Sanbarn i fare for å miste morsmålet

Children from indigenous communities such as the San are not only deprived of their linguistic heritage, but they later on have little regard for their mother tongues as well as traditional and cultural values. This is according to Awebahe //Hoeseb, chief education officer in the directorate of the Kunene Education Region.

//Hoeseb who is also a member of the Southern African San Education Forum (SASEF) steering committee for Namibia, said members of the San communities are “handicapped” in their quest for socio-economic development as their children are educated through the languages of dominant groups.

“Foreign languages are imposed on San children as medium of instruction and as language subjects in the formal curricula of education systems of the countries where they domicile. Children of indigenous minorities such as the San are not only deprived of their linguistic heritage, but they later on have little regard for their mother tongues, as well as their groups’ traditional and cultural values and norms and develops a sense of inferiority in relation to peers of other tribes,” he said at the launch of Khwedam language teaching and learning materials recently.
The material was produced by the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA), in association with the Icelandic International Development Agency (ICEIDA) and National Institute for Educational Development (NIED). Educational material has also been produced for other San languages.

“It is only through this type of timely and appropriate interventions that are geared towards stimulating and creating a literate environment that we can truly empower the San people so that they too can join the rest of the Nation in the march towards Vision 2030,” //Hoeseb said.

Attikkelen er hentet fra http://www.economist.com.na/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20879:san-children-risk-losing-language&catid=578:general-news&Itemid=60