TRANSFORMATION PLAN TO PUSH LITERACY IN PROVINCE
A'eysha Kassiem

Cape Times
May 29 2006

Mother-tongue education until Grade 6 and ensuring a "massive literacy breakthrough" are among some of the ways the Western Cape Department of Education plans to tackle issues of language in the classroom.

Ahead of the announcement around its language-in-education transformation plan, Education MEC Cameron Dugmore has said the department has "many careful plans" to ensure pupils received mother-tongue instruction until Grade 6.

This would have to be done in "stages" as it could not just happen "overnight".

Speaking at the Language Solutions in Education Conference on Friday, Dugmore said: "We plan to announce targets to schools. The first target will be that, wherever possible, learners should have mother-tongue instruction until the end of Grade 6 at the earliest.

"Linguists tell us that language and identity are completely intertwined."

A "habit" was developing where people were opting for English as their children's medium of instruction, even when their home language was Afrikaans or Xhosa.

"We are making our children turn their backs on their own languages ... we are simply giving up our own languages for the perceived or imagined benefits of another one," Dugmore said.

Another target was the establishment of at least three years of trilingualism for all pupils.

While not wanting to disclose details, Dugmore also said the department was aware that one of the reasons for the poor test scores of some pupils was that they were not being taught in their mother tongue.

Ensuring that literacy was encouraged in pupils' homes could also see teacher assistants visiting pupils' homes to help parents who were illiterate, he said.