The most recent developments concerning the debate on language of instruction
in Tanzania
By Birgit Brock-Utne1
Institute for Educational Research
University of Oslo
Presented to the NETREED conference from the 7 th to the 9th of January 2002.
Introduction
Tanzania is one of the few countries in Africa that has a uniting language, Kiswahili, that
almost the whole population (about 95%) speak and understand. For many Tanzanians
Kiswahili is the second language, but the number that has it as the first language is rapidly
growing. Kiswahili is the language used in Parliament, in the various Ministries, in the lower
judicial courts, in all of primary school. Plans existed to have Kiswahili as the language of
instruction in secondary school and the universities.
In a research project started in January 2001 I look at the fate of these plans, the prospects of
them being followed up now, and the language situation, especially for secondary school
students in Tanzania. In my current research project I have analyzed documents to find out the
most recent developments concerning policy guidelines on the language of instruction in
Tanzania. I have also searched documents to find discussion and decisions on the
implementation of the recent language policy. I have further started interviewing policy
makers in Tanzania about the language policy and the implementation of it. Further
interviews with policy-makers will be conducted in November of this year. Apart from my
own direct activity I have also had research assistance from Tanzanian Master students who,
under my guidance have made, and are in the process of making, studies in Tanzanian
secondary schools. They study the practice going on in secondary schools when it comes to
what language is being used as the communication vehicle in class and outside of the class-
1
Prof.Dr.Birgit Brock-Utne.
Director of the M.Phil. Programme in Comparative and International Education.
Institute for Educational Research. P.B.1092 Blindern. 0317 Oslo. Norway.
Phones:* 47 22 85 53 95(office) * 47 66 91 80 36 (home)* 47 928 489 87 (cell phone)
Faxes:* 47 22 85 42 50 (office) * 47 66 91 59 17 (home)E-mail: birgit.brock-utne@ped.uio.no
http://www.uio.no/~bbrock/ http://www.uio.no/~bbrock/EduDev.html http://www.pfi.uio.no/forskning/netreed
2
room. They look at how much students understand of what is going on in the class-room and
what strategies teachers use to impart knowledge in class-rooms where the language of
instruction is one that students do not use outside of the class-room. They also make
inventories concerning the views of teachers and students when it comes to the language of
instruction. This paper deals with these tentative findings.
Historical glimpses of the language policy of Tanzanian education
I have elsewhere given short historical glimpses of the language policy of Tanzanian
education (Brock-Utne, 1983; 2000:2001a;2001b). Here I relate how already in the second
Five Year Plan of Tanzania (1969-74) the continued use of English as a medium at secondary
and tertiary levels of education was deemed unsatisfactory. The move to Kiswahili as the
medium of instruction in primary schools was thought to be only part of a larger plan to
implement the use of Kiswahili as the medium of instruction throughout the educational
system. In 1969 the Ministry of National Education sent a circular to all Headmasters and
Headmistresses of all secondary schools outlining the plan for the gradual introduction of
Kiswahili as the medium of instruction. According to Bhaiji (1976) secondary school teachers
also favored a shift to Kiswahili as a medium of instruction. The Ministry's circular suggested
that political education "siasa" should be taught in Kiswahili from the school-year 1969/70,
domestic science from the school-year 1970/71, history, geography, biology, agriculture and
mathematics from 1971/72 (Bhaiji, 1976, p. 112). Bhaiji (1976) tells that at this time
curriculum developers had already started to translate and compile all the technical and
scientific terms of school subjects. Some schools had already received a booklet on
mathematical terms in Kiswahili. Polome (1979) claims that the initial plan was for Kiswahili
to become the medium of instruction in all subjects in Form I and II by 1973.
The teaching of political education - siasa - through the medium of Kiswahili was introduced.
But then the reform stopped. A study commissioned by the National Kiswahili Council
showed that secondary school students had great difficulties learning the subjects taught in
school because the medium of instruction -English - represented a great barrier (Matteru, &
Mlama, 1978). The study argued for the shift into Kiswahili both at secondary and tertiary
levels of education.
At the end of 1980 the then President of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere,
appointed a Presidential Commission on Education to review the entire education system. He
3
made Mr. J. Makweta the Chair of the Commission. The Makweta-Commission presented its
report to the President in February 1982. The recommendations on the medium of instruction
more than refueled the expectations by actually setting a date for a change from English to
Kiswahili. In January 1985 the first year of secondary school i.e. Form I, was to start using
Kiswahili and in 1991 the University was going to start teaching through the medium of
Kiswahili. However, this recommendation was deleted from the official report published in
1984 (Rubagumya, 1991).
In the years 1969 to 1983 Tanzanian educators were waiting and preparing for the shift to
Kiswahili as the medium of instruction in secondary and later also university education. But
in 1983 "the government quite unexpectedly sought to turn the tide" (Lwaitama, &
Rugemalira, 1988: 2). In August 1983 the Minister for Education, Mr. J. Makweta was quoted
in the press (UHURU, 1983) as saying that the expected change of medium was not going to
take place. This must have been a statement that was difficult for Education Minister
Makweta to make. He had himself chaired the commission, which had suggested the change
of the medium of instruction in secondary and tertiary education from English to Kiswahili.
When discussing the issue with him, he told me that he personally favored a switch to
Kiswahili but it was a government decision to stop the further development of Kiswahili at
higher levels in the educational system. The decision seems to have been taken by President
Nyerere himself, partly with the support of the British Council, the cultural arm of the British
government.
