Addressing the challenges of language choice in the implementation of mother-tongue based bilingual education in South Sudan

When Joshua Fishman first asked the question, “Who speaks what language to whom and when?” in 1965 (pg 89), the country of Sudan had been independent for nine years, and was already embroiled in civil war (Fishman [1965]). It would not be until 40 years later, with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), that the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Government of Southern Sudan, (MoEST, GoSS)^a would have the opportunity to implement their language policy and build a national school system, and ask the question of “who speaks what language to whom and when?”

Cognizant of the importance of language in education, GoSS adopted a language -in- education policy which states that the mother tongue of the learner is to be used as the medium of instruction in the first three years of primary education, with English used as the medium of instruction from primary four onwards (“Education Act”, 2nd Draft, Section II, 7.1,2,3; `Education Policy of New Sudan and Implementation Guidelines’, SPLM [2002]). The policy also stated that each of the indigenous languages in Southern Sudan would be recognized as “national languages”, and would be eligible for use as a medium of instruction in government-run schools. The Department of National Languages was established within the Directorate of Quality Promotion, School Inspection, Standards and Innovations in order to implement this ambitious language and education policy.

This article presents a small piece of the work that has been undertaken by the Department of National Languages in order to lay the foundations for this implementation, namely, the process of participatory language mapping in order to quickly and efficiently collect data on which languages are spoken where and for what purpose throughout South Sudan and present the resulting principles of language choice for the first phases of implementation of the language policy.

South Sudan, like most African countries, is linguistically diverse, with layers of both individual multilingualism, as well as societal multilingualism. The Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan (GoSS [2005]) lists 63 distinct “Indigenous Communities”, while the Ethnologue lists 53 distinct languages in the region (Lewis [2009]). Stemming from a desire to promote unity in diversity, a love for their indigenous cultures and languages, and the recognition of the pedagogical advantages to using each learner's mother tongue, a language policy was adopted by the Secretariat of Education, which later became the Ministry of Education Science and Technology in 2002, and later became the Ministry of General Education and Instruction.

The language and education policy adopted by the Government of the Republic of South Sudan stipulates the learner's mother tongue be used as the medium of instruction from Primary 1 through Primary 3, with English taught as a subject. In Primary 4, the medium of instruction officially changes to English, while the mother tongue of the learner is taught as a subject through to Primary 8, the final year of Primary education. English continues as the medium of instruction through secondary school and university.

This language policy was discussed and endorsed at a Language and Education conference held in early 2012 in Juba, South Sudan, which included leaders in the field of language in education from around the world, as well as policy makers, teachers and education partners in South Sudan. Proceedings from this conference are available in the forthcoming volume, published by the British Council, entitled, “Multilingual Education in Africa: Lessons from the Juba Language-in-Education Conference, 4 - 7 March 2012”.

The challenges unique to South Sudan in implementing this language in education policy remain. Due to the many years of armed conflict and political instability in South Sudan, language assessment and survey to ascertain the current linguistic situation and to answer the questions of “who speaks what language to whom and when (and where)” was impossible to carry out. Furthermore, because of the war, millions of people were displaced from their original homelands - either to different parts of South Sudan, and the Republic of Sudan, to surrounding countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya, or to the towns. Almost 3 million people have returned to their home areas in the past five years after being displaced either internally or internationally (NSCSE [2009]). No displacement goes without language contact and language shift. But up to now, information has not been collected on the status of the languages in these communities. Due to factors such as the vastness of South Sudan, the lack of infrastructure, including roads and other transportation corridors, and continuing instability in rural areas, it is nearly impossible to conduct more traditional types of language assessment and survey. This lack of up to date information made it very difficult for the Department of National Languages to make decisions as to how to even begin facing the challenges of the policy implementation.

In order to face these challenges, together with technical advisors from the South Sudan Group of SIL International (a non profit organization committed to “serving language communities worldwide, building their capacity for sustainable language development, by means of research, translation, training and materials development” (www.sil.org)), the Department of National Languages decided to undertake a series of workshops at the State level for training and research purposes.

A total of 94 State Ministry of Education representatives, along with two representatives from education-focused NGOs, participated in the workshops. There were representatives from 30 different language communities.

The workshops were planned and facilitated by two members of the Department of National Languages as well as two technical advisors from the South Sudan Branch of SIL International.

Workshop topics included both “big picture” subjects on the pedagogical benefits of mother tongue based multilingual education and how it has been implemented in other countries around the world, practical topics of literacy teaching methodology and materials development, as well as topics specific to the South Sudanese context, such as the South Sudan language policy, and specific stakeholder and institutional relationships within South Sudan. Full reports of each of the three workshops can be obtained from the Department of National Languages.

While the above mentioned topics served as a foundation to building a system to implement the language and education policy in South Sudan, one of the most valuable, interesting and engaging topics of the workshop was a form of language assessment and survey in which participants collectively mapped the current language situation in their own states. At the same time, other sociolinguistic data was collected on the status of the conditions and resources needed for the implementation of multilingual education in each state.

Following the completion of the Principles, Practice and Planning for Multilingual Education workshops, a task force was commissioned by the Undersecretary of MoEST to analyze the information collected at the workshops and to make recommendations for the way forward. The task force was composed of the Director of the Department of National Languages and two technical advisors from SIL, all of whom had facilitated the workshops, plus a member of the Central Equatoria State Ministry of Education, who had been present at the third workshop in Maridi. The result of this task force was a document called “Implementation Guidelines and National Strategy for the Southern Sudan Languages and Education Policy”.

While the official policy documentation, including the Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan (GOSS [2005]), Syllabus for Primary Schools (for Southern Sudan) (Secretariate of Education [2002]), Education Policy of the New Sudan and Implementation Guidelines (SPLM [2002]), GOSS, 2nd Draft of GOSS Education Act (MoEST [2008a], [b], [c]), esteemed all of the languages of South Sudan as “national languages” and stated that they are, by law, allowable to be used as the medium of instruction in the formal school system, little direction has been given as to how to meet the challenges that come with a diverse multilingual situation with few obvious resources.

One could leave the policy as it is and simply say that education will be available using each and every language as the medium of instruction immediately. However, it does not take long to realize that this is simply not a practical way forward in South Sudan. While the majority of the languages in South Sudan have orthographies developed and many have basic literacy books such as ABC Books and ABC Charts (though most of these are currently out of print), few languages have the required resources in terms of trained teachers or teaching and learning materials such as graded readers and subject textbooks to begin immediate implementation of a full program of mother tongue education.

The mapping exercise and data collected during the workshops supports and correlates with the above extrapolated data.

However, because of the fact that much of the population can be educated using only ten languages, it becomes clear that the initial choice for languages for the first phase of implementation may not be as challenging as initially thought, if providing education for the majority of the population is the a priority.

South Sudan is a diverse multilingual context, which faces difficult decisions in the implementation of their education and language policy. Based on data collected about “who speaks what language to whom and when?” through a series of workshops which included participatory mapping exercises, domain analysis and language assessment questionnaires, the Department of National Languages in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has recommended several criteria and processes for language choice in any given community. With the implementation of these recommendations, the children in South Sudan will have access to an effective and quality education.

^aBefore gaining independence in 2011, South Sudan was referred to as “Southern Sudan”, a semi-autonomous region within the Republic of Sudan. With independence in July 2011, South Sudan became a sovereign nation. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) was also renamed, “Ministry of General Education and Instruction”. The documents referred to in this paper were written before independence, under the auspices of MoEST, within the government of Southern Sudan, and will be referred to as such.