CRITICAL ISSUES ON THE LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION IN SECONDARY AND HIGHER EDUCATION IN TANZANIA

CRITICAL ISSUES ON THE LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION IN SECONDARY

AND HIGHER EDUCATION IN TANZANIA

ABSTRACT

This paper revisits the question of the medium of instruction in post primary

education in Tanzania. The paper argues that in the medium of instruction

debate, which is polarized between two contending camps: English versus

Kiswahili, nationalism dogma, anti foreign, anti colonial, and anti imperialism

rhetoric were (and still are) used as a convenient excuse in the argument for the

replacement of English with Kiswahili in post-primary education. Neither

pedagogical goals nor linguistic and pedagogical implications of the change of

the medium from English to Kiswahili in post primary level have clearly been

spelt out.

The paper argues further that the language incompetence witnessed in

schools is symptomatic of more complex issues, which may not be solved by

simply abandoning English in the post primary education. Finally, the paper

underscores the realisation that Tanzania is a linguistically diverse society

comprising Kiswahili, local languages, and foreign languages- particularly

English-as linguistic resources. All these languages have particular roles that are

not necessarily antagonistic in Tanzania.

Key words: Language policy; Medium of Instruction Debate; English; Kiswahili;

Second/Foreign language; Local (ethnic) Languages; Tanzania.

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1.0. INTRODUCTION: LANGUAGE POLICY AND TANZANIAN

SOCIOLINGUISTIC PROFILE

Many African countries, in the colonial aftermath have

striven to formulate language policies in their countries

primarily because of the consideration that language

resources have far-reaching implication in the national

identity, national building and cohesion. In each such

country, so it appears, the rationalization of language

policy and language planning has often been embedded with

ideological overtone with a view of getting rid of colonial

languages. There are of course ‘liberals’ to this linguistic

renaissance such as Kenya, which has adopted English as an

official language and Kiswahili as a national language;

Uganda, which has adopted English as an official language;

Zimbabwe, which has English as official and national

language, and South Africa, where both English and Afrikaans

joined the ranks of 9 other languages as official languages

of the country. These countries, however, have not in any

way disclaimed their ideological commitment to African

languages, only that they have tried to look at language

issues from the dialectical perspectives and have also

considered the interconnection between local and global

realities. Countries whose language policy and language

planning encouraged linguistic displacement (with foreign

[and sometimes minority ethnic] languages as potential

targets) have had tumultuous experience with such language

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experimentations. Success stories, where they did occur,

have often been considered as exceptions rather than the

norms. Tanzanian language policy and language planning is a

good example.

In Tanzania, English and Kiswahili, for many decades,

have been the main linguistic resources in the language

policy and language planning, notwithstanding that the

country has over 120 ethnic languages. The two languages,

therefore, have hitherto been enjoying government and donor

support in the language policy and language planning

matters. The linguistic pedigree of these two languages has

inevitably made them the focal point of the ideological

language undercurrent referred to above. In the 1997

Cultural Policy, however, the need to promote other

languages both local and foreign has been acknowledged. Even

though the status and roles of these languages have not been

specified in the Tanzanian sociolinguistic profile (see

Blommaert, 2004: Kadeghe, 2003), the fact that, currently,

there is a consideration of promoting local and other

foreign languages is a positive signal that the discussion

of sociolinguistic situation in Tanzania has now begun to

move away from English versus Kiswahili polarisation, albeit

at the policy level.

The rise of Kiswahili as the national language in

Tanzania, and even as a lingua franca in East Africa is very

well documented (see Whiteley, 1969; Blommaert, 2000; 2001;

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2004; Rubagumnya; 1997, Mulokozi, undated). For the purpose

of this discussion, suffice to say that the political

currents traceable in the days of TANU (Tanganyika African

Nation Union) the party which fought for Tanganyika’s

independence, the Arusha Declaration, Ujamaa and Ujamaa vijijini

(villagisation programme), and economic liberalization from

the early 1990s have had an impact on the handling and

distribution of the language resources in as much as they

have had on the social and the economic life of the people.

But, as it were, the handling of linguistic resources has

been structured towards spreading Kiswahili to replace other

languages, both African and non African (particularly

English), in all spheres of social and economic life with

the exception of secondary and higher education. This

remains an area of contention in the Tanzanian contemporary

Sociolinguistics.

Why then has this linguistic displacement of Kiswahili

not forced ethnic languages into extinction in Tanzania?

This question has never been a subject of much interest in

the language debate because, as it appears, the question

simply challenges the very philosophy in which the spread of

Kiswahili hinged upon: the philosophy that multilingualism

is counter revolutionary. One reality, which seems to

account for the current linguistic paradox is that whatever

demand there was for the spread of Kiswahili, such demand

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did not override the demand for other languages that were in

existence in Tanzania be it local or foreign.

