Pat Hall wrote: > ...is there something else going on here - perhaps the language policies > of Nigeria have led to the education system favouring English?
In response to Pat, Europeans carved up Africa without seriously integrating the polarizational issue of tribe and hence culture. Let us not make the same mistake with ICT. Ideally, Africans should learn to read/write in their everyday spoken language. I believe there is a school of thought that strongly views this as advantageous. Unfortunately, many to most African countries have a different tribal language every few miles. Moreover, each tribe views its language as the best and that it should be the national language if there were to be one. Thus for a country like Nigeria, counting only the big three; should it be Ibo, Hausa or Yoruba. Presumably one would want this teaching to start at elementary schools and onwards. Try teaching Yoruba to an Ibo child--even if it would be for the good of the country. Should one then limit it to only tribal members? Who is going to fund all these regional programmes? The national government that is striving for unity?. One cannot even do it on a regional level because there are children from different areas living and attending school within a particular region -- even though they may not be a majority. There are a few country exceptions that come to mind where a national language can be the village language also and the idea may work better, (Central African Republic, Madagascar to name a few), but this is rare. Consequently, English and French were chosen through the colonial rulers because of its tribal-neutrality and ease of communication with the outside world. In conclusion, the idea in itself is a good one; but like many Western-inspired projects, it does not integrate enough the dimension and complexity of a seemingly mundane African issue called "my village". Ivo Njosa Information and Communication Technology ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by the dot-ORG USAID Cooperative Agreement, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org provides more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd For the GKD database, with past messages: http://www.GKDknowledge.org