When discussing the same issue with Makweta at the end of April 1992, he partly put the
blame for a reversion of the decision to switch to Kiswahili on the university people,
especially at the then Department of Education. "You intellectuals betrayed us", Makweta
said to the Dean of the Faculty of Education. "We did not get the support from you we
needed. How could we carry the decision through with so little support from the intellectual
community?"2
During July/August 1984 Dr.Clive Criper, a linguist from Edinburgh University and Mr. Bill
Dodd, an administrator with long experience from Tanzania, were carrying out the British
2
My translation from a conversation which went in Kiswahili between Makweta, at that time Minister of
Education, later Minister of Communication, the Dean of the Faculty of Education, Prof. Mosha and myself on the
22nd of April 1992 at a dinner party in the Swedish Ambassador's residence.
4
government funded study on levels of English presently existing across the educational
system. Their study confirmed earlier research showing that the levels of English were too
low in most schools for effective learning to take place. Here are two of their findings:

Only about l0% of Form IVs are at a level that one might expect English medium
education to begin (p. 14).

Less than 20% of the University sample tested were at a level where they would find it
easy to read even the simpler books required for their academic studies (p. 43).
Based on these findings Criper and Dodd reached the following astonishing conclusion: "The
Ministry of Education should issue an unambiguous circular setting out the policy on English
medium education" (Criper, & Dodd, 1984:73). To many of us this conclusion by the
authors seems highly illogical. Building on the two research findings quoted above one would
think that their conclusion would encompass an argument for a switch to a medium of
instruction with which the students were familiar, namely Kiswahili. Lwaitama and
Rugemalira (1988) claim that this last statement was no coincidence. The British government
that had paid the consultancy also wanted to see the British language strengthened in
Tanzania. Rubagumya (1991:76) also comments the paradox that although Criper and Dodd
stated categorically, after having concluded their empirical research, that English had ceased
to be a viable medium of education in Tanzania, their recommendation for the English
Language Support Project (ELSP), which the British Government was to fund, was on the
condition that English continues to be the medium of instruction!
Rubagumya (1991) claims that the decision by the Government that English will continue to
be the medium of instruction in secondary schools was not taken because Kiswahili is not
ready to be used as a medium:
In fact this has never been given as a reason by the Government to justify its decision.
The reason given is that we need English as the language of technological development.(Rubagumya, 1991: 77)
But in the report "Tanzania Education System for the 21st century" it is argued that Kiswahili
is not ready to be used as a medium of instruction:
As a matter of policy, Kiswahili should be a medium of instruction at the pre-primary and
primary school levels. However, English should continue to be strengthened at primary
level and used as a medium of instruction in post primary institutions until such a time
when Kiswahili is ready to be the dominant medium of instruction." [italics added] (URT,
1993: 23)
5
The economic crises in Africa have made it easy for the old colonial powers to move in all
over Africa. The strengthening of the ex-colonial languages is of no help to the masses of
Africans but functions as a means of separating the African elites from the masses of
Africans.
In Tanzania the aid given by Britain has been in the form of an English Language Teaching
Support Project, financed by the Ministry of Overseas Development as a "top priority of
British aid to education in Tanzania" (Bgoya, 1992: 179). A British Council Annual Report
admitted that although the British government no longer has the economic and military power
to impose its will in other parts of the world, British influence endures through "the insatiable
demand for the English language". The report maintained that English language is Britain's
greatest asset, "greater than the North Sea Oil" and characterized English as an "invisible,
God given asset" (British Council, 1983: 9).
Newer studies e.g. by Zaline M.Roy-Campbell and Martha Qorro (1997) have shown that the
language crisis in Tanzanian secondary schools is to-day even more severe than it was twenty
years ago. Results of the university Screening Test (UDSM,1994), a test usually administered
to all incoming students (from secondary schools) at the beginning of their university studies,
indicate that despite the fact that these students have studied under the ELTSP (English
Language Support Project financed by the British Council) their English language proficiency
was not any better than that of students before the ELTSP was launched. In fact the level of
English is still going down. The indecisiveness of the Tanzanian government on the language
issue is, however, a problem that is difficult to understand and analyze. New language policies
are being made and the debate goes on.
Recent policy statements concerning the language of instruction in Tanzania
The official language in education policy that is currently being followed in Tanzania is the
one led down in Education and Training Policy (MoE,1995) which, inter alia, states:
The medium of instruction in pre-primary schools shall be Kiswahili, and English
shall be a compulsory subject (:35)
The medium of instruction in primary schools shall be Kiswahili, and English shall be
a compulsory subject (:39)
6
The medium of instruction for secondary education shall continue to be English,
except for the teaching of other approved languages and Kiswahili shall be a
compulsory subject up to ordinary level (:45)
In August 1997, the Ministry of Education and Culture in Tanzania issued a policy document
entitled: Sera ya Utamaduni (Cultural Policy). Chapter 3 of this document deals with language
issues, including the language of education policy. The aim of this policy is to clarify the
position of the Tanzanian Government when it comes to the place of the different languages
of Tanzania in the formal education system. Section 3.4.1 of the document includes the
following statement:
Mpango maalum wa kuiwezesha elimu na mafunzo katika ngazi zote kutolewa katika
lugha ya Kiswahili utaandaliwa na kutekelezwa (MEC, 1997:19) (Translated: A
special programme to enable the use of Kiswahili as a medium of instruction in
education and training at all levels shall be designed and implemented)
The Ministry was, however, aware of the important role of English and also wanted the
teaching of this language to be strengthened but then as a subject. The policy explicitly states:
Kingereza kitakuwa ni somo la lazima katika elimu ya awali, msingi na sekondari na
kitahimizwa katika elimu ya juu na ufundishaji wake utaboreshwa. (MEC,1997:18)
(Translated: English will be a compulsory subject at pre-primary, primary and
secondary levels and it shall be encouraged in higher educational. The teaching of
English shall be strengthened).