As for English, its official status, as a second

language in Tanzania, is only significant in the field of

education as the medium of instruction from secondary school

and above. Outside the education system, English is the

language of the minority group spoken by only 15% of the

population (see Rubagumya 1990). The language use in the

wider community is limited to international relations and

trade; business; tourism; mass media e.g. newspapers, Radio

and TV stations; higher courts of law; and information

technologies e.g. internet services, though such services

are still concentrated in the urban areas, their increased

popularity in Tanzania is now a subject which excites

research. The limited use of the language in public domains

in itself raises questions as to whether English qualifies

to be an official second language in the country. This is

however another debate.

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In terms of Medium of Instruction, Kiswahili is used in

primary school education. It is also taught as a subject in

post-primary education up to university, where, for example

the Department of Kiswahili of the University of Dar es

salaam offers Kiswahili specialised degree programme. On the

other hand, English is used as a medium of instruction in

post primary education and it is also taught as a subject

from primary 3. The pedagogical language situation, where

English is used as a medium of instruction, is an area that

has so far unleashed intractable challenges in the Tanzanian

education system. There is a plethora of literature

documenting the problems of communication in English in

Tanzania at secondary school level (e.g. Mlama and Matteru,

1978; Clipper & Dodd, 1984; Presidential Commission on

Education-the Makweta Commission, 1982 Lwaitama and

Rubagumya, 1989; Mekacha, 1997; Roy-Campbell & Qorro, 1997;

Blommaert 1999, 2000, 2004). This paper does not intend to

go into the details of the findings as a lot has already

been written about the problem, and the Tanzanian public is

perhaps already fatigued with the issue.

Suffice to say that these findings fuelled a debate,

popularly known as the Medium of Instruction (MoI) debate,

which is both protracted and polarised. The debate centres

on the effectiveness of English language as a medium of

instruction in post-primary education in Tanzania. There are

mainly two opposing currents in the debate, one takes a

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unifocal radical view of language in education and

emphasizes on making Kiswahili the only language in public

domains in society including higher education and the

academia. “English in this view is sometimes referred to as

potentially useful foreign (not second) language”

(Blommaert, 2000:504). Indicating the diminished

communicative role of English in society, it is argued,

“English is not the language used to address the bus

conductor, to enquire about a balance at the bank, to ask

for stamps at the post office, to reserve a seat at the

railway station, […] Nor is English the language spoken by

Members of Parliament while discussing a bill” (see

Rubagumya 1990: 29).

Another approach emphasizes what Blommaert, (Op. cit.)

refers to as “bifocal model of language usage with strong

diglossic dimensions”. These people acknowledge the

importance of both languages in a society. They propose to

have Kiswahili used in a number of domains, but at the same

time to have English retain its instrumental status in

secondary school and the higher education, and as the

societal second (not foreign) language. Since, both parties

do not seem to agree on what language should be used in

Tanzanian post primary schools, the outcome of the “…

contradictory and conflicting tendencies structuring the

debate on language policy and planning in postcolonial

Tanzania is the linguistically and pedagogically absurd

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language situation in post-primary education” (Blommaert,

2001:19).

This paper critically reviews the question of Kiswahili

in higher education in Tanzania, indicating how issues of

mother tongue education need to be addressed as far as

linguistic matters are concerned. The discussion is built on

the premise that the rationalisation of Kiswahili in

Secondary and higher education has not adequately addressed

pertinent issues regarding the concept of mother tongue

education. Furthermore, linguistic and ideological issues

have often been treated as one and the same, instead of

being isolated and treated accordingly in the language

debate. Thus, the paper intends to reassess the

rationalization of Kiswahili in Tanzanian post primary

education, and to review some of the criteria, used to index

what is often referred to as a ‘success’ story in Tanzania’s

language experimentation programme.

2.0. RATIONALISATION OF KISWAHILI IN SECONDARY AND HIGHER

EDUCATION: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF SOME OF THE ISSUES

It deems instructive to mention, though briefly, the

objectives of secondary school education in Tanzania. These

are several. For the purpose of this discussion, the

objectives cited here are only those related to cultural

issues and linguistic skills. Secondary education objectives

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with regard to cultural issues and linguistic skills are the

following:

to enhance further development and appreciation of

national unity, identity and ethnic, personal

integrity, respect for and readiness to work, human

rights, cultural and moral values, customs, traditions

and civic responsibilities and obligations; and

to promote the development of competency in linguistics

ability and effective use of communication skills in

Kiswahili and in at least one foreign language.

From: Tanzania Integrated Education and Training Policy

(cited in Roy-Campbell & Qorro, 1997: 73).

Tanzanians have a right to decide on a language (be it

Kiswahili, Kisukuma or English) they wish to use in

education or even in the intra-ethnic communication. But,

there needs to be a cognizant of the fact that the Tanzanian

pedagogical situation at post-primary school is not an issue

of whether or not Kiswahili is inadequate in advanced

academic discourse, or technical terminology (but see

Kadeghe 2003). Nor is it because, English unlike Kiswahili

is not a foreign (imperialist) language, a language with

‘reduced’ domains of use in society, a classroom language, a

language not used in parliament, etc. etc. It is the

question of how linguistic factors, that is, the impending

linguistic problems resulting from this change of medium

from English to Kiswahili should be addressed. No wonder

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that inputs of this kind, (if any) are hard to find, for the

discussions on this matter often degenerated into

ideological polemics.

