{"id":5916,"date":"2019-10-15T08:32:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T05:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5916"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:36","slug":"why-ugandas-english-language-policy-is-failing-rural-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/10\/15\/why-ugandas-english-language-policy-is-failing-rural-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Uganda\u2019s English Language Policy Is Failing Rural Children"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By<\/strong> <strong>Medadi\nSsentanda<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uganda\u2019s language&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/nutrition.opm.go.ug\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Revised-Education-Sector-strategic-plan.pdf\">policy<\/a>&nbsp;requires\nthat rural schools should choose a dominant local language to use as the\nlanguage of learning and teaching for the first three years of primary school\nwhile English is taught as a subject. The fourth year of schooling is a\ntransitional year in which English as the language of learning and teaching is\nintroduced. English then becomes the medium of instruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In areas where it\u2019s not easy to choose a dominant language,\nas is the case in urban schools, English as the medium of instruction is\nrecommended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/10228195.2018.1536162\">investigated<\/a>&nbsp;the\ncircumstances under which children learn and acquire English in central\nUganda\u2019s rural Rakai district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We set questions related to the learning and teaching\nsupport materials for English, the challenges rural Ugandan learners face in\nlearning English, the differences between government and private schools on\nvocabulary teaching and learning as well as opportunities available for\nlearners to acquire English in rural schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We conducted the study in 2012 in four rural schools. The\nresults of this study are still relevant because the language-in-education\npolicy hasn\u2019t changed. Teacher training and curricula are also still the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We found that learners faced various challenges in learning\nand acquiring English. It was difficult for them to reach the vocabulary levels\nset out by the country\u2019s National Curriculum Development Centre. For example,\nthey are expected to learn at least 800 English words after three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The essence of the mother tongue policy was partly to\nenhance the teaching and learning of English in Uganda. But our findings point\nto a host of difficulties faced by learners in private and government schools.\nWe conclude that Uganda needs to rethink how English is taught in rural\ncontexts. In addition, the time of transition to English as a language of\nlearning and teaching should be reconsidered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-ugandas-english-language-policy-is-failing-rural-children-124823\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Medadi Ssentanda Uganda\u2019s language&nbsp;policy&nbsp;requires that rural schools should choose a dominant local language to use as the language of learning and teaching for the first three years of primary&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}