Vital need for salvaging literacy out of South Africa’s enormous 12-language Tower of Babel

This is the third in a series of columns on “What 10 words best describe our South Africa?” Read the first two here and here.

It’s true confession time. Compared with the president, I am illiterate. Cyril Ramaphosa can tell us stories in maybe seven of the official languages. He talks in tongues, for sure. Moreover, he seemed unfazed by the sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Maybe he understood something that we did not. And SA Sign Language is now our 12th official language. The khoi polloi will have to wait their turn.

In his book China in Ten Words, author Yu Hua wrote 40 pages on “Writing and Reading”. My thoughts on those topics are compressed under the title “Literacy”, for which 1,000 words must do.

My illiteracy? Your scribe is English-speaking, pretty fluent in Afrikaans, has a smattering of Setswana, and conversational skills in German and French. Add mathematical, cyber and technical literacy, the culinary arts and visual literacy, and you have me.

But something is missing, and it is this. My friend and colleague, educator John Volmink, nailed it perfectly in the question — “in the majority of classrooms of our universities, who is disadvantaged?” The answer is that in most cases it is the instructor, lecturer, professor, whose language and cultural appreciation is radically different to that of the students. The staff lack comprehension. Medium of instruction matters.

Medium of communication matters, be this in schools, colleges, workplace or community. If you cannot readily communicate, then at a minimum your oral literacy is deficient. So I confess to being somewhat illiterate.

The tsotsis amble behind me, chatting as to how they will mug the madala with his leather bag and watch. And I plod along in ignorance, yet am spared the imminent shock and indignity through the intervention of an older woman passer-by who admonishes the would-be-muggers in their language. They back off. My ears should have detected their intent, but my so-called education has ensured otherwise.

This literacy gap is the product of colonial occupation and hegemony.  There was the collision of Khoisan, Portuguese, Dutch and French up to 1806, when hello, along came the British Crown.

And there followed another suppression of language, and resistance, and wars, Grand Apartheid, and separate development, and we are of course civilised and each to their own, and here’s Springbok Radio, and Radio Bantu. Fast forward to 12 official languages, and we are perfectly equipped to talk and walk past each other.

It is 10:20 of a Wednesday in Gagonabereka High School. Come and sit in the Grade 11 mathematical literacy class, and listen to the dialogue. The fully qualified teacher is explaining the meaning of the items on a pay slip. The pupils listen, uncomprehending. The topic is relevant, but the English language skills of the teacher and those of pupils shred the dialogue. Learning is reduced to some notes, complete with errors.

The fact is that the language demand for those studying mathematical literacy is higher than that needed for mathematics, where the symbols do the talking. You take your leave, saddened by the lost opportunity.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Clinging to monolingual education undermines SA’s rich linguistic diversity

Yes, the opportunity was lost. Back in 1999, then Minister of Education Kader Asmal announced that adult literacy would be eliminated in five years. He failed the grade.

So where are we? Hard to tell. In the schools, some 80% of Grade 4s cannot read for meaning. But please don’t subject the teachers to a language test. Remember what happened to then-Limpopo Education MEC Dr Aaron Motsoaledi who required matric maths examination markers first to write the exam. Some 60% flunked, and in response Sadtu gave Aaron his marching orders and he was sent to herd cattle.

On the other hand, government boasts that 85% of adults are literate. Go figure.

Paradoxes abound.

Our teachers are recorded as fully qualified with their four-year post-matric certification. They are among the highest paid in the world, but education outcomes are dismal. One might ask the universities, who provided the necessary taxpayer-funded top-up qualifications, what exactly they thought they were doing. But their overpaid vice-chancellors must have had other things on their minds.

And in the universities and colleges, staff-student communication remains problematic. The populists demand that mother tongue should be the medium of instruction (MOI). This is an ideal solution, but takes time and effort.

A case in point is the country named Italy that came into being in 1871. But there was no codified “Italian” until the late 1920s when Mussolini’s fascisti found it useful to standardise and eliminate regional dialects. It takes time. The same was true for Afrikaans, and modern Hebrew. It can be done with huge effort.

Of course, if you are lucky enough to go and study in the US or Russia or China, you will have to show competence in their MOI, and spend time learning to speak the tongue. This will ensure that you can enjoy and benefit from your studies. But we in South Africa? Perish the thought! No, this is not what our universities and colleges must do. Language-competence testing? Never. Fail one. Fail all!

So many lost opportunities, begging the question, “what is to be done?”

Think about these things. According to Census 2021, we have four main language groups — Nguni (48%), Sotho-Tswana (27.5%), Afrikaans (13.5%) and English (10%). This conceals the fact that many, many of the African majority speak up to five of the sub-tongues. Their oral literacy is very high. Most of the minority groups speak English and/or Afrikaans. But we do not have a lingua franca. English is the language of commerce, with Afrikaans in certain industries. We avoid the reality, even as parents urge English for their children.

Mozambique has Portuguese in its cities and towns; ditto Angola. Namibia has opted for English. The DRC has French. Tanzania and Kenya kiSwahili and English as official languages. Zimbabwe recognises Shona, Ndebele and English. Zambia hosts 70 languages; English is the only official tongue.

Dear Mr President. Your language skills are exemplary. Those four language groups are the key. The goal? Take us toward a National Linguistic Revolution. Everyone will be able to communicate in at least one of Nguni/Sotho and English/Afrikaans. Throw resources at achieving this in five years — social media; print; radio; TV. Free to air, fun, noisy and happy.

Oh, just think of the jobs to be created. And yes, all civil servants will be required to have that competence. (This is the Canadian model).

You have shown us that it can be done. Ngifundise. DM