For example, the arguments in support of Kiswahili in

secondary and higher education have heavily appealed to

ideological paradigm. That Kiswahili was an appropriate

language in schools, not so much on epistemological point of

view, but because Kiswahili is needed to dismantle colonial

hegemonic power structures. Thus, the merits of the

Swahilisation endeavour have always been assumed to outweigh

the demerits, albeit, from the ideological standpoint.

However, a critical look of this issue indicates that the

strongest point in favour of Kiswahili as opposed to English

is none other than the aspect of students’ language

incompetence, which seems frequent, familiar and a norm in

almost all levels of education where English is used as a

medium of instruction. We shall return to this point

shortly.

But, how do some of the ideological arguments weaken

the rationalisation of Kiswahili in post primary education?

From the days of TANU and Ujamaa, to the recent past,

whenever the issue of language of instruction emerged,

social scientists and Ujamaa linguists have always impressed

upon the myth that language is what determines what is

relevant to the Tanzanian society in terms of education.

This impression featured predominantly in the Education for

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Self-Reliance (ESR) era under the Arusha Declaration (AD) of

1967. The AD was a Tanzania’s ideological doctrine, which

proclaimed Tanzania to be a socialist state that follows

Ujamaa, a policy ingrained on African egalitarian

principles.

The colonial education, for good reasons, became the

target of ESR for two reasons: first, this education was

colonial i.e. it was embedded with all the vices of colonial

hegemony: which was to prepare a few Africans for the white-

collar jobs in the civil service. Second, this colonial

education was offered through a colonial language: English.

Whilst the logic of the first reason, from the hegemonic

point of view, cannot be disputed; the logic of the second

reason, in all intents, seems to defy a didactic reasoning.

The general aim of ESR was to redress the ideological

posture established by the colonial education. Thus,

according to Mwansoko (cited in Neke, 2003:56), “Education

for self-reliance ... Emphasized the relevance of education

to the socio-political and economic needs of Tanzania, a

country, which for many decades to come will continue to be

mainly agricultural …’.

In view of the ESR doctrine, relevant education is not

only that which would impart Ujamaa ideology to the youth,

(for which colonial education was outright not the

candidate), but also it is that education whose ideological

transfer was to be realized through the appropriate medium.

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In Tanzania, Kiswahili was that ‘appropriate’ medium in this

ideological process. As emphasized by Rubagumya (1990: 2-3),

“… in Tanzania it is difficult to see how ‘Education for

Self-Reliance’ can be consistent with education which uses

English as the medium of instruction. If education is meant

to prepare the majority for the type of life they are likely

to lead (i.e. in rural areas) rather than to favour only a

few, it would seem that Kiswahili is better suited to the

task”.

The implication of this argument is that if one gets

his education through English medium in, say, road

Construction Engineering, his education could not be

considered relevant in the villages. In other words, this

person would not be able to construct rural roads because

his technological skills, which were acquired in the medium

of English, would not be compatible with the egalitarian

nature of the rural communities clustered around the use of

Kiswahili! By the same token, Tanzanians graduating, say, in

Veterinary Medicine, Agriculture or Environmental Science

would not be considered to be able to serve the Tanzanians

masses better if they attained their education in English!

One can see why that in many forums of intellectual

discussions of language in education in Tanzania, the

targets for anti colonial sentiments have often been English

language itself and the language policy, as it encompasses

English as one of its resources in planning language

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distribution! This phenomenon is however not unique to

Tanzania. In most Anglo African states, “English has been

accused of being elitist, of being European and culture-

bound, of being a remnant of colonialism, and a cause of

cultural alienation, and of cutting Africans off from their

own traditions” (Schmied, 1999: 21). One explanation to the

scenario structuring language debate is that, to these

African countries, the conceptualisation of language policy

seems to be very much informed by nationalism dogma.

What seems to be forgotten here is that English is very

much an African historical fact, a part of African heritage

as are the ruins of Zanzibar slave market, which now

comprise a tourist hot spot in East Africa. English has in

numerous occasions been exploited to the full advantage of

African continent especially in the field of African

Literature. Wole Soyinka, for example, has managed to use

English as a medium of African literary expression and won

international recognition with the Nobel Prize award in 1986

(see Schmied, 1991). This is to say the least of many other

literary power magnets who have used English to carry out

the noble tasks such as liberation struggles including the

cultural liberation in their home countries.

The perceived elitist character of English in the

context of Tanzania has often been presented in two levels:

First, English is accessed by only those people who get into

secondary schools; because few people get secondary

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education, thus only few people get access to the language.

