A word of caution. The neocolonial struggle is not to be construed as xenophobia or autarky (total self-sufficiency). It is not a struggle against the people of the USA or any other country but one against a system, which exploits, plunders and destroys and those who wield power within it. Moreover, we must condemn the belief that everything which comes from countries governed by the agents of imperialism is bad and is to be opposed. Do not throw away the baby with the bath water.

In the preceding article, ‘Back to School’, we claim that a judicious language policy is indispensable to promote the appropriate learning required to service the building of a nation, the smashing of neocolonial fetters and the fostering of the new society.

What is basically wrong with the present policy? The first major flaw is that it is totally blind to mother tongue reality, importance and role. Moreover, it pretends that basic education can be successfully dispensed in foreign languages. And, to crown its infirmity, it first gives no thought to and makes no allowance for the sound pedagogical principle of staggering i.e. spreading the introduction of foreign languages over a long period of time and not, as it is done, bung them all together in a messy, ill-planned and unproductive assortment; and secondly, it ignores basic findings in psycholinguistics.

The ongoing language teaching practice is also warped by terminological confusion. Words and expressions such as ‘L1’, mother tongue (first language), second language, foreign language, medium of instruction, support language, language as subject etc. are used loosely and thus prevent a lucid and firm grasp of the matter.

Yoked to the fundamentally defective policy is a severe misconception about the nature and objective of basic education. Instead of focusing on LITERACY and NUMERACY, the system tries to teach so much that consequently it fails to teach anything and, year after year, it churns out non-literate and non-numerate children by the thousand.

To put our country on the right path of development, we must have an educational menu which fosters and sustains literacy and numeracy because these skills are essential to all other educational orientations (academic, vocational, professional). To achieve universal functional literacy our languge policy must have at its core two languages: the quasi-first language of the Republic (Mauritian) and the essential cum-official language (English). In pre-primary and primary schools, the medium must be Mauritian and English must be taught as a second language. The ethnic languages and French should be taught as subjects in post-primary institutions where the medium must be English and Mauritian taught as a subject.

Then and only then will 11-year schooling have any sense.