Mother tongue Day 2017: “Towards Sustainable Futures through Multilingual Education”
On the 21st of February Zimbabwe joined the rest of the world to commemorate International Mother Tongue day under the theme “Towards sustainable futures through multilingual education.” This theme is very relevant as Zimbabwe is making strides towards
teaching children in their mother tongues. This is evidenced by the different local language syllabi that have been made. The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in its new curriculum has made the syllabi for Tonga, Tshivenda, Kalanga, Nambya, Sesotho and
Shangani to mention a few.
We remain worried that a Sign language syllabus has yet to be made. How does this affect children whose mother tongue is Sign language without another language? Deaf children’s rights to language continue to be violated everyday they learn in settings that do not promote the use of their language. Language is empowering and the development of a Sign language syllabus will provide motivation for the development of learning resources. For a long time, the Deaf community has suffered the violation of language rights and with the new constitution that recognizes Sign language as a language, still not a lot is being done to promote the use, development of Sign language. The progressive language rights will remain on paper and never impacting the lives of the Deaf if there is no political will to support the realization of the language rights.
In this Bulletin
- International mother tongue day.
- HIV treatment adherence.
- Indications of possible hearing loss.
- Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education Visit to Chipinge.