Second, even those in secondary school, only those with good

language background will have the opportunity of

understanding the language plus the subjects carried by the

language; because few people have good background knowledge

of English, thus only few people have the opportunity to

gain secondary education knowledge. Thus, English is

perceived to play a gate-keeping role to knowledge itself,

by allowing a few fortunate students to access it, and

condemning the many remaining students into illiteracy

though they are in school. Emphasizing this argument

Rubagumya (Op. cit.) cites studies (e.g. Mvungi, 1974; Mlama &

Matteru, 1978; Cripper & Dodd, 1984) all of which showing

that English has ceased to be an effective medium of

education in Tanzanian secondary schools.

As for the first level of elitism, we would rather

argue that the issue of access to higher education has to do

with the enrolment at these levels. If students’ enrolment

into secondary education and above cannot cater for the

enrolment requirements of the majority of young Tanzanians

who finish primary school every year, then it is very

difficult (if not impossible) to convince anyone that this

is, indeed, a language problem. Tanzania’s education system

is still pyramidal in structure, where you have majority at

primary school, as the base of the pyramid; a small majority

in secondary school, at the middle; and minority in higher

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education, as the apex. Such an education structure is a

result of other complex issues (language not being one of

them) and for that reason it is not unique to Tanzania.

Education systems in most parts of the world (including the

most egalitarian countries) are by nature (and not design)

pyramidal in structure. No linguistic gymnastics can solve

such a puzzle, for it is hardly a linguistic one.

As for the second level of elitism, we wish to return

to the point of language incompetence in schools. There can

be no doubt that students spend most of their time grappling

with language instead of learning other subjects. But there

are two issues here: first, the answer to students’

inadequacies in mastering English cannot be to abolish the

language. In this case, Abbott’s observation is pertinent,

that “…we do not abolish school subjects merely because most

students fail to master them” (Abbott in Rossner & Bolitho,

1990: 16). For example, not many students will be as

comfortable with mathematics as they might be with other

subjects even at primary school level where Kiswahili is

used as a medium of instruction. But, the solution in this

case is not to eliminate the subject, but rather to

investigate the reasons as to why this happens and work out

the ways in which the knowledge gaps in the subject can be

bridged.

The argument that English has ceased to be an effective

medium of instruction in Tanzanian secondary schools brings

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to bear on the fact that English language was once an

effective medium of education at these levels. But at one

stage in the history of education in Tanzania the language

ceased to be effective. The intriguing question here has

always been, what went wrong? Or as Chinua Achebe, the West

African Novelist, once put it, ‘when did the rain start

beating us’? The cause of this pedagogical absurdity in

Tanzanian secondary school education is the question that

has attracted much interest in the ideological factors than

in the linguistics ones in the MoI debate. This is also

reflected in the reasons given for the suggested recourse to

the problem, that is a change of the medium of instruction

from English to Kiswahili in post-primary education. What

can be deduced here is that, the ideological overtone, which

structures the language debate, overshadows critical issues

of mother tongue education in Tanzania.

One of the areas, which for example, needed a closer

look regarding pedagogical implication of mother tongue

education is the decision on what variety of this mother

tongue should be used (if it assumes the role of a medium of

instruction in secondary and higher education) where one

local language such as Kiswahili is the language of the

wider communication.

These issues do not dispute the hypothesis of mother

tongue education in Tanzania. Indeed, from the cognitive

point of view, the learning takes place more effectively in

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the language which students understand better; and there can

be no language, which can be more readily understood by

students other than their own home language. Thus, the

adoption of Kiswahili in secondary and higher education in

Tanzania will, in a way, be in line with one of Tanzania’s

secondary education objectives stated above, i.e. ‘to

promote the development of competency in linguistics ability

and effective use of communication skills in Kiswahili and

in at least one foreign language’. The complication,

however, is likely to occur if the variety of the mother

tongue to be used in such purposes is a prestigious standard

variety. In any case such a variety is not what students

posses of their home language. Thus, students will have to

be taught this variety before they can be able to use it to

learn other subjects. Teachers too will need some in-service

courses of Kiswahili to be able to teach their subjects. It

cannot be assumed that any Kiswahili speaker is qualified to

use the language in the academic domain.

Arguing a case for continued use of English in

secondary and tertiary education in Tanzania, Kadeghe’s

(2003) study, on students’ academic achievements in physics

subject, indicates that even the Kiswahili used by teachers

in an unofficial bilingual instruction in secondary school

does not belong to a proper instructional register. In other

words, teachers use ‘casual’ non-technical Kiswahili in

teaching technical subjects. The issue is not only whether

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these teachers know their subject well, but also it is

whether they have marshalled the didactic skills in

Kiswahili to be able to present their disciplinary

knowledge. This paradigm ought to be considered in relation

to the distinction between disciplinary knowledge versus the

disciplinary language, that is, the rhetorical processes

(including the forms, style, and genres) in which the

disciplinary knowledge is to be represented.

