Let’s bring the issue of language, you are not going to bring more people in the sciences by try turning an African into an English person or into French people. So, the first thing we need to do is to deal with an issue of the language. Its pathological scandal that people have to learn in the foreign language and when you talk about foreign language, we talking about English been not the second language in a sense that black people and black students when they speak amongst themselves, they don’t speak in English. They speak in the own language. So, we must deal with that gap.
Afrikaners got it right, when they discovered that they need to more Afrikaners in the system, to produce more Doctors, more Scientist, they made sure they develop their language in Afrikaans so that there is mass mobilization of their people and to make science also part of their Afrikaans culture. That’s where we failed as Africans, we have not developed our languages to be languages of Science and technology. So, it is the first thing we must address.
I wrote an article, where I was giving an example that nature does not right its laws in English. When I fall, I don’t fall in English … I simple fall. Whether I am in Japan, when the Japanese falls, they don’t fall in Japanese, they simple fall. Laws of physics are the same and you can learn those laws in your own language. So, what we do, in language you find what is called a mental home. So, we must reclaim that mental home so that our students can get access to this language. Because science on its own is also a language.
So, first you must learn English and also you must also learn the language of science. So, if you struggle with English, you will find that you also going to struggle with the language of science. I taught at the Universities in the US and my students were also grappling with English because they actually said I speak educated English instead of colloquial English. So, they will struggle with that and if there is hurdle in English, even though they are English speakers. They need a certain rigger in the English language before they can get a language of science. Actually, one of my books is called language of science, because I try to make a distinction that science is a language on its own, beyond it being in other languages like German, English, etc
Professor Sipho P. Seepe: Higher Education & Strategy Consultant
