The language of education in Africa: The key issues

Hameso, Seyoum

doi:10.1080/07908319709525237

Cited by 23 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The language of Amharic minority used to be the only official language across all nations of Ethiopia. In 1991, a multi-ethnic government was formed and the right of Ethiopian nations to self-determine their language of instruction and administration was officially recognized (for detailed elaboration see Bulcha 1997, Hamesa 1997, Anteneh and Ado 2006, Dugassa 2006. At present, Afan Oromo is the official language in the Oromo region where this study was conducted and proficiency in this language is the necessary condition for employment within the regional extension system (except for researchers working for the federal research centres).…”

Section: Challenges For Ethiopian Extensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roles of extension and ethno-religious networks in acceptance of resource-conserving agriculture among Ethiopian farmers

Matouš

Todo

Mojo

2012

International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability

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This article analyses roles of social and extension networks in adoption of resource-conserving practices among Ethiopian farmers. We gathered data from 297 randomly sampled households on their agricultural practices, social networks, access to the extension, and geographical location. After examining general determinants of practising resource-conserving agriculture, we employ a two-stage regression with full-maximum likelihood correction for selection bias to establish the roles of general social networks and external professionals in acceptance of conservation techniques. In accordance with previous research, probit regression in the first stage shows that the access to extension increases with farmers' wealth and the size of their personal networks, and decreases with the distance of their households from village centres. However, after accounting for this unequal access to extension, the second-stage linear regression shows that regardless of education, wealth or geographical location, those whose religion and ethnicity match with their agent, report learning more about conservation from extension sources. Furthermore, farmers who are socially well connected within the community tend to be less receptive to agents' recommendations regarding resource conservation. Dissemination policy of conservation agriculture should consider the ethnic and religious affinity between farmers and their extension agents. It also needs to pay more attention to socially and geographically isolated individuals.

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Section: Challenges For Ethiopian Extensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roles of extension and ethno-religious networks in acceptance of resource-conserving agriculture among Ethiopian farmers

Matouš

Todo

Mojo

2012

International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability

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“…Another major country rarely discussed in relation to English worldwide and the Three Circles model is Ethiopia, a strongly multiethnic country never subjected to substantial interference by a dominant, English-speaking colonial power and yet where English has long played a role as a prestige language, as witnessed by Amharic-English code-switching patterns (Leyew 1998). Because it appears to offer a neutral tool for internal interethnic communication as well as -rightly or wrongly -a promise of modernization, English is currently being promoted throughout the country as an alternative to Amharic not only in a nationwide official role but also as the medium of education, a prospect of obvious interest to many non-Amharic-speaking Ethiopians (Ambatchew 1995;Bloor 1996;Hameso 1997;Boothe and Walker 1997). In this sense, despite substantially different patterns of European colonization, the current sociolinguistic interplay of Amharic, other local languages, and English in Ethiopia recalls India, with its 50-year-old tussle between English and Hindi, the latter promoted by a dominant group as a national language of wider communication yet resisted by many non-Hindi speakers.…”

Section: The Outer Circle and Postcolonialismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Squaring the circles: issues in modeling English worldwide

Bruthiaux

2003

Int J App Linguistics

220

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The model originally promoted by Braj Kachru and representing English worldwide as Inner, Outer, and Expanding circles has helped valorize denigrated varieties by drawing attention to commonalities across old and new varieties and by altering perceptions of their communicative potential and relative prestige. However, the model suffers from being based in a political/historical view of English worldwide and thus fails to capture transplantations of the language in locations not formally recorded by colonial history. Because it promotes specific varieties, the model also ignores variation within locales, especially where the gap between those who know English and those who do not is vast. Overall, the model encourages broad-brush descriptions of manifestations of English across all three circles that do not stand up to sociolinguistic analysis. In response, it is suggested that the model can continue to serve as a shorthand for English worldwide but that it must adapt by (1) moving away from a focus on nation-states in favor of a sociolinguistic focus on English-speaking communities wherever they are found and (2) recognizing that fundamental differences across contexts for English worldwide cannot be glossed over in support of specific varieties if we are to arrive at descriptively adequate sociolinguistics and socially relevant language policies.

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“…While a number of newly sovereign states such as Tanzania (Rubagumya, 1990) and Malaysia (David & Govindasamy, 2007) marked independence by promoting the use of indigenous languages as instructional media, perhaps the majority of former British colonies elected to continue using English as the principal medium of instruction (MOI) at secondary and tertiary levels (Alidou, 2004); this despite the often disappointing results of English-medium education during the colonial era (Ormsby-Gore, 1937), the demonstrable pedagogical and cultural benefits of mother-tongue instruction (UNESCO, 1953) and the shortage of well trained, linguistically proficient teachers (Kashina, 1994). The retention of English was often justified on the grounds of its apparent neutrality in potentially combustible multilingual contexts such as India (Annamalai, 2004) and its value (real or imagined) as the pre-eminent global lingua franca of business, science, technology, diplomacy and scholarship (Hameso, 1997). What was understandably less explicitly acknowledged, however, was that the maintenance of a pro-English policy also served to protect the vested interests of indigenous elites (Tsui & Tollefson, 2004), and thus helped to reinforce the unequal distribution of power and resources in society at large (Tollefson, 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Classroom Language Use in Hong Kong's Reformed English-Medium Stream

Evans

2008

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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During the last two decades of colonial rule, a wide gulf existed between policy and practice in Hong Kong's English-medium secondary schools: while English was the medium of textbooks, assignments and examinations, Cantonese and Cantonese Á English mixed code were the dominant media of classroom communication.Although mixed-mode instruction was defended in some quarters, during the 1990s it was regarded in government circles as the main cause of unsatisfactory English standards. To eliminate mixed-mode instruction, and thereby ensure the consistent use of English or Chinese as teaching media, the postcolonial government introduced a controversial language policy in 1998 which permitted only 112 schools to remain English-medium, while most schools were forced to switch their medium of instruction from English to Chinese. This paper presents the findings of an investigation which aimed to gauge the extent to which the new policy has been translated into classroom practice in the 'reformed' English-medium stream. The findings indicate that teachers and students make greater use of English in the classroom than their counterparts during the era of 'mass' English-medium education, although, as might be expected, the language-learning experience provided in the 'reformed' English-medium stream generally falls short of the full immersion programme envisaged by policy makers.

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The language of education in Africa: The key issues

Cited by 23 publications

References 2 publications

Roles of extension and ethno-religious networks in acceptance of resource-conserving agriculture among Ethiopian farmers

Roles of extension and ethno-religious networks in acceptance of resource-conserving agriculture among Ethiopian farmers

Squaring the circles: issues in modeling English worldwide

Classroom Language Use in Hong Kong's Reformed English-Medium Stream

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