At this juncture, Tanzania may find herself shifting

language problems from foreign language education into

mother tongue education. From the ideological point of view,

Tanzania will have made a case, in that she will then be

using her own local African language: Kiswahili in the

education system. But, from a pedagogical point of view,

Tanzania might not have attained her pedagogical goal in any

significant way in terms of untangling cognitive issues

related to language incompetence, i.e. incompetence of a

standard mother tongue. How then Tanzania can address the

foreseeable students’ language incompetence in mother tongue

education should have been one of the issues featuring in

the objective discussion of the language in education.

The use of Kiswahili in higher education is also

rationalised on the basis of people’s perceived attitude

towards the language in general. During Ujamaa prime time,

it was generally assumed that Tanzanians had already

nurtured positive attitudes towards egalitarian principles,

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including of course positive attitudes towards Kiswahili. At

that stage, Ujamaa linguists strove to create an impression

that, by and large Tanzanians had already reached a stage

where they no longer needed English. That, “A rescue

operation to restore English to its glorious past cannot

create the conditions necessary to make Tanzanians accept

and use English as a second language. To give English such a

status would require, among other things, a major shift in

attitudes and values with respect to language” (Rubagumya,

1990:29).

But, this argument runs contrary to what is witnessed

today, in terms of linguistics behaviours especially among

the youth (once the very target of Ujamaa and Kiswahili

lingualism) in the urban areas. English has resumed its

prestigious status amongst this group. One example is shown

in the Blommaert’s sample of English borrowings in the Dar

es Salaam youth’s repertoire of their street language, e.g.

kutos- (from to toss) to leave alone; mentali- (from mental

mentally fit) friend; krezi – (from crazy) friend; kumaindi-

(from mind) to want something; kukrash (from to crash) to

disagree, (see Blommaert, 2004 for details), to cite just a

few examples.

To these young people English makes them feel allowed

“…to get out of Dar es salaam culturally …” (Ibid: 21). This

shift of attitude toward English language is happening

rather naturally without any induced high-handedness. The

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desire for the language is not only reflected among the

youth, but also it is reflected among other sections of the

general public. Blommaert’s sample of English used in urban

Dar es Salaam for public displays is a good example (see

Blommaert ibid for details). The domains of the language use

outside the classroom mentioned above, e.g. business;

tourism; mass media e.g. newspapers, Radio and TV stations;

and information technologies e.g. internet services, have of

recent years been on the increase, which also signifies a

high level of Tanzanians’ flexibility in terms of language

of the wider communicative purposes. What these attitudes

signal, is, in itself, an area of social scientific

research.

3.0. DEBATING LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN TANZANIA

As mentioned in the previous section, intellectual

discussions on what exactly comprise education standards in

Tanzanian post-primary school is shrouded with ideological

fanaticism with a view to shifting the blame of linguistics

mess in the pedagogy to abstractions such as ‘colonial’,

‘foreign’, ‘imperialist’ languages, and the like. To say the

least, Kiswahili had been the language of education under

the German colonial rule, but the colonial affiliation of

Kiswahili, strangely enough, did not leave Kiswahili

colonially tainted for the people. A critical look at

Tanzania experimentation with language makes one realise

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that it is the very Ujamaa and Swahilisation project which

should in fact be held responsible for the decay of English

and local languages alike in Tanzania.

To reflect on this aspect, an argument advanced by

Mulokozi (undated) needs to be examined. Mulokozi (ibid.)

claims that, ‘…the development and expansion of Kiswahili

[in Tanzania] as a national and international language has

usually been dictated by demand, both economic and social’

(my emphases). The use of the word ‘claim’ is not accidental

here, for there is an unambiguous suppression of the fact

that Swahilisation programme in Tanzania was mainly a result

of government deliberate efforts. These efforts, coupled

with historical accidents, which the author calls ‘factors’

(see Mulokozi ibid) paved the way for Kiswahili

justification and distribution process.

In Tanzania, Kiswahili was legitimated at the

ideological level, in the sense that it was spread

persuasively through capitalizing on group attitudes for the

purposes of social control. According to Van Dijk (cited in

Dellinger, 1995: 6-7) ‘… to control other people, it is most

effective to try to control their group attitudes and

especially their even more fundamental, attitude-producing,

ideologies. In such circumstances, audiences will behave out

of their own "free" will in accordance with the interests of

the powerful’ [state] [my emphasis]. Language policy and

language planning is a convenient instrument of social

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control. The formulations of such policies were the

exclusive domain of the government authorities. ‘While the

authorities constitute the planners, the speech community

using the language (or prevented from acquiring it) occupy

the position of the planned’ (sic!) (Brutt-Griffler,

2002:62). The success of the Swahilisation project during

TANU is premised on this philosophy. It is difficult to see

what demand for Kiswahili would have existed for people

living, for example, in the remotest parts of Sukuma land or

Maasai land, most of whom Kiswahili was (and still is) just

as foreign a language as English or French is to many other

Tanzanians! Kiswahili, as Blommaert puts it, was imposed on

the people by the state just as English was imposed on the

people by colonialists. Thus, “Swahili, was, during its

heyday as effective an ‘imperial’ language as English,

Russian or Mandalin Chinese. It was imposed as a monoglot

standard with its own prestige varieties, and it was offered

together with strong encouragement to stop using other

languages” (Blommaert, 2001a cited in Blommaert, 2004: 23).