The question I have tried to find some answer to through my field-work in Tanzania this year
is: How is the decision to implement Kiswahili medium instruction at all levels of the
educational system being followed up? What has happened to the language question in
secondary schools after the Sera ya Utamaduni was published in August 1997? I have been
trying to gather recent documents on this issue and in the beginning of February of this year I
conducted a series of interviews with government officials and university people.
At the University of Dar es Salaam I came across the Report on the 1998 UDSM Academic
Audit (UDSM,1999) published in March 1999. Point 4.4 ( UDSM,1999:71-73) of the report
discusses “Language as a Medium of Teaching and Learning”. The authors of the report
mention that from the talks and discussions they held with various groups of students and
staff:
it was evident that most students have problems with the language medium of
instruction (i.e.English). Proficiency in the language is low and leaves much to be
desired (UDSM,1999:71)
7
The members of the panel are very concerned about the fact that members of staff who have a
good English proficiency are approaching retirement and no new recruitment of
chronologically young staff has been authorized since the abolition of the tutorial
assistantship. They also refer to research findings pointing to the low command of English in
secondary school. They express their concern in the following words:
One can only guess what will happen when the seniors begin to exit in numbers in the
next four or five years and the University is forced to recruit from among the products
of secondary school English language training of the 1980s and 1990s. Then the
problem of English language communication among University teachers will be
visible and painful…If nothing should have been done by that time, then it should be
time for the University to decide going into the lingua franca (Kiswahili) – a language
in which both teacher and student will be able to interact meaningfully and confidently
(UDSM,1999:72).
This is, however, a decision that is already the official policy of the Ministry of Education and
Culture as it is laid down in Sera ya Utamaduni (MEC,1997). And the decision about what
language to use as a language of instruction in Tanzania is a decision to be made by the
Government and not the University. In their discussion on the language issue the panelists
refer to Jean Jacques Rousseau who was very critical to the French education system and the
teaching in Greek and Latin. He asked: ” If the master’s Greek and Latin is such poor stuff,
how about the children?” The panelists ask:
In similar vein, in the next five to ten years, the University of Dar es Salaam should be
able to judge and, if appropriate, to query: If the master’s English is such poor stuff,
how about the students? Stop it. Let us go Kiswahili. The University needs to take a
decision and to act very soon in connection with the language problem. (MEC,1997:
73).
Here again it looks like the panelists think that it is the University that takes the decision on
the language of instruction, bypassing the Ministry of Education, the politicians and the
Government. But the attitudes of university people of course count when a decision to change
medium of instruction is to be taken. After having discussed the problems caused by the low
proficiency of students in the medium of instruction at the university the authors of the Audit
report conclude with the following illogical and astonishing statement:
But judging from the current and projected global trends and the fact that English is
fast becoming the ICT language globally, UDSM should continue to use English as a
medium of instruction. (MEC,1997:73).
8
In reaching this conclusion the panelists have chosen to ignore that they themselves
discovered that “most students have problems with the language medium of instruction (i.e.
English).” They have also chosen to ignore the1997 policy of the Ministry of Education and
Culture on the language of instruction issue. The fact that English is the most frequently used
language on the internet is no reason to have English as a medium of instruction. It is an
argument for a strengthening of the subject English, completely in line with the policy
statement of the Ministry of Education and Culture in Sera na Utamanduni (MEC,1997).
Politicians and academics are divided on the language issue
In early February of this year I conducted a series of interviews – all in Kiswahili – with
policy makers, government officials and academics in Dar es Salaam to come to grips with
the question: Why is the policy outlined in Sera ya utamaduni not being followed up? In an
interview I conducted with Martha Qorro, Head of Department of Foreign Languages and
linguistics at the University of Dar es Salaam in her office on 2.2.2001 she said that both
politicians and academics were divided on the language issue.
There were those who supported the use of Kiswahili as the language of instruction in
secondary school and the University and there were those who wanted to start with English as
the language of instruction from first grade in primary school. Unfortunately the second group
had the most strength because they were backed up by powerful donors like British Council,
US-AID and the World Bank. They would say things like “English is the language of
development, of modernization, of science and technology. The language of the global village
– “ kijiji kimoja”. There was no-one from outside of Tanzania that supported the position that
Kiswahili ought to be the language of instruction in secondary school and university. It is like
a war between two camps. The problem is the Cabinet, she said. She told me that Che
Mbonda, leader of one of the opposition parties, in 1992/93 said that if he became the
president, he would see to it that children started learning in English from day one in grade
one in primary school. Parents among the elites would frequently send their children to
neighbouring countries where the language of instruction was English from grade one. Also
some private, so-called “international” primary schools, had started popping up in Dar es
Salaam for children of well to do parents. These schools would use English as language of
instruction from grade one in primary school.
9
In the interview we also discussed the position of the former President Nyerere who was
instrumental in making Kiswahili the language of Parliament and of basic and adult education
but was reluctant to having it as a language of instruction in secondary school. In his later
years he had several times said: I think I made a mistake when it came to the language of
instruction We should have continued with Kiswahili. I later found an article on the question
of medium of instruction by Rubanza (2000) where he mentions an article in Daily News
where Julius Nyerere (1995) advocates the use of Kiswahili as a medium of instruction in
secondary schools and other institutions of higher learning. In an interview I had with
Prof.Ruth Besha, Head of Department of Kiswahili, UDSM in her office a couple of days
later she said she had been fighting for the use of Kiswahili medium all her life. She blamed
Nyerere for reverting the decision in 1985. It did not help so much that he said he had made a
mistake at the end of his life. At that point he did not have power any more, “haina nguvu “
(no strength). She made me aware of the fact that at the very day I was leaving was the Day of
Kiswahili. She wanted me to delay my departure to experience that day where they among
other things would have demonstration teaching in secondary school of science subjects. All
the vocabulary has been developed she said.
