San hammer out declaration on education

THIRTY San language experts, including teachers and language activists, gathered at the Penduka Training Centre outside Windhoek recently to analyse the marginalisation of San children from formal schooling.

This includes the high drop-out rates of pupils at primary school level. Participants focused on the effects of non-San Media of Instruction (MOI) and the possibility and consequences of introducing first-language instruction at all levels of schooling.The activists present were speakers of the Ju|’hoansi and !Xun (Ju languages), Naro, Khwedam, ||Anikhwedam, Khoekhoegowab and Hai||om (Khoe languages), and young people working with elderly speakers of the endangered N|u language.Delegates were from Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.After deliberations, the group compiled a Declaration on San Languages in Education.The report states that the San face many challenges:San children and parents are alienated by the current language policies and practices of schools in the region.The group said that exclusion of traditional knowledge further alienates San people from schools, contributing to language loss and cultural decline, which in turn aggravates poverty.Although Namibia and South Africa provide constitutional and policy frameworks for the use of San languages in schools, the activists said that more attention is needed to ensure adequate practices in classrooms, sufficient teacher training and the ongoing development of material.The workshop participants said that a number of San languages in Botswana have still not been described scientifically or had standard orthographies developed.They said that education ministries have an important role to play in ensuring good communication between parents and the school system so that they know their rights, how to support their children at school and how to communicate with teachers who cannot speak community languages.The report also reveals that San parents feel disempowered because they have not been through the education system:many cannot read and write, they struggle to communicate with teachers and they see their children experiencing discrimination and bullying.Another finding is that poverty continues to limit their opportunities for further education and training.The conference participants identified strategies for addressing the challenges facing their communities:San school leavers are an important resource to help bridge the communication gap between parents and schools and San Language Committees have an important role to play in standardising, developing and promoting their languages.Participants made recommendations to governments in the region.They praised Namibia for its multilingual policy.Namibia was the first country in the region to introduce a San language into formal schooling.They now recommend the recognition of Khwedam as a Namibian language, equal in rights with all other national languages.They ask the government of Botswana to recognise the presence of San and other languages there.Botswana is the only country in the SADC region that has not adopted a multilingual language in education policy.They noted the inclusion of the San and Khoe languages in the South African Constitution, but pointed out the slow progress in implementing San languages in formal schooling.They also ask for a clear policy on San and Khoe languages, specifically addressing the issues of vulnerable traditional knowledge and the safeguarding of endangered languages.Each language community prepared its own case study describing the current situation of language in education as well as looking at existing Early Childhood Development (ECD) opportunities.The workshop concluded that the use of mediums of instruction, coupled with a sometimes hostile school environment and a notable lack of parental involvement in schooling, combine to create substantial pressure on San children, causing them to lose confidence and drop out of school at an early age.The conference also recognised that the hunting and gathering heritage of the San means that their elders have highly sophisticated environmental knowledge that could be tapped to promote science and other learning at schools.Penduka 2 follows a previous conference held by the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (Wimsa) in 2001, when San language activists resolved a number of issues about language standardisation for their phonetically highly complex languages.Participants focused on the effects of non-San Media of Instruction (MOI) and the possibility and consequences of introducing first-language instruction at all levels of schooling.The activists present were speakers of the Ju|’hoansi and !Xun (Ju languages), Naro, Khwedam, ||Anikhwedam, Khoekhoegowab and Hai||om (Khoe languages), and young people working with elderly speakers of the endangered N|u language.Delegates were from Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.After deliberations, the group compiled a Declaration on San Languages in Education.The report states that the San face many challenges:San children and parents are alienated by the current language policies and practices of schools in the region.The group said that exclusion of traditional knowledge further alienates San people from schools, contributing to language loss and cultural decline, which in turn aggravates poverty.Although Namibia and South Africa provide constitutional and policy frameworks for the use of San languages in schools, the activists said that more attention is needed to ensure adequate practices in classrooms, sufficient teacher training and the ongoing development of material.The workshop participants said that a number of San languages in Botswana have still not been described scientifically or had standard orthographies developed.They said that education ministries have an important role to play in ensuring good communication between parents and the school system so that they know their rights, how to support their children at school and how to communicate with teachers who cannot speak community languages.The report also reveals that San parents feel disempowered because they have not been through the education system:many cannot read and write, they struggle to communicate with teachers and they see their children experiencing discrimination and bullying.Another finding is that poverty continues to limit their opportunities for further education and training.The conference participants identified strategies for addressing the challenges facing their communities:San school leavers are an important resource to help bridge the communication gap between parents and schools and San Language Committees have an important role to play in standardising, developing and promoting their languages.Participants made recommendations to governments in the region.They praised Namibia for its multilingual policy.Namibia was the first country in the region to introduce a San language into formal schooling.They now recommend the recognition of Khwedam as a Namibian language, equal in rights with all other national languages.They ask the government of Botswana to recognise the presence of San and other languages there.Botswana is the only country in the SADC region that has not adopted a multilingual language in education policy.They noted the inclusion of the San and Khoe languages in the South African Constitution, but pointed out the slow progress in implementing San languages in formal schooling.They also ask for a clear policy on San and Khoe languages, specifically addressing the issues of vulnerable traditional knowledge and the safeguarding of endangered languages.Each language community prepared its own case study describing the current situation of language in education as well as looking at existing Early Childhood Development (ECD) opportunities.The workshop concluded that the use of mediums of instruction, coupled with a sometimes hostile school environment and a notable lack of parental involvement in schooling, combine to create substantial pressure on San children, causing them to lose confidence and drop out of school at an early age.The conferen
ce also recognised that the hunting and gathering heritage of the San means that their elders have highly sophisticated environmental knowledge that could be tapped to promote science and other learning at schools.Penduka 2 follows a previous conference held by the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (Wimsa) in 2001, when San language activists resolved a number of issues about language standardisation for their phonetically highly complex languages.