In the post-colonial period, multilingualism was

considered undesirable, retrogressive, and counter-

revolution, and which must be fought against in the noble

struggle for the decolonisation of Africa. This was

considered as, ‘… the epitome of both underdevelopment and

multilingualism’ (see Yahya-Othman, in Rubagumya1990: 45).

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As a result, African countries in the colonial

aftermath chose to wage a war against nothing specific,

apart from the fact that they did not want colonial

languages, and were also suspicious of ethnic languages. In

Tanzania, when English was ‘outlawed’ in public and

government offices, so were ethnic languages. In the TANU’s

era the use of ethnic languages was discouraged in the

pretext that such linguistic practices would encourage

tribal divide and nepotism. The main doctrine on this score

was that the, ‘National unity could only be attained when

people forgot their old affiliations and distinctions and

took a new common identity: that of Tanzanian mwananchi,

countryman, citizen’ (Blommaert (1999: 56).

The real danger of this struggle, however, lies on the

attitude of some anti foreign languages lobby in Africa who

crusade for the indiscriminate ‘cleansing’ of African

society in almost religious fanaticism. In Tanzania, this

phenomenon is evident among Ujamaa loyalists, whose

frustration for the collapse of Ujamaa in Tanzania, have

made them assume a stereotypical outlook of things outside

Africa. Mulokozi’s (Op. cit), for example, highlights a number

of issues (some of which are quite relevant to language or

rather Kiswahili development in Tanzania), but at the same

time he makes intriguing the arguments about language

politics in Tanzania.

23

Mulokozi (ibid) documents factors, which facilitated the

spread of Kiswahili and reports that, ‘By 1970 Kiswahili was

already accepted as the national language by practically all

Tanzanians, only one area of contention remains i.e.

secondary and higher education’. The author calls this a

‘problem’, which, he says, unleashed English versus

Kiswahili debate that raged on even after the government

approved Makweta’s (1982) draft proposal of Kiswahili

replacing English in secondary school by 1985. This argument

sounds fine. But, the following statement sounds intriguing,

‘When Benjamin Mkapa became president in1995 he cleverly

evaded the language question by directing that the debate

should continue. And it continues’ (Mulokozi, Op. cit: 3).

In the author’s point of view, the government should

not have allowed this debate, which now accords every

Tanzanian an opportunity to express his/her views freely in

a manner befitting a democratic and civil society. Such

freedom does not seem right. Tanzanians should be forced

into accepting the established official position,

unquestionably. It needs no overemphasizing that during

Ujamaa heydays, to which the author seems nostalgic, open

discussions, which touched on issues considered anti-

official established position, were considered a taboo that

could easily amount to sedition.

Our conviction here is that Tanzanians have a right to

discuss issues that matter to them; and there can be no

24

issues that matter the most to any society as language

issues. For language is power, and because power matters,

language also matters. Describing the role of language in

exercising power, Faircrough (1991: 219) observes, and

rightly so that, ‘It is mainly in the discourse that consent

is achieved, ideologies are transmitted and practices,

meanings values and identities are taught’. No civilization

would have been possible in the world without this social

practice ingrained in language use.

The rights of any member of a civil society to have

free discussions on language related issues do also pertain

to language choices, use, standardization, spread,

development, and what have you. Of course, it is difficult

if not impossible for a society to open up a debate on what

a national or official language should be and expect the

whole population to have a common ground on which particular

language should play such a role. This is what makes

governments formulate language policies in order to have

common grounds of particular linguistic codes that can be

used in intra ethnic communications generally (national

language) and in some other prescribed social domains

(official languages). Such policies however do not strip off

the rights of individual citizens of using local languages,

which have not been accorded the status of national or

official languages. Nor do they restrict citizens from

accessing foreign languages or from debating these issues.

25

This is what entails language rights, and that language

discussions are bound to continue even when the Tanzanian

government proclaims in a blanket like that, as from

tomorrow Kiswahili be used from secondary education, higher

education and beyond!

Even the decolonisation process itself, once a popular

song in Africa, requires multiple strategies, some of which

have a strong bearing on reciprocal exchange of not only

skills in terms of experts, but also in terms of linguistic

resources between Africa and other continents. This is what

is meant by domestication and diversification, among the

five strategies of this decolonisation process as identified

by Ali Mazrui. Others are indigenisation, horizontal

penetration, and vertical counter-penetration (see Mazrui in

Tellefson 2002: 227). According to Mazrui (ibid.)

domestication should involve Africanising of English ‘to

make it respond to local imagery, figures of speech, sound

patterns and the general cultural milieu of the region” as

well as creating “counter-hegemonic discourse of the

language. On the other hand, diversification refers to

making African languages to reach out and be made to respond

to “the stimulus of a wider range of civilizations than the

west”.

