UGANDA SHOULD FIRST EMPLOY IT’S OWN KISWAHILI TEACHERS BEFORE IMPORTING FROM ZANZIBAR.

Uganda remains a country in East Africa which looks to had lagged behind in as far as Kiswahili development is concerned. Its by power and work of the East African member states that Uganda has come up to embrace the Language since it had been jammed for quite long time.

Uganda’s Swahili has got a very painful history as I had written in the previous articles, this comes after a long struggle of some long time Kiswahili teachers. We applaud Mwalimu Milton Rwabushaija and others who started the struggle.

“Give a dog a bad name and hang him,” goes an old English adage.

True, the idea to implement the teaching and promotion of Kiswahili in Ugandan schools has met with stiff resistance from some educationists and citizens who might be ignorant about it’s benefits.

This is attributed to the fact that Kiswahili used to be a means of communication associated with the brutal armed forces of former dictatorial regimes of Idi Amin and Milton Obote during the time when many Ugandans lost lives and property at the hands of such forces.

Dr John Baptist Okech wrote in a national newspaper saying he was perturbed that since Uganda gained independence in 1962 the government has done very little to promote Kiswahili and wondered whether those regarding it as a language of robbers believe that countries like Tanzania and Kenya are societies of lawless people. I therefore say, a learned Ugandan citizen should take the lead to propose for development of Kiswahili, it’s time to forget the past and look at the development fields only. I used to study in CRE in my Secondary school in Ibanda that “change is the fact of life, if you don’t want to change, change will change you” so Ugandans with such mindset that Swahili is useless, lets accept change.

On July 4, Cabinet approved the implementation of the 21st EAC summit directive to adopt Kiswahili as a language of the community.

The Cabinet directed the compulsory teaching of the language in all primary and secondary schools. They agreed the teaching of the language to commence in 2023.

According to Nile post 21st September 2019, The state minister of Gender, Peace Mutuuzo, announced that all the trained and qualified Kiswahili teachers in Uganda will be absorbed into the public service.

This followed the cabinet’s approval of Kiswahili Council that will be charged with enforcing the teaching of the language in all the schools in the country.

However Hon Mutuuzo noted that the National Swahili Council will help to enforce teaching of the language as one of the ways to unite the people of Uganda since there are many indigenous languages in the country.

“Swahili council will enforce and note that the establishment of Swahili Council will not and is not intended to replace and substitute other local languages of national heritage but to harness benefits of greater and wider integration,” Minister Mutuuzo said.

Minister also noted that Uganda’s qualified Kiswahili teachers will be absorbed in government service.

“We shall employ all of them and the establishment of Kiswahili Council is going to open jobs for teachers who train in Kiswahili in Uganda to teach elsewhere Kiswahili in East African Community,” she said.

She noted that so far the language has been a barrier because there was no body that could standardise Kiswahili in Uganda.

“So our people who train in Kiswahili would not go to any country in East Africa to teach Kiswahili, ”she noted.

Since 1991, Kiswahili has been taught in few schools in Uganda.

With a new roadmap ,members of Kiswahili Council will be appointed soon after parliament passes the Kiswahili Bill which is due for tabling

Basing on Minister’s statement on Swahili Council, we appreciated the idea which is among the directive from the East African Summit.

It’s also our concern to inform the government that since then we have been trying to foster this formation of National Kiswahili Council so that the Kiswahili stake holders should get the grounds to promote Kiswahili in Uganda.

It was our shock yesterday 6th September 2022, when the Minister of East African Affairs Hon Rabecca Kadaga to present before the floor of parliament that Uganda is going to Import Kiswahili teachers from Zanzibar when our own thousands of teachers are not employed!

Rebecca Kadaga, Uganda’s first deputy prime minister and minister for East African affairs, tabled a motion in parliament mandating the adoption of Swahili as the country’s second official language.

The East African Community was reestablished 15 years ago with the goal of promoting free movement of people, goods, and services among East African Community member countries, the use of a single currency, and the adoption of Swahili as a regional language, among other goals.