On the 5th of February 2001 I conducted an interview with Casmir M. Rubagumya , also in
the Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics at the University of Dar es Salaam in
his office. Senior Lecturer Casmir M.Rubagumya is one of the main researchers behind the
1998 consultancy report on language for learning and teaching (MEC,1998). This consultancy
report was commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Culture after the 1997 Sera ya
Utamaduni policy had been officially declared. The research for the report was done by
Rubagumya in collaboration with colleagues from Lancaster university and financed,
interestingly enough, by the British Council. The same day that I talked with Rubagumya I
also conducted an interview with Professor, Dr.Rugatiri D.K.Mekacha, from the Department
of Kiswahili UDSM (now in Osaka for two years to teach Kiswahili). He told me that
language is not any more mentioned in the Constitution of Tanzania. In the Constitution of
1962 it was said that Kiswahili and English should be the national languages. Since then
there have been changes in the Constitution 13 times (last 1999/2000) and the issue of
language has disappeared. The conversation with him was also conducted in Kiswahili and
took place in the tea-garden. He said that he had had a big quarrel with dr. Rubagumya about
the first proposal for the consultancy:
10
You should have seen the first proposal they came with. It looked like the main aim
was to strengthen English. They were talking about giving people an option. The
second quarrel I had with Rubagumya was on the issue of bilingualism. Why
bilingualism? They talked about something they called “systematic bilingualism”.
Rugatiri Mekacha also referred me to a paper he had published (Mekacha,1997) in response to
a paper written by Rubagumya (1997). He is in this paper very concerned about the fact that
the Government needs advise as to how to implement the new language polcy and he feels
that the first signals from the consultancy team
seem to me to be attempts to react to the declaration with the implicit view of protecting
the continued use of English as medium of instruction (italics original) at higher levels of
education, even if it is for only some time to come (Mekacha, 1997:96) .
Mekacha’s paper is written before the consultancy report was finalized and published. His
suspicion that the consultancy report will not be an advise on how to implement the new
language policy but rather be an argument against it is, as far as I see it, based on the
following two factors:

An understandable deja-vu feeling:
One is reminded of the other British Council financed research conducted by Criper and
Dodd, just after the publication of the report of the Makweta Commission, following
which the English Language Support project was launched and implemented for ten years
with little, if any, achievement (see Simmonds et.al.1991) (Mekacha,1997:96)

A call by Rubagumya (1997) to let English and Kiswahili support each other in the form
of a bilingual practice in what is termed additive rather than subtractive bilingualism.
I suppose the call will be part of a range of policy options to be discussed and presented to
the Ministry of Education and Culture as the mentioned research envisages, instead of
advising the government of how best to implement the policy (Sera ya Utamaduni,1997)
which is already in place. (Mekacha,1997:97)
When one studies the draft report of the consultancy team there is, however, reason to claim
that Mekachas fears have not come true. This is not a new Criper and Dodd report,
undermining a government report and insisting on the continued use of English as the
language of instruction. The consultancy is paid by the British Council which is the reason
why one of the two full-time consultants is a UK citizen. One might have wished that since
one consultant, Rubagumya, is from the Department of Foreign Languages, the other full-time
consultant ought to have been from the Department of Kiswahili. This is not how donors
work. But the British consultant, Kathryn Jones, is not a monolingual Brit but one who has
Welsh as her mother tongue and is concerned with language discrimination. And the project
11
officer in the British Council office in Dar es Salaam was Roger Avenstrup who, although he
is British, has a perfect command of Norwegian and a keen interest in African languages. 3If
the British Council or part of the Tanzanian elites had wanted a report undermining the Sera
ya utamaduni policy, this is not what they got. In order to advise the government the
consultancy team conducted a study comprising three interconnected components. The first
component entitled Language Use in Classroom Settings presented detailed and systematic
insights into the language in four different settings in Tanzania (standard 1 classes), late
primary education (standard 6 classes), the transition into secondary education (Form I
classes), middle secondary (Form3 & 4 classes) and Teacher’ Colleges (Grade A Certificate
and Diploma classes). A total of 94 lessons were observed and documented with written
fieldnotes, audio recordings, video recordings, still photographs and examples of written text.
The data was collected by a team of 8 researchers with a background in linguistics and
teaching. The purpose of the Language issues in education in Tanzania component was to
investigate the range of views expressed by different stakeholders with regard to the use of
Kiswahili and/or English as the language for learning and teaching at secondary level and
above in Tanzania. 571 audio recorded interviews with stakeholders in each of Tanzania’s
seven educational zones were carried out by a team of 7 researchers.
The third component, Language Planning and Policy Implementation draws upon the insights
of the two empirical research components together with experience of language planning in a
number of post-colonial settings. It further includes:
an analysis of the Tanzanian socio-linguistic context, and corpus planning in
Kiswahili to propose effective and realisable recommendations for implementing the
language policy of Sera ya Utamaduni. (MEC,1998:xi)
As part of this component two workshops were held in Dar es Salaam in the beginning and
towards the end of the project for representatives of the key stakeholders identified by MEC.
The purpose of the workshops was to discuss language planning and policy implementation
strategies presented in the form of discussion papers by Professor Mwansoko from the
Institute of Kiswahili Research, the project language planning consultant. A third workshop
on the project research findings and draft language planning and policy implementation
3
Dr.Roger Avensrup has spent many years in Namibia working closely with the Minister of Education. He was a
good discussion partner for me when I, on request from the National Institute of Education in Namibia, made a
study of the African languages in Namibia after independence (Brock-Utne, 1995; 1997). Not long after the
consultancy report on the language for learning in Tanzania came out Dr.Avenstrup unfortunately lost his job in
12
recommendations was held for Ministry of Education and Culture officials under the
chairmanship of Dr.Ndagala, Commissioner for Culture.
