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Mother-tongue getting the nod
08/05/2008 08:11 - (SA)
Alet Rademeyer, Beeld
Pretoria - Black parents increasingly have chosen mother-tongue education instead of English in the past few years for their children in the foundation phase (Grade 1 to Grade 3) of their education.
This was a conclusion of a recently publicised study done by the director and head of the socio-economic surveys division of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), Dr Joseph Mbithi wa Kivilu.
Wa Kivulu said that although there was consensus that mother-tongue education was best in early school education, there was still a meaningful public alliance to English.
This was a lot less prevalent among Afrikaans speakers.
The study took place between 2003 and 2006 among nearly 3 000 respondents.
The respondents comprised of 62.8% black people, 15.7% brown people, 9.9% Indians and 11.6% whites.
English preferred, at first
Respondents were asked what they thought the medium of instruction should be in different phases of education.
In the initial study in 2003, the majority of respondents - except Afrikaans-speakers - preferred English, even in the foundation phase.
It was found that race, monthly income and level of education were the main influences on the decision.
As far as race was concerned, Indian people followed by black people were more prone to choosing English as the language of preference in the foundation phase than whites.
Those without income were more prone to choose English in this phase than people who were better-off.
This tendency declined as income increased.
People with a lower level of education tended to choose English less frequently than people with tertiary education.
In the four years during which the study was done there were big changes concerning the choice of medium of education in the foundation phase.
English remained the foremost choice in higher education, followed by Grades 10 to 12 and then Grades 4 to 9.
Much depends on teachers' abilities
The demand for English in the foundation phase became increasingly less with a greater preference for education in the pupil's home language.
According to the study, there was, statistically speaking, no meaningful difference in the preference for English or home languages in Grades 10 to 12 or in higher education.
The Dean of Education at the University of the Witwatersrand, Professor Mary Metcalfe, said the degree to which black pupils in the foundation phase had access to mother-tongue education, especially in urban schools, depended on the teachers' abilities to teach in a number of languages as well as available resources.
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