In Summary
A report filed by a regional news agency
records cereal traders at Himo, 10km from Holili on Tanzania’s northern
border with Kenya, lamenting how they are finding it difficult to
conduct regional business due to their lack of capacity to communicate
in English.
At the height of Africanisation in the 1960s and
the 1970s, there was a clamour for popularisation of Kiswahili, which
had been adopted as Tanzania’s national and official language.The
introduction of Kiswahili as an Advanced Level subject in 1970
underscored that spirit: to enhance it, not only as a national medium of
communication, but a field of intellectual pursuit.However, the push
for Kiswahili was in many quarters misconstrued as aimed at rejecting
English.That was sheer politics, which has led to a situation today in
which we have high school and college graduates with serious problems
communicating in the truly global language.
A report filed by a regional news agency records
cereal traders at Himo, 10km from Holili on Tanzania’s northern border
with Kenya, lamenting how they are finding it difficult to conduct
regional business due to their lack of capacity to communicate in
English. Cereal traders within East Africa – where Kiswahili is
reputedly the lingua franca – are realising that it pays to master
English. For sure, those whose business and professional engagements are
more international, should understand more the folly of dismissing it
as nothing but a vestige of colonialism.
Let us face it: English is the world’s most widely spoken language and Tanzanians can only disregard it at their own peril.
SOURCE: THE CITIZEN
SOURCE: THE CITIZEN