Swahilli is widely spoken in Kenya and Tanzania, but it is not widely spoken in other East African countries such as Uganda.

Uganda’s first deputy prime minister and minister for East African affairs, Rebecca Kadaga, introduced legislation in parliament mandating the adoption of Swahili as the country’s second official language.

Swahilli is widely spoken in Kenya and Tanzania, but not in other East African countries like Uganda.

According to report of the capacity assessment and development of Kiswahili in East Africa in 2019, Uganda has the capacity to consume and export Kiswahili teachers.

According Prof Keneth Simala the Executive Secretary East African Kiswahili Commission noted that, Uganda has more than enough teachers of Kiswahili. Research conducted by East African Kiswahili Commission.

WHY KISWAHILI SHOULD BE MADE A NATIONAL LANGUAGE

Beside a boundary, a name, a flag, or a currency, what makes a country become a respectable and unique nation is its national language.

Indeed, national language is a clear indicator that represents the national identity of a country. Language is a sensitive issue. It’s also part of a nation and a person’s heritage. To understand and penetrate deep into a community, one must be able to speak and understand the language of the community.  

Fluency in the national language will surely enable the person to fully understand that community’s particular nuances and cultural aspects.

National language is a driving force behind unity of the nation’s people, and makes them distinct from other nations – provided you give your language respect.  Giving respect to your national language means that it should be one’s primary language, as well as the preferred source of communication at every level.

One should know as many languages as one can absorb, but use one’s own language at every level.  History proves that every great leader tried his best to strengthen the national language. China’s revolutionary leader Zedong Mao had a great respect for his own language. Notwithstanding knowing many other languages, he never used them and preferred to use Chinese as his medium of communication.

Former Tanzania’s president HE Dr John Pombe Magufuli (the late) preferred Kiswahili and strengthened it at a National level.

The National language makes the people of a country unique from others, if you respect and speak their language, it can be a favored source of interaction at the level of entry for businesses.

Nations like Singapore and India use English as their official language despite having Malay and Hindi as their national languages respectively. English is an international language, which is taking the place of many national languages in several countries. Still, one must make effort to uphold their national language and not let it die.

In Singapore, there are four official languages- Malay, Tamil, English, and Mandarin, with the speakers of Mandarin and English being the highest in number

Swahili is spoken now in varying degrees in Uganda, Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi, in parts of Ethiopia, Somalia, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar, and the number of Swahili
speakers is estimated to run as high as 200million in Africa and is today increasing
faster than the number of speakers of any other language

WHAT SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT DO?

It’s our basis to appreciate the government for trying to employ the few Kiswahili teachers out of the many and whom these were Assistant Education Officers (Diploma holders). We well know that Uganda has got quite number of Universities both private and government and these institutions produce mostly bachelors students to teach Swahili language in secondary schools. Its this time when we have complained why is the government not recruiting Education Officers (Degree holders) in Swahili section as per the minister promised?

It’s our duty to inform the government especially Ministry of East African Affairs, Ministry of Public Service, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social development and other support Ministries to recruit all Kiswahili teachers to public service to promote Swahili before bringing Zanzibarians

We therefore advocate for the need to advocate for the need for the government to set up National Kiswahili Council to act as a tool to present issues of Kiswahili.

We advocate for the need to recruit all Kiswahili teachers in Uganda before importing from Zanzibar.

Uganda also assumes that Ugandans don’t know Swahili, please employ our own Ugandans to train all government agencies Swahili language, we know and we can.

We have a National Kiswahili Association (CHAKITAU), the government should reach out the leadership of CHAKITAU before presenting false information that Uganda has no enough Kiswahili teachers.

All public and private higher institutions of learning should be encouraged to start teaching Swahili as teaching subject if faculties of Education and mainstream it to other courses for purposes of communication as we have proposed to some of the Universities.

Ugandan government should support the Ugandan writers/authors of Kiswahili instead of borrowing books from other countries. we have competent writers/authors in Uganda, they lack market for their books and publishing funds. Uganda would take a step if these people are funded and the books marketed.