In the realization of far-reaching implications of the

language struggle-or rather the struggle against the

unknown, a country such as South Africa chose to adopt

26

liberal approaches towards language policy and language

planning at the post-apartheid era. Thus, the country

adopted all the country’s 11 major languages, as official

languages. These include English and Afrikaans, the

languages of their former white rulers. South Africa might

have realized that the ‘rejectionism’ approach of wanting to

dismantle all language infrastructures affiliated to their

former apartheid regime may not work to the best interest of

her people. Of course much remains to be seen as to how in

practice such a policy will help South Africa, but what is

true is that 11 languages have at least been given an

official lease of life, and that ethnic diversity in this

rainbow nation has been statutory acknowledged.

In situating language rights in Tanzania, Blommaert

(2004:10) makes an interesting point that, “… state’s

attempt towards the generalization of Swahili at all

(almost) levels of society was a huge success”, but

Kiswahili has never been the key to progress and liberation

for Tanzanians. Of concern here is what is called cultural

liberation and national identity. The question of using

Kiswahili as a marker for national culture and identity is

still a contested issue. One of the arguments used to

Swahilise Tanzania is the origin of Kiswahili. This aspect

has often been a subject of debate. Historically and

ethnographically Kiswahili is the mother tongue of Islamic

coastal and partly urbanized group (Blommaert 1999: 101),

27

constituting 10% of all Kiswahili speakers, who are over 90%

of the population in Tanzania (see Rubagumya 1990).

Therefore Kiswahili is by no means the carrier of the

culture of the nation as a whole. “The National culture of

Tanzania is, in a sense, the sum of its regional cultures,

expressed in local languages-more than 120 of them and tied to

local customs and situations (Whiteley 1969:101) [My

emphasis].

One would understand the dangers of associating

Kiswahili with religion. Kiswahili was meant to be a

unifying factor, to bring about cohesiveness required in a

society for national building. This process would have been

in jeopardy if, for instance the very medium of this project

was portrayed as being affiliated with a particular

religion, sect or ethnic group. But, what undermines the

logic of the argument of Kiswahili being the marker of

national culture and identity (and even of social

cohesiveness) is its monolithic view of language. In that

Kiswahili, for example, is strictly seen as a single entity.

But as Blommaert observes, and rightly so, that, “… any

single language, once linguists and sociolinguists start

looking at it, falls apart in a mosaic of dialects,

sociolects, jargons, slang variants, colloquial variants,

registers, styles and speech events (Blommaert 1999: 11).

28

4.0. LANGUAGE, EDUCATION AND EXCLUSIONISM PHENOMENON

Any language can be looked at as many languages within a

language. Thus, Kiswahili is not purely a single language,

which is thought to be. A rather radical view is that there

are many Viswahilis (see Blommaert, ibid) as there are speakers.

This multiplicity is not about individual idiosyncrasies,

but rather it is about different shared varieties that

exist.

A simple example would be looking at the use of

Kiswahili in genre specific domains. As mentioned earlier,

Kiswahili, or any other language for that matter, if it is

to be used in education it will be that of a highly

specialised academic register. This is not the register that

will be acquired automatically by everybody, it will have to

be learnt, because it involves formulaic expressions,

academic vocabulary, and discourse features all of which are

a phenomenon that is cognitively complex. This means that

the speakers who will access this register will only be

those who will go through the formal education system, and

trained to communicate in the academic discourse. One

argument here is that, much as Kiswahili is a national

language, not all Kiswahili is (or, in the event of making

it the language of education, will be) a public property.

This aspect is reflected in the Campus Swahili, the

terminology Blommaert coined to describe the language usage

(English –Swahili code switching) of the University of Dar

29

es Salaam (UDSM) intellectuals. Blommaert revealed that UDSM

intellectuals use Kiswahili, which “… is quite

sophisticated lexically and syntactically and reflects the

standard variety developed at the UDSM” (Blommaert

1999:164).

To this end, one can correctly say that language is as

effective a unifying factor as it is a dividing factor.

Language is characteristically multifunctional in use, in

that it “… is always simultaneously constitutive of (i)

social identities, (ii) social relations, and (iii) systems

of knowledge and beliefs” (Fairclough 1995:131). The human

desire of wanting to identify themselves as a group is

inverse proportional to the same desire of wanting to

exclude others who do not belong to this group membership.

Changing medium of instruction to Kiswahili will therefore

not tackle the social exclusion phenomenon basing on

language. The only difference will be that social class

differences will now operate within a local national

language where you have people conversant in highly

specialized and sophisticated Kiswahili (because of their

formal education) and those who do not have (and cannot

share) this variety. “Inequality has to do with modes of

language use, not with languages, … we need to develop an

awareness that it is not necessarily the language you speak,

but how you speak it, … It is a matter of voice, not of

30

language: … this is a social problem, only partially a

linguistic one” (Blommaert, 1999: 11).

