Determinación de patógenos (Todos los capítulos)

The point of departure for assessing the influence of Zimbabwe’s language-in-education policies on language use in primary school classrooms is an examination of the provisions of the Education Act. The Education Act stipulates that:

Subject to this section, the three main languages o f Zimbabwe, namely, Shona, Ndebele and English, shall be taught in all primary schools from the first grade as follows—

(a) Shona and English in all areas where the mother tongue o f the majority o f the residents is Shona; or

(b) Ndebele and English in all areas where the mother tongue o f the majority o f the residents is Ndebele. (Zimbabwe Education Act Part XII Section 62).

The Act further specifies that:

Prior to the fourth grade, either o f the languages referred to in paragraph (a) or (b) o f subsection (1) may be used as the medium o f instruction, depending upon which language is more commonly spoken and better understood by the pupils. (Zimbabwe Education Act Part XII Section 62)

The provisions of the Education Act specified here envisage a transitional bilingual education programme whereby the learner’s first language, mother tongue, or the language of his or her immediate environment is used in the initial stages of schooling before switching to English as a medium o f instruction at later stages (Salami, 2008). As Salami points out the Act’s directives suggest that the mother-tongue or the local indigenous language is expected to be used for instruction in all subjects, except English, from pre-primary (3-5 years of age) and primary years 1 to 3 and later English takes over from Year 4 to 7 while the mother tongue is taught as a subject. However given the way the policy guidelines are worded it is possible for English to be the medium of instruction from the start because implementation of the provisions of the Act seems to rely on the willingness of schools and teachers to follow the Education Act’s directives. The Education Act is vague because use of mother-tongue and exit date or transition to English needed to be spelt out unambiguously to avoid haphazard

implementation of the policy directives. Ndhlovu (2006:305) argues that although the Act accords official language status to Shona and Ndebele, English continues to enjoy a distinct advantage. Makoni et al (2006:407) further argue that “the continued importance attached to English even in post-independent Zimbabwe reflects a disconcerting continuity with pre­ colonial language policies in which...English continues to play a significant role”. Hungwe (2007) criticises the Education Act as “strikingly consistent with the Phelps-Stokes recommendations in the emphasis on an early transition to English” at the expense of indigenous languages. He concludes that the Education Act has provided for, but does not require use of indigenous languages in the first three grades of primary school, largely because it fails to pay attention to the development and sustenance of structures and programmes meant to support language-in-education policy. Hungwe’s views are echoed by Mnkandla (2000:89) who describes the Education Act as “permissive rather than mandatory”. Peresuh and Masuku (2002) are even more critical of the designation of English as medium of instruction after grade four arguing that the prescription is in spite of the fact that most primary schools are rural and located in speech communities where all pupils speak the same home language. The vague wording in the Education Act points to lack of clarity about the distinction between teaching a language as a subject and using it as medium o f instruction. Part XII, Section 62, sub-section 1 of the Act refers to teaching Shona, Ndebele and English but not their use as media o f instruction while sub-section 2 refers to the use o f the languages as medium of instruction. The Education Act does not make it easy for teachers to unpack the difference between teaching languages as subjects and using them as media o f instruction. Kashoki (2003) argues that Zimbabwe appears content to state the provisions o f the Education Act, as they relate to language-in-education policy, in rather general terms. This situation

contrasts markedly with the South African context where the Education Act goes into greater detail about the individual’s right to choose their own language for learning and teaching within an overall framework that requires the education system to promote multilingualism.

The policy framework underpinning use of English or Shona/Ndebele in Zimbabwe is porous. In such an unclear policy framework teachers are likely to act on the basis of their own beliefs which may not be in the interests of learners. There is also lack of consistency in teacher practices. For example, Mnkandla’s (2000) study showed that there is no uniformity in the way teachers and head teachers interpret language policy directives derived from the Education Act which she describes as woolly thus giving each school the leeway to implement the policy as it sees fit.

This section has explored the impact of the Zimbabwean Education Act on policy implementation and language use in primary classes at a general level. The following section focuses on the impact of testing practices in Zimbabwe on teachers and learners attitudes to English and how they use language during teaching and learning.