Swahili: Press the right buttons to make it work

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The fact that Ugandans need to speak Swahili is not a matter for debate any longer. That Kiswahili is an important language for Uganda has been deliberated upon for a long time and the debate seems to have been concluded during the making of the Constitution in 1994-1995 when it was decided that we should adopt it as our second official language.

So when former Tanzania president Ali Hassan Mwinyi said on his visit to Kampala recently that Ugandans need to speak more Swahili, he was preaching to the converted. This, of course, is not to gloss over the long-standing roadblocks to Kiswahili being implanted into the fabric of Uganda’s society.

One key point which is usually mentioned is that many Ugandans, particularly those within central Uganda, were reluctant to warm up to the language. And there could be other reasons.

But all these issues were thoroughly discussed before the decision was taken to adopt Swahili as the second official language. Certainly no argument in favour of more Ugandans speaking Swahili is more profound than the fact that it is the language of the East African Community (EAC).

Kenyans and Tanzanians speak Swahili, just like sizeable populations of Burundi and Rwanda. A good number of Ugandans speak the language already, but many more need to learn it. This is why the thought by the Ministry of East African Community to open a Swahili training lab is a good reminder of what needs to be done. But we will argue that the training lab initiative is only a good idea of what needs to be done.

We will stop short of declaring it a great idea. And this is why. How many people will be trained in the Swahili lab? Won’t it be better to teach the language through the already established institutions, of course starting with schools, instead of looking to establish a completely new institution to conduct this activity? We are aware, of course, that some schools are already teaching a semblance of Swahili. But this is up to the bare minimum.

We as a country do not have enough good teachers to teach the language and the government has not invested in importing teachers from Kenya or Tanzania to fill the void. We may need to either attract Swahili teachers from these countries or deliberately train more Ugandans to take up the challenge of teaching the language.

Once that is done, we may think of making Swahili a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools, the same way English is, and commit a budget to entrenching the subject in schools to train fluent Swahili-speaking Ugandans to take over from us.

For the Ugandans who are already out of the school system, there is need for adult education programmes and other measures to teach them the language.

And speed is necessary to make this work. If it works, the EAC will work better.