Much has already happened in the standardization of

Kiswahili for communication in some semiotic types i.e.

genres of the professional discourse, in what is known as

Kiswahili sanifu (standard Swahili). This variety of

Kiswahili is mainly if not exclusively, used by the elite

group. For examples: how many rural poor Tanzanians, are

able to decode such words as: Utandawazi (globalisation),

Nakisi ya Bajeti (budget deficit), urari wa bajeti (balanced budget)

Ujasiliamali (entrepreneurship), Soko huria (free market), Mfumko

wa bei (inflation), mswada (draf, bill), Duru (circles, esp. in

politics), etc. etc? But these Kiswahili words feature

widely in the language repertoire of budget speeches, which

are read in parliament, and intended for the general public.

For people in the academia, other professions and political

fields such words form part of their household vocabulary,

but certainly not so for many of the Tanzanian populace.

Clearly, so it appears, elite group formation in a

society is not so much a result of the language used as it

is of other social factors, and in this case the upward

social mobility through formal education. The language or

variety of the language used only becomes the class marker,

the identity marker, and the status symbol of the group.

Thus, education, in whatever language it is offered would

tend to create such social groupings.

31

5.0. WHY A MONOLINGUAL MIND-SET IN A LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE

SOCIETY?

Language policy and planning has been premised on one

nation-one culture ideological outlook from the influence of

a long period of one-party politics in Tanzania. Oneness or

homogeism phenomenon, which was unrealistic in the context

of Tanzania’s linguistics and cultural diversity, has not

helped Tanzanians to attain the national identity, and unity

that was envisaged. Ujamaa policy was practically put to

death after liberalization policy in early 1990s, though its

staunch supporters continued to nurse it at the level of

rhetoric. But one cannot fail to see some sense of the

argument that, “policies attempting to ensure that everyone

speaks the same language variety are no more realistic than

policies requiring everyone to be the same height” (Lippi-

Green cited in Tellefson 2002:5). During Ujamaa days, all

Tanzanians were linguistically forced to fit into a

Procrustean iron bed, a recourse which was not only

chimerical, but whose repercussions are strongly felt today

especially in the school system where English is a medium of

instruction. The environment outside the classroom hardly

offers any opportunity for the use of the language to be

able to effectively play its crucial role as a medium of

instruction.

32

It is surprising that liberal policies towards economy

has been welcome as a positive move in Tanzania, but the

same liberalism towards language policies has either not

been conceived or has all along been considered as counter

revolutionary. In terms of economic policy, Tanzania has

perhaps succeeded in breaking the shackles of monopolistic

economy of one party state. But in terms of language and

culture, the Ujamaa mind-set still looms large amongst some

(perhaps influential) sections of the Tanzanian community.

The argument to be underscored here is that if one wishes to

make a language (any language) a viable vehicle towards

economic integration, then liberalization policies towards

this direction is inevitable. Since Ujamaa ideology hinged

on a deeply ingrained belief in a monolingual state,

Tanzanians, for so long have all been equally disadvantaged

through the hegemony of monolithic approaches in the outlook

towards social dynamics. Kiswahili has been in use in

Tanzania right from pre-independence period. The use of the

language became even more extended to a wider Tanzanian

community by TANU for many years after independence, but

Tanzanians by all standards are more unequal today than they

were many years ago.

6.0. CONCLUSION

This paper has argued that the rationalisation of Kiswahili

in post-primary education has not addressed pertinent issues

33

on mother tongue education in Tanzania. The medium of

instruction debate was and (still is) polarized into two

opposing camps: English versus Kiswahili, with each camp

striving to defeat the other. Contradictory and conflicting

tendencies structuring the debate generated ideological

polemics, which did (and do) nothing to address the

linguistically and pedagogically absurd language situation

in post-primary education. It is unfortunate that the MoI

debate appeals to nationalism dogma, anti foreign, anti

colonial, and anti imperialism rhetoric as a convenient

excuse in the argument for the replacement of English with

Kiswahili in post-primary education, instead of articulating

pedagogical goals to be achieved by such a move.

What is forgotten here is that Tanzania is a

linguistically diverse society, and the resources of this

sociolinguistic profile comprise Kiswahili, local (ethnic)

languages, as well as foreign languages (i.e. English,

French, Arabic, etc.). And all of these languages have roles

to play, the roles that are more complementary than

antagonistic in this linguistically diglossic society.

Needless to overemphasize the validity of the argument that

Tanzania stands to gain if multilingualism is encouraged

instead of the reverse. In the same vein, Tanzania will not

achieve anything by abandoning the medium of English in her

post-primary education. Language incompetence witnessed in

34

schools is symptomatic of more complex issues and

linguistics is not even among the major ones.

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