteley (ed.), Language in Kenya, OUP, Nairobi.
Heugh, K.: 2002, ‘The case against bilingual and multilingual education in South Africa: Laying bare the myths’, Perspectives in Education 20(1), 171–196.
Heugh, K.: 2003, ‘Can authoritarian separatism give way to linguistic rights? A South African case study’, Current Issues in Language Planning 4(2), 126–145.
Macdonald, C.: 1990, ‘Crossing the Threshold into Standard Three’, Main Report of the Threshold Project, Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria.
Makoni, S.: 2003, ‘From misinvention to disinvention of language: multilingualism and the South African Constitution’, in S. Makoni, G. Smitherman, A. Ball, A. Spears (eds.), Black Linguistics. Language, society, and politics in Africa and the Americas, Routledge, London and New York, 132–151.
Mateene, K.: 1999, ‘OAU's strategy for linguistic unity and multilingual education’, Social Dynamics 25(1), 164–178.
May, S.: 2001, Language and Minority Rights, Longman, London (Reprinted by Routledge, 2007).
Muyeeba, K.: 2004, ‘Challenges of making and implementing policy in the multilingual state of Zambia’, Third International Conference of the Association for the Development of African Languages in Education, Science and Technology (ADALEST) and the Fifth Malawian National Language Symposium, University of Malawi and GTZ, Malawi, 167–176. http://www.adalest.com/
Nyati‐Ramahobo, L.: 2000, ‘Language situation in Botswana’, Current Issues in Language Planning 1(2), 243–300.
Obanya, P.: 1999, The Dilemma of Education in Africa, UNESCO Regional Office, Dakar.
Ouane, A.: 2003, ‘Introduction: The view from inside the linguistic jail’, in A. Ouane (ed.), Towards a Multilingual Culture of Education, UNESCO Institute for Education, Hamburg, 1–22.
Phillipson, R.: 1992, Linguistic Imperialism, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Reddy, V.: 2006, Mathematics and Science Achievement at South African Schools in TIMSS 2003, Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria.
RSA: 1996, The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, The Constitutional Assembly & the National Parliament, Republic of South Africa, Cape Town.
Rubagumya, C.: 1994, Teaching and Researching Language in African Classrooms, Multilingual Matters, Clevedon.
Schmied, J.: 1991, English in Africa: An Introduction, Longman Linguistics Library, London and New York.
Skutnabb‐Kangas, T.: 2000, Linguistic Genocide in Education—or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah.
Spolsky, B.: 2004, Language Policy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Thomas, W. and Collier, V.: 2002, A National Study of School Effectiveness for Language Minority Students' Long‐Term Academic Achievement, Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence, Santa Cruz, CA and Washington, DC. http://www.crede.org/research/llaa/l.les.html
Timbuktu Education Foundation: 2002, Discovery of Timbuktu Manuscripts, http://www.timbuktufoundation.org/manuscripts.html
Tripathi, P.: 1990, ‘English in Zambia: the nature and prospects of one of Africa's ‘new Englishes’’, English Today 6(3), 34–38.
UNESCO: 1953, The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education, UNESCO, Paris.
UNESCO: 2000, Education for All. Status and Trends 2000. Assessing learning achievement, International Consultative Forum on Education for All, for UNESCO, Paris, 32. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001198/119823e.pdf
UNESCO: 2004, Education For All. The Quality Imperative. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005, UNESCO, Paris. http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php‐RL_ID=35939&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Williams, E.: 2001, ‘Testimony from testees: the case against current language policies in sub‐Saharan Africa’, in C. Elder, A. Brown, A. Hill, T. Lumley, T. McNamara, and K. O'Loughlin (eds.), Studies in Language Testing: Experimenting with uncertainty: language testing essays in hounour of Alan Davies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 200–210.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC
About this entry
Cite this entry
Heugh, K. (2008). Language Policy and Education in Southern Africa. In: Hornberger, N.H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_26
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_26
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-32875-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-30424-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law