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Literacy, languages and development in Africa: a policy perspective

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Abstract

In the multilingual environments of Africa, national literacy policies vary in terms of the attention they give to the roles and purposes of local, national and international languages. In the context of the global Sustainable Development Agenda, the instrumental purpose of literacy is often assumed, if not explicitly spelled out. At community levels, debates continue over the usefulness and relative merits of using a local or a non-local language for literacy acquisition. This article addresses the intersection of national-level literacy policies and the purposes which literacy in the local language serves, actually or potentially, highlighting the importance of communication and interaction in development. Issues of literacy in development and of languages in development provide the framework for examining particular contexts. Drawing on policy data from three African countries of francophone West and Central Africa (Cameroon, Morocco and Senegal), the authors ask to what extent policies are clear on the purposes of literacy in the languages used in each of these countries, in what ways local-language literacy is or is not promoted within the multilingual context, and how far the intended purposes are actually implemented on the ground.

Résumé

Alphabétisation, langues et développement en Afrique : une perspective stratégique – Dans les contextes multilingues de l’Afrique, les politiques nationales d’alphabétisation varient selon l’attention accordée aux rôles et aux usages des langues locales, officielles et internationales. Dans le cadre du programme mondial de développement durable, la finalité instrumentale de l’alphabétisation est souvent sous-entendue bien que non explicitement énoncée. Les débats se poursuivent aux divers niveaux communautaires sur l’utilité et les mérites respectifs d’alphabétiser dans une langue locale ou non locale. Le présent article traite l’intersection entre les politiques d’alphabétisation à l’échelle nationale et les objectifs que sert l’alphabétisation en langues locales, réellement ou potentiellement, en soulignant l’importance de la communication et de l’interaction dans les activités de développement. Les enjeux posés par l’alphabétisation et les langues dans l’effort de développement fournissent un cadre pour examiner des contextes spécifiques. S’appuyant sur une appréciation des politiques adoptées par trois pays d’Afrique centrale et occidentale francophone (Cameroun, Maroc et Sénégal), les auteurs soulèvent les questions suivantes : dans quelle mesure les politiques sont-elles explicites sur les finalités de l’alphabétisation dans les langues pratiquées dans chacun de ces pays ? De quelles manières l’alphabétisation en langues locales est-elle favorisée ou non dans le contexte multilingue ? Enfin, dans quelle mesure les objectifs prévus sont-ils réellement atteints sur le terrain?

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Notes

  1. We would like to dedicate this work to the memory of three esteemed colleagues who died in 2016 and 2017: Mr Amadou Wade Diagne, a pillar of literacy promotion in Africa; Professor Tope “Sky” Omoniyi, a devoted analyst of sociolinguistics in Africa; and Professor Brian Street, a leader in literacy theory.

  2. Our use of the term “developing” in this article is no more than a convenient shorthand reflecting categories of countries defined by international agencies. The term is based on perspectives of development which we do not necessarily accept.

  3. Arguments have been advanced, for example by Peter Mühlhäusler (1996), that the development of writing systems in itself undermines what he terms “language ecology”.

  4. The UIS.Stat online database is at http://data.uis.unesco.org/ [accessed 22 April 2019].

  5. As Dennis Ager expresses it, policy may be seen as “the actions of those who hold power in society” (Ager 2001, p. 175).

  6. Language diversity in itself is rarely the cause of conflict. It is, however, often manipulated for political ends, along with other symbols of identity; having a single indigenous language throughout a country is no guarantee of unity or harmony, as the histories of Rwanda or Somalia show.

  7. Although outside the scope of this article, it is worth recalling the example of Papua New Guinea (PNG – 850+ languages; Harrison 2013), which sees literacy above all as a language issue, thus putting the choice of the language of literacy firmly on the agenda of national development. The outworking of this position is largely within the school system, since adult literacy is not seen as the responsibility of government. Thus although the Constitution recognises the importance of literacy on the one hand, and its organic link with language policy on the other, this does not result, in the case of PNG, in direct government promotion of literacy among the adult population. (see Robinson 2016, 2019).

  8. All translations from French sources were prepared by the first author for the purposes of this article.

  9. “Translating the SDGs into indigenous African languages appears both enterprising and ambitious … [as] ‘there is no other way for the majority of Africans to be rallied in support of the SDGs …’” (Ighobor 2017). The blogpost quotes activist Ntiokam Divine, who was involved in “translat[ing] the SDGs into 32 local languages of his native Cameroon, as well as into local languages of Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria” (ibid.).

  10. Dozens of websites are devoted to explaining the implementation of the SDGs in particular countries, by civil society, at international level, by the private sector, and so on.

  11. See Anna Robinson-Pant’s conclusion on the need to “close the gap between macro-level policy debates and micro-level research findings” (Robinson-Pant 2016a, b, p. 131).

  12. “The number of individual languages listed for Morocco is 14. All are living languages. Of these, 10 are indigenous and 4 are non-indigenous. Furthermore, 4 are institutional, 4 are developing, 1 is vigorous, and 5 are in trouble” (Eberhard et al. 2019a).

  13. Arabic was the official language and used in all education up to the level of higher education, where some courses were offered in French. Media also used some French. However, French did not, and does not, have the status of an official language.

  14. One example is the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Advancing Learning and Employability for a better Future (ALEF) project, which ran from 2005 to 2009: http://connectaschool.org/fr/node/2815 [accessed 20 December 2017].

  15. The concept of négritude advocated for African identity as a specific cultural expression.

  16. “The number of individual languages listed for Senegal is 38. All are living languages. Of these, 31 are indigenous and 7 are non-indigenous. Furthermore, 3 are institutional, 18 are developing, 7 are vigorous, 8 are in trouble, and 2 are dying” (Eberhard et al. 2019b).

  17. Faire faire, literally “to have something done”, equates to “outsourcing” in this context.

  18. “The official language of the Republic of Senegal is French. The langues nationales [see note 23 below] are Diola, Malinké, Pular, Sérère, Soninké, Wolof and any other langue nationale which may be codified” (RdS 2001, p. 2).

  19. Of these, the Ethnologue (Eberhard et al. 2019b) lists 31 as indigenous.

  20. The Ethnologue details the language situation of Cameroon as follows: “The number of individual languages listed for Cameroon is 283. Of these, 274 are living and 9 are extinct. Of the living languages, 270 are indigenous and 4 are non-indigenous. Furthermore, 12 are institutional, 98 are developing, 70 are vigorous, 76 are in trouble, and 18 are dying” (Eberhard et al. 2019c).

  21. Goody had argued that there were grounds for positing a fundamental distinction between “literate” and “pre-literate” societies in terms of ways of thinking and perceiving the world.

  22. It is worth noting that Cameroon has no single majority language (see Robinson 1993).

  23. Langues nationales is the expression commonly used in francophone African countries to designate languages that are indigenous to their territory. It cannot be translated as “national languages” in English as this may mean languages adopted for national purposes, which langues nationales generally are not. “Local languages” is the preferred expression in this article.

  24. See Fowler (1997, 2000) and Lewis and Kanji (2009).

  25. REFLECT – the acronym stands for Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques – was originally conceived as a literacy learning method based on social mobilisation and mapping of local socio-economic realities, with literacy practices emerging from issues identified by participants. Later, literacy became a less central concern, with the focus now being on community empowerment.

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  1. Independent specialist, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Clinton Robinson

  2. Department of Continuing Education, Ministry of Education and Training, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Tú Anh Thị Vũ

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Robinson, C., Vũ, T.A.T. Literacy, languages and development in Africa: a policy perspective. Int Rev Educ 65, 443–470 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-019-09785-2

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