Public service inline with Ministry of Education present the list of Kiswahili registered teachers who are not recruited to immediately obtain jobs for smooth development of Kiswahili in Uganda.

National Council for Higher Education inline with Ministry of Education set up a general course unit to all higher institutions (teaching Swahili) to equip them with communication skills.

Parliament, Cabinet, Media, Uganda airlines, different Government Ministries should start having Kiswahili lessons to motivate other Ugandan citizens with the negative attitude about Swahili: all these should be trained by Ugandans who are trained and qualified not importing.

Through government funding, the media houses should start broadcasting Kiswahili lessons targeted to elders and hard to reach areas. This would fasten the development of Kiswahili in Uganda.

The ministry of Education should work hand in hand with National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) to enforce the curriculum in schools, it has been noted that some schools didn’t bather even to recruit Kiswahili teachers since there is no clear inspection of whether the curriculum is not implemented or not.

As minister mutuuzo said, Uganda does not lack Kiswahili teachers but there was no law to enforce it being taught in schools, we argue the government that before importing, find out whether all Ugandan Kiswahili teachers are consumed.

KISWAHILI SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN THE FOLLOWING AGENCIES FIRST.

THE AIRLINES.

The national carrier flies to more than 15 destinations including Tanzania and Zanzibar which use Kiswahili.

THE CABINET.

Ms Kadaga said all Cabinet ministers will be required to learn the  language.

 “We have agreed that every Monday for the first one hour, that is 9- 10am, we shall take lessons in Kiswahili and then from 10am, we shall conduct our work in the usual way until we are very proficient in the language,” she said.

She added: “Makerere University is going to help us train the Cabinet, organize the online classes so that anybody can take the lessons.”

NON GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNMENT COMPANIES/ORGANISATIONS.

THE JUDICIARY.

THE MEDIA.

Brief Background.

In February 2021, during the 21st EAC summit in Arusha, it was recommended that Uganda adopts Kiswahili as an official language of the community.

The implementation of the directive was approved by President Museveni on July 4 during a Cabinet meeting at State House Entebbe.

Kiswahili, which is spoken in more than 14 countries, was adopted as the official language of the EAC in 2017. It was then adopted by the African Union in February as an official working language.

In 2021, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) designated July 7 as the World Kiswahili Day after it was recognized as a widely spoken African language.

Uganda becomes the fifth East African country to officialize Swahili following Rwanda in 2017, Kenya in 2010, Tanzania in 1964 and Burundi made it compulsory in 2007.

In 2017, Uganda National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) finalized the secondary school curriculum where Swahili was introduced as a compulsory subject alongside English.

It became the first African language, which is spoken by more than 200 million people, to be honored by UNESCO.

Kiswahili, mainly spoken in the East African region, is a fusion of the dialect born of Bantu and Arabic languages, has earned its place of pride as one of the world’s top 10 most spoken languages and Africa’s most widely used native lingua. It enjoys official status national in Kenya, Tanzania and now Uganda. It is also widely spoken in parts of DR Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

Officially, it was being used in the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional blocs before AU’s adoption.

Over the years, Kiswahili has spread south of the continent, to parts of Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique, while Burundi, Madagascar and the Comoros islands have also adopted it.

In June 2020, South Africa introduced Kiswahili as an optional subject in the hope that the language could become a tool to foster cohesion among Africans.

According to Global Voices—an international multi-lingual organization of writers, translators, academics and digital rights activists—currently, there are more than 7,100 languages spoken around the world, 28 per cent of which are spoken on the African continent.

Despite the existence of some 2,140 local languages in Africa, English, French and Arabic reign supreme.

English on the other hand dominates online spaces in the region.

But this has shrunk to between 51-55 per cent as opposed to 80 per cent on online dominance two decades ago. Projections indicate that Kiswahili, which is now online, will become an increasingly important instrument of trade.

Kiswahili is taught in universities around the world, including in China, while in the USA, an estimated 100 universities offer Kiswahili courses, including Harvard University.

Concerned Citizen: Mwalimu Johnpaul Arigumaho: