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Rwanda to switch from French to English in schools

by Sanjay Jha | October 14, 2008 at 02:58 am | 76 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Is the French influence waning? At least it's reflected in the step taken by its former colony Rwanda. In a move seen as a snub to former colonial power Rwanda has decided to switch form French to English in schools. Rwandan leaders think that French is spoken only in France, some parts of west Africa, parts of Canada and Switzerland but they think English is global language. This language is deeply symbolic as it clearly indicates a deep loathing of all things French is also an important factor for some of Rwanda's leaders.

The Rwandan government is to switch the country's entire education system from French to English in one of the most dramatic steps to date in its move away from Francophone influence.

Officially the change is to reposition Rwanda as a member of the East African Community, an organisation made up mostly of English-speaking countries such as neighbours Uganda and Tanzania.

However, the shift to education solely in English is part of a wholesale realignment away from French influence that includes applying to join the Commonwealth - if accepted Rwanda would be only the second member, after Mozambique, that has not been a British colony - and establishing a cricket board.

Underpinning the move is a long and bitter dispute with France born of its support for the Hutu regime that oversaw the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis, which has seen the French ambassador expelled and the closure of the French cultural centre, international school and radio station.

However, what amounts to an attempt to expel the French language too, consigning it to a few hours a week in schools and increasingly forcing it out of the workings of government, will be badly received in Paris where protection of the language is at the heart of what critics describe as the French obsession with maintaining influence in Africa and which led it to back the Hutu extremist government.

No timetable has been set to implement the policy, which will face a number of challenges, including finding sufficient teachers who speak English. The cabinet also decided that all public service workers will receive English instruction.

English was made an official language in Rwanda, alongside French and the indigenous Kinyarwanda, after the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) overthrew the Hutu regime and took power in 1994.

The RPF leadership, dominated by Tutsis raised in exile in Anglophone countries, generally speaks English and not French. Rwanda's minister of education, Daphrosa Gahakwa, grew up in Uganda where she took her O levels. She studied her PhD in genetic engineering at the University of East Anglia.

English has also become fashionable even among French-speaking young people in the cities, particularly Tutsis, as a means of rejecting Francophone influence and its association with the Hutu regime responsible for the genocide.

At present the first three years of primary school is in Kinyarwanda after which pupils may choose English or French. The French option is to be dropped.