The classroom studies that were undertaken as part of the consultancy revealed that at
primary level teachers and students are accomplishing the task of teaching and learning
satisfactorily. But, to quote the report:
At secondary level the data reveals that teachers and students fail to learn effectively
through the sole medium of English. Kiswahili is used in class for teachers to express
themselves effectively and for students to understand their teachers. Kiswahili is the
de facto medium of instruction in many class-rooms. Those teachers who were seen
using only English in class were often found to be misleading their students. Codeswitching is not the solution for a bilingual education system. It is therefore
recommended that Kiswahili become the medium of education at secondary school.
(MEC,1998;xiii)
This recommendation has already been made in Sera ya utamaduni, the policy document that
the consultants were to advise on the implementation of. One may wonder about the use of the
concept “bilingual education system” in this report. When Kiswahili becomes the medium of
education at secondary school, why should the education system be called “bilingual”? In
Norway (with 4 Million inhabitants) Norwegian is the language of instruction in primary,
secondary and higher education. English is learnt well as a foreign language but we would
never call our education system “bilingual.”
Even though there are concepts one may criticise in the report, the promising part of it is that
it actually proposes a gradual changeover to the use of Kiswahili as the medium of instruction
starting with Form 1 in the year 2001.
The gradual introduction of Kiswahili as the medium of instruction allows for a
gradual programme of pre-service and in-service teacher education to accompany the
changeover. Kiswahili, as a medium in which both teachers and students are
competent, opens up new opportunities for more meaningful learning across the
curriculum. The main aim of the teacher education programme is to create awareness
of teaching and learning methodology which takes advantage of these opportunities.
The programme also provides a vehicle for dissemination of subject-specific Kiswahili
terminology. (MEC,1998:xvi)
Other proposals that are made in the consultancy report is the conduction of an information
campaign on the advantages of using Kiswahili as the language of instruction. It is furthered
British Council in Tanzania. I have often been struck by the fact that individual consultants in donor agencies
can make a lot of difference.
13
proposed that model demonstration schools be attached both to the Faculty of Education at
UDSM and to selected Diploma Colleges.
My conversations with academics and policy-makers on the implementation of Sera ya
utamaduni and the recommendations of the consultancy report took place in the beginning of
2001, the year in which, according to the report, the gradual change-over was recommended
to take place. Yet there were no signs that this was happening. Neither had the Faculty of
Education at the UDSM been equipped to stage a model demonstration school where
secondary school subjects would be taught through the medium of Kiswahili.. Rubagumya
said he was disappointed that the people in the Ministry did not follow up the consultancy
report where he was one of the chief and full-time consultants (for six months) He said that
the Ministry of Education and Culture has a culture division and an education unit . His
feeling was that the people in the culture division agreed with the report and wanted the
policy to be implemented while officers in the education unit did not want it implemented. I
was given a lot of names of people in the cultural division and in the education division of the
Ministry of Education to interview.4
On the 6.th of February 2001 I conducted an interview with Joseph Butiku , the Director of
the Nyerere Foundation. He stressed that the primary aim of his organisation was to work for
democracy in the country. In order to do this and reach the masses of people it was necessary
to use a language that people use and understand well. This language for Tanzania was
Kiswahili. Kiswahili promoted unity and democracy in the country. He told that the Catholic
Church had at one point started to use Latin. They had to admit that people did not understand
what was going on in Church so they changed the language of the Church to Kiswahili in
order to reach the people. He stressed the importance of having children and youngsters in
school understand what the teacher was trying to convey and therefore felt that instruction
through the use of Kiswahili would be the best.
4
To arrange for and conduct these interviews within the time span of the nine days I spent in Dar es Salaam in
the beginning of the year was no easy matter. I experienced the great difference between coming as a consultant
on behalf of a donor and as an independent researcher with no promise of money. As a consultant I would have a
nice hotel with all facilities, a car at my disposal, meetings all lined up and government officials (even the
Minister in many cases) eager to see me. As a researcher I now lived in a guest flat at the University, having no
car (being dependent on over-crowded dala-dalas) and was experiencing that government officials are not very
eager to talk to researchers. My good connections in Tanzania and the fact that I speak Kiswahili and could
conduct all my interviews in Kiswahili helped me.
14
Itabidi kubadilisha fikra za watu (It will be necessary to change the way people think)
In my interview round of several Ministries and with officials in Tanzania Institute of
Education, I several times heard that they personally were all in favour of changing the
medium of instruction in secondary schools and higher education into Kiswahili but people
were against it. Parents would want their children to be in English medium schools because
they said English was the language of development, the language of science and technology,
of information and communication technology. For instance when I interviewed
Mr.Rugumyamheto , the PS of utamishi (labour)in his office in Wizara ya Utamishi (Ministry
of Labour) he told me:
Itabidi kubadilisha fikra za watu. Kwa maoni yangu nafikiri itakuwa bora kutumia
Kiswahili lakini watu sasa wanakata. Wanasema Kingereza ni lugha ya maendeleo.
(It will be necessary to change the way people think. On my own part I think it would
be better to use Kiswahili (as language of instruction in secondary and higher
education), but people nowadays refuse. They say that English is the language of
development.
I conducted an interview with Mr.Bugeke – the Director of adult education who was all for
extended use of Kiswahili as language of instruction but pointed to the problems of funding
for translating and partly writing new text-books as well as publishing them. This is an
argument often heard by donors, especially by the World Bank. But when the costs for
translating, writing and publishing text-books in Kiswahili are calculated, one should also
calculate the costs of having vast numbers of children going to school without learning hardly
anything because they do not understand what the teacher says.
