Language policies and the role of development agencies in postcolonial Mozambique

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the interface between language policy and development in Mozambique. Special attention is devoted to the interplay between language and education and to the role of development agencies in language policy and planning activities in Mozambique. I show that there has now been a discourse shift from homogenizing language policies to those that celebrate diversity and difference. However, I argue that in order to achieve effective human development in Mozambique, in addition to Portuguese, African languages should be developed and also legitimately used as media for full participation in all dimensions of development. I also show how some development agencies have been pushing the Government of Mozambique toward inclusive language policy dispensations.

KEYWORDS:

• Language policies
• development
• development agencies
• Portuguese
• African languages

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Feliciano Chimbutane is an Associate Professor of Educational Sociolinguistics at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique. His research interest is in language and education planning, with focus on classroom practice and the relationship between classroom discourse, day-to-day talk and the wider sociopolitical order. He has acted as an advisor to bilingual education programs in Mozambique and internationally.

Notes

1 Here the term “language development” means, among other things, the development of orthographies, terminology, genres, registers and written materials which allow a language to be used in a wide range of domains.

2 For example, in early 2017, the Government of Mozambique made public the country's incapacity to pay $60 million interest payment that was due on 18 January 2017.

3 African languages spoken in Mozambique are officially referred to as “national languages”, irrespective of their geographic coverage or number of speakers.

4 In addition to the Constitution of the Republic, the enabling provisions include the 1992 National System of Education (Boletim da República, I Série, No. 12, 23 de Março. Maputo: Imprensa Nacional) and the 1997 Cultural Policy (Boletim da República, I Série, No. 23, 10 de Junho. Maputo: Imprensa Nacional).

5 There are a few notable exceptions. In recent years, African languages have been officially used as languages of local administration and governance. It is within this context that the government has recently institutionalized the position of interpreter (African languages–Portuguese–African languages) in the public sector.

6 As the head of a district bilingual education section reported to me,

different to the times when we had the support of the NGO X, it is now difficult to mobilize teachers to the bilingual education program. Most refuse to teach in the bilingual program due to lack of proper training and teaching and learning aids. Given these constraints they feel that their work load and responsibilities are higher than those of teachers in the Portuguese monolingual program. (Mr Roberto, Personal Communication, 12 March 2017)

7 Whereas RM has long experience of broadcasting in African languages, TVM only recently started to offer informative services in these languages a few hours per day, focusing on news and health and civic education.

8 As an illustration of this point, in December 2016, the representative of TVM in Niassa revealed in an interview the difficulties faced by the station to find competent candidates for the positions of TV reporters and announcers in Macua, an African language newly introduced in broadcasting services in this province.

9 Former “International Development Agency”.