Understanding what the teacher says
A prominent African educationist, Pai Obanya, for many years the Director of BREDA, the
UNESCO office in Dakar, Senegal noted twenty years ago:
It has always been felt by African educationists that the African child's major learning
problem is linguistic. Instruction is given in a language that is not normally used in his
immediate environment, a language which neither the learner nor the teacher
understands and uses well enough (Obanya, l980:88).
The same conclusion has also been drawn by the World Bank educationist David Klaus
(2001) who has undertaken studies in Papua New Guinea . The opening statement of a paper
he presented at the 2001 CIES conference contains the following and, what ought to be, rather
obvious observation: “There appears to be general agreement that students learn better when
they understand what the teacher is saying”. It is encouraging that a World Bank officer holds
15
this view. Unfortunately it is not, and has never been, the official policy of the institution in
which he is working.
One of my students Halima Mohammed Mwinsheikhe (2001) has recently concluded an
empirical study in Tanzanian secondary schools where she looked at how well students
understood the biology lessons taught. In her study she also recalls her own school days:
I can recall from my school days about my Chemistry teacher who every ten minutes
or so he would ask us: "Any question students?" Nobody answered and he would
conclude: "If there are no questions, then you have understood everything!" We did
not understand him at all, not only because he taught in English only, he spoke
American English!- he was a Peace Corp. The issue was language, as it is in our
contemporary schools. (Mwinsheikhe,2001)
Having taught biology for almost sixteen years in both Ordinary and Advanced level classes
in Tanzanian secondary schools, Mwinsheikhe already before she conducted her study tended
to agree with Peacock (1995) that when it comes to the quality of instructional delivery the
language of instruction is instrumental in determining the level of performance. In connection
with her field studies Mwinsheikhe had the opportunity both of watching other teachers teach
biology, conducting a survey on the opinions of secondary school students and teachers of
biology, interview some of them and of conducting an experiment. On a very small scale she
was carrying out one of the recommendations from the consultancy report (MEC,1998) where
it was recommended that demonstrations in teaching in secondary school through the medium
of Kiswahili should be made.
Teaching biology through the medium of English and through the medium of Kiswahili
We decided that it might be interesting to see how well students in secondary school in
Tanzania would perform if they were taught some lessons through the medium of Kiswahili
instead of through the official medium which is English. We chose to carry out an experiment
in biology classes, partly because Halima used to be a biology teacher and partly because
statistics from the National Examinations Council in Tanzania show that student do
exceptionally badly in biology. This is especially the case for girls. According to George
Malekela’s analysis (2000) of past Form IV national examinations (1991-1995) over 85% of
the girls failed in Chemistry and Physics in this period while in Biology 95% failed. George
Malekela comments:” Girls performance in the science is so poor that vacancies in Form V
are left unfilled for lack of girls with the required qualifications” (Malekela, 2000: 69). We
suspected that the medium of instruction had quite a bit to do with the failure.
16
Grades in Biology have been low for a number of years and there is a clear tendency that they
are getting even lower. Performance for the GSEES school candidates, using GPA (Grade
Point Average, based on the rating of A=1,B=2,C=3, D=4, E=5) gradually changed from 4.25
(1989), 4.48 (1991), 4.54 (1993), 4.56 (1997) and 4.63 (1998) ( Mwinsheikhe, 2001 with
further reference to NECTA,1998). Halima Mwinsheikhe comments:
The problem of the MOI seems to be getting worse albeit the various efforts (such as
the Baseline English Course and the English Language Support Projects) undertaken
to improve English proficiency. It is becoming more and more evident that the official
MOI – English – is a barrier to learning in general and to conceptualize the intricate
science concepts in particular. (Mwinsheikhe, 2001:1)
Two earmarked classes (Form 0ne and Form Three) in schools CS1 (Co-Educational School
1) and SSS (Single Sex School), two streams were randomly selected from the total number
of streams of the class in question. The two streams of each class were then randomly selected
to treatment and control groups by coin flipping. The treatment group was taught the Biology
lesson using Kiswahili medium while the control group was taught in English. For each form
a pre-test was administered to both the treatment and the control groups at the same time. No
help was given to students who asked for Kiswahili translation of some of the test items. For
each form, that is form One and Form Three, the Kiswahili taught and English taught lessons
for the treatment and control groups respectively, were conducted in the day after pretest
administration. A total of four lessons taught in Kiswahili (two in Form One and two in Form
Three) were taught. The same applied for lessons taught through the medium of English. The
lessons were taught at different times so as to enable the researcher to make observations. The
lessons were structured in such a way that there was opportunity for students to ask questions,
answer teachers’questions, carry out a simple practical task, do group discussions and group
report presentations. Each lesson was of eighty minutes duration. For each form the posttest
was administered to the treatment group and the control group the same day that the lessons
were conducted. Mwinsheikhe noticed the ease in which the teachers conducted the lessons in
Kiswahili . She also noticed the great difficulties they had in conducting lessons entirely
through he medium of English:
Teachers had to abide to the rule of the study: to use one language only. However,
one could easily see that teachers who taught by using English were exerting a great
effort not to succumb to the temptation of code-switching. Mwinsheikhe,2001:57)
Though the language of instruction in secondary schools in Tanzania is supposed to be
English, Tanzanian teachers often use quite a bit of Kiswahili. They make use of code-
17
switching, a practice to which we shall return. In the small experiment carried out by
Mwinsheikhe she noticed that students in the English taught class would immediately switch
into Kiswahili in group discussions although they lowered their voices when the observer
quietly approached the group. She observed that group discussions were by far the most lively
activities during the lessons. The following are a couple of quotes of reasons students gave on
a question of why they liked to discuss in groups:

When you are discussing in the group you can not panic to use poor English (School
CSS2 Form III student)
 Because for most of times the teacher is not here to say you that is not English(School
SSS Form III student) (Mwinsheikhe,2001:64)
In both Form I and III the scores for the pretests, which were in English, were rather low. The
posttests showed a great improvement in the Form I class that was taught in Kiswahili while
the one taught in English showed very little improvement. In Form III there was also more
improvement in the posttest scores in the Kiswahili taught than in the English taught group
but here the difference was not so big as there was some improvement in both groups.
As part of her research Halima Mohammed Mwinsheikhe also administered and analyzed
ninety- two teachers' questionnaires and 490 student questionnaires. We wanted to elicit the
views of teachers and secondary school students on the medium of instruction in secondary
school, how they felt that they coped and whether they wanted a change. The unstructured
questions of the questionnaire were scrutinized in an attempt to compare the diverse ideas
expressed by the respondents and in doing so establish a basis for their categorization. As far
as fluency in Kiswahili and English was concerned, responses indicated that Kiswahili was
the first language of the majority 358 (73%) of the students while English held second
position with 119 (24%), 13 students did not indicate anything.
This condition was a reversal of that found in teachers, in the majority of whom Kiswahili
was second language. Kiswahili is increasingly being the first language of the younger
generation most of whom are children of inter-tribal marriages and/or urban parents whereby
vernaculars are no longer first languages. Teachers and students were asked whether they
experienced a language problem in the teaching and learning of science. To this 74% (N=68)
of the teachers and 89% (N=434) of the students acknowledged the existence of a problem
because of the unfamilar medium of instruction being used in the teaching/learning of science.
18
The secondary school science teachers and their students were further asked whether they
used Kiswahili unofficially during the science lessons. To this 89% (N=82) of the teachers as
well as 89% (N=437) of the students admitted that they did.
Alderson and Ladbury (1990) report after their many observations in Tanzanian secondary
school classes:
We have observed science lessons in which English was used throughout …..the
teacher’s English was weak, he largely read aloud from prepared notes, the pupils
were reluctant to respond and only did so inadequately, in monosyllables, and showed
little evidence of having understood the teacher. (Alderson and Ladbury, 1990: 12)
When the teachers often have problems expressing themselves and students have even more
problems understanding the teachers how do teachers cope in the secondary class-rooms of
Tanzania? One of their coping strategies is code-switching.
Code-switching
By code-switching we normally mean the use of two or more languages during a single
utterance or a sequence of utterances between two or more speakers. In Tanzanian classrooms you can often hear teachers mixing Kiswahili words into their otherwise English
sentences. Halima Mwinsheikhe tells from her many years of science teaching in secondary
school in Tanzania:
I personally was compelled to switch to Kiswahili by a sense of helplessness born of
the inability to make students understand the subject matter by using English
(Mwinsheikhe,2001:16)
In the following passage the science teacher changes languages completely as he sees that his
students do not understand. His own English is not easy to understand. He expresses himself
much clearer and better in Kiswahili. For him the important thing is to get the subject matter
across. He is teaching science, not English.
T: When you go home put some water in a jar, leave it direct on sun rays and observe
the decrease of the amount of water, have you understood?
Ss: (silence)
T: Nasema, chukua chombo, uweke maji na kiache kwenye jua, maji yatakuaje? (I say
take a container with water and leave it out in the sun, what will happen to the water?)
Ss: Yatapungua (it will decrease)
T: Kwa nini? (Why?)
Ss: Yatafyonzwa na mionzi ya jua (evaporated by the sun’s rays)
(Rubagumya, Jones, Mwansoko,1999: 17)
19
The above discussion between a class of secondary school students and their teacher was
observed by researchers working on the language issues consultancy for the education sector
development programme (MEC,1998) and reported by some of the main researchers involved.
The teacher is not able to get his question across in English while he has no trouble when he
switches to Kiswahili. Observations that Osaki made in science teaching in secondary schools
in Tanzania have made him reach a similar conclusion:
.
Students either talk very little in class and copy textual information from the
chalkboard, or attempt discussion in a mixed language (i.e.English and Kiswahili) and
then copy notes on the chalkboard in English…teachers who insist on using English
only end up talking to themselves with very little student input. (Osaki, 1991)
In a school setting language is used not only to impart knowledge but it is also used for classroom management. Language is further used to create a good atmosphere between students
and teachers. Sitting for several years in the back of many secondary school class-rooms in
Tanzania to observe my own students teach, I often noticed that even though they tried to use
English throughout the lesson, they would, probably even without noticing, switch into
Kiswahili when they felt the need to discipline a student, have him be quiet, stand up or fetch
something. In his doctoral thesis Casmir Rubagumya (1993) shows how Kiswahili is
frequently being used in class-rooms in secondary schools in Tanzania for classroom
management:
Teacher: Yes..good trial in English..-they took out raw materials..what else?
Yes…Rehema unasinzia ?(Rehema are you falling asleep?) Rubagumya, 1993:193)
My daughter, who in 1987/88 attended courses in development studies at the University of
Dar es Salaam regretted that her knowledge of Kiswahili was not better. She observed that
even though the professors would lecture in English, when they would crack a joke, they did
that in Kiswahili and the whole audience laughed. Halima Mwinsheike (2001: 56) who was
well familiar with the practice of code-switching in secondary class-rooms in Tanzania from
her own time as a secondary school-teacher, interviewed teachers about this practice as part of
her research. Here are some responses:
I sometimes use Kiswahili to make students smile or laugh once in a while, which is
good for learning. (School SSS teacher).
If I insist to use English throughout it is like teaching dead stones and not students.
(School CS2 teacher).
20
Both through observations and through questions asked Mwinsheikhe aimed at finding out
the extent to which Kiswahili is "unofficially" used by both students and teachers and under
what circumstances during science lessons. As mentioned the majority 68 (74%) of teachers
acknowledged the existence of the language problem in the teaching/learning of science. Only
a small proportion - 20 (22%) asserted that they faced no problem. It was not surprising
therefore to find that most teachers 82 (89%) admitted to using Kiswahili during their
teaching, while only 9 (10%) said they faced no language problem. It was interesting to note
that some of the teachers who claimed to have no language problem indicated that they, in
spite of official policy, used Kiswahili in their teaching.
Responding to the question: what lesson activities prompt you to switch to Kiswahili, of the
teachers who admitted that they used Kiswahili during lessons 70 (82%) of them said they
used it to clarify difficult and or key concepts of the lessons. The next common reason
mentioned was to give instructions for practical work and assignments 13 (15%). Reasons for
code switching may be expressed differently but at the core of matters teachers show concern
for the understanding capability of their students. Rubagumya (1997) explains that the studies
he did in 1993 as part of his doctoral thesis revealed that secondary school students admitted
that they followed lessons better if Kiswahili was used (Rubagumya ,1993).
Since most teachers use Kiswahili during lessons, it is not surprising to find that a good
proportion of them - 58 (63%) – say that they allow students to do the same. It would be
natural for teachers who code-switched to allow students to code-switch without any qualm
especially in lower forms. According to the majority of teachers students normally use
Kiswahili when they are doing group work while a smaller proportion 26 (28%) make use of
'Kiswanglish.' Working in groups entails a much more relaxed atmosphere when students feel
more free to code-switch. A small proportion of teachers 6 (7%) maintained that students
conducted group work in English only. How this would be accomplished in Form I for
example is a point for further speculation. A couple of Tanzanian students working on our
project are now embarking on empirical studies where they will have Form I students describe
pictures in a cartoon first in Kiswahili and a couple of weeks later in English to see how well
students master the language of instruction. According to Osaki (1995) even at Form III level
teachers had problems in conducting discussions in English only because student participation
then is negligible.
21
The distinction between using language for learning and learning a language
At present, much of the public debate concerning the choice between English or Kiswahili as
the language of instruction in Tanzanian schools fails to take account of the distinction
between using language for learning and learning a language (Rubagumya, Jones,
Mwansoko,1999:11) .Students especially seem to think that because they would like to learn
English well they should have the language as a language of instruction. However the link
between learning a language and learning through that language is a fallacy. There is no
evidence to show that using a language as a medium of instruction will necessarily lead to
proficiency in that language. If the aim is to learn English, it is much better to have good
instruction in that language by trained language teachers. Teachers trained in other subjects
are not language teachers and are naturally more concerned about teaching the subject matter
to students. They will often make use of code-switching in order for their students to
understand. For example in the following excerpt from class-room observation in a Form I
geography lesson:
T: These are used for grinding materials. It looks like what?
S: Kinu (pestle)
T: Kinu and what?
S: Mtwangio (mortar)
T: It looks like kinu and mtwangio and it works like kinu and mtwangio (the teacher
continues to describe other apparatus) (Rubagumya, Jones, Mwansoko,1999:18)
In this example the teacher is satisfied with the answer from the student as the student has the
right concepts. The fact that these concepts are expressed in Kiswahli does not seem to bother
the subject matter teacher who does nothing to expand the vocabulary of the student within
the English language. Had the teacher insisted on an answer in English, he would most likely
have been met by silence. In interviews conducted as part of a larger study for the Ministry of
Education and Culture in 1998 both students and teachers admit that the use of English as
language of instruction in secondary school is problematic. Yet a slight majority of teachers
(50.9%) and an overwhelming majority of students (82%) favoured a continued use of
English as the medium of instruction. As one student put it:
Sipendi Kiswahili kiwe lugha ya kufundishia katika shule za msingi mpaka Chuo
Kikuu kwa sababu ni lugha ambayo naifahamu tayari (I don’t want Kiswahili as
medium of instruction from primary school up to University level because it is a
language I know already) (Rubagumya, Jones, Mwansoko,1999:22)
22
It is clear that this student wants English medium instruction because he wants to learn
English and mistakingly thinks that is best done by having the language as the medium of
instruction. He is committing one of the fallacies – the one called the maximum exposure
fallacy - so well described by the socio-linguist Robert Phillipson (1992;1999 ). Phillipson
claims that a central aspect of English linguistic imperialism is how the language is taught. In
the TESOL (Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages) profession in its formative
years a number of key tenets evolved:

English is best taught monolingually,

the ideal teacher of English is a native speaker,

the earlier English is introduced, the better the results,

the more English is taught, the better the results,

if other languages are used much, standards of English will drop (Phillipson1999:208).
Adhering to these tenets has had major consequences, structural and ideological, for the entire
ESL (English as Second Language)"aid" operation in post-colonial education systems. Close
scrutiny, in the light of the knowledge now available to us, indicates that the tenets are all
false (see Phillipson 1992, chapter 7, for a detailed study of the genesis of the tenets and their
validity). They can be more appropriately labelled as

the monolingual fallacy,

the native speaker fallacy,

the early start fallacy,
 the maximum exposure fallacy,

the subtractive fallacy.
The student quoted above further thinks that because he understands and speaks Kiswahili he
does not need to develop his knowledge of that language further. But to become a proficient
master of a foreign language, he also needs to expand his academic vocabulary in his own
language.
**********************
23
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