Lazarus Kwedhi
Walk into many homes, particularly in the villages, during school holidays and you will hear the same sentence, often said with a laugh to hide the pain: “Junior iha popi Oshiwambo” (Junior cannot speak Oshiwambo).
It sounds small and funny. It is not.
It means a grandchild cannot sit with a grandparent, with Kuku, and understand the stories, the proverbs, the warnings, and the prayers said in his mother’s native tongue.
It means a mother or father who only speaks their mother tongue cannot help their children with homework or a research project. It means a family’s knowledge, and a nation’s culture, is slowly being locked out of its own children. That is how you erase a language. And when that happens, you begin to kill a nation – the silent death of a nation.
This is a government failure of post-independent Namibia’s education system. Since 1990 we have used English as the sole medium of instruction in most public schools and universities.
No one is arguing that English is not important. The English language market gives our children access to jobs, regional trade, universities, and the wider world. Article 3 of our Constitution was correct to declare English the official language of Namibia.
The problem is what happened next. In practice, we turned English into a wall, not a bridge. A wall blocks movement. A bridge connects.
We need an education system that uses English as a language of opportunity, but also as a bridge for communication, skills, and knowledge transfer between English and Namibian languages, and to promote Namibian national identity.
The results are already with us. Every year we see learners who score an A symbol in Mathematics, Physical Science, and Biology, but receive a U symbol in English. Read that again: A in the subject content, U in the language.
That tells us the learner understands the concept, the formula, the experiment. What they do not understand are the English words wrapped around it.
Yet because of that U, the door to Grade 11, Grade 12, and tertiary education closes. That is not a lack of brains. That is a lack of language fairness. Competency is being measured by English proficiency, not by subject mastery.
This crisis did not begin yesterday. Colonial and apartheid schools used Afrikaans and English as mediums of instruction, and deliberately pushed our native languages to the margins. That was Bantu Education.
After independence, we rightly removed Afrikaans from official status. But we kept the same single-language structure. We replaced Afrikaans with English and continued the habit of foreign-language dominance over Namibian languages in the classroom. We never fully decolonised the medium of instruction.
Ironically, Namibia already had the answer more than 150 years ago. When missionaries came to Namibia, the Bible and hymns were translated into native languages. In Owambo, missionaries translated the Bible and hymns into Oshindonga and Oshikwanyama.
English–Afrikaans–Oshindonga bilingual dictionaries were also developed. Why did they do it? So that people could gain knowledge by reading and writing, and teach others in their mother tongue.
This year, Professor Job Shipululo Amupanda led by example when he tabled a motion in Parliament in his mother tongue, Oshindonga. All of this was not rocket science. It was bilingual education, and it worked perfectly. It built literacy without destroying the mother tongue.
Our Constitution supports this path. Article 19 states that every person is entitled to enjoy, practise, maintain, and promote any culture, language, or tradition. One cannot protect culture without protecting language.
Language is the vehicle. When a language dies in the classroom, in the home, and in the workplace, the stories, values, ancient knowledge, and identity carried by that language die with it. A nation without its languages is a nation at risk of losing itself.
The solution is not complicated, expensive, or foreign. It is called dual language education, or bilingual instruction. Under this model, teachers and lecturers teach the same subject content in English and in a Namibian language during the same lesson.
It allows children to grasp the concept in the language of their home and community, then connect it to English terminology. For assessments, learners may write in English or in the partner language, provided they demonstrate the correct understanding. English remains a compulsory subject, but it must no longer be used as a gatekeeper for every other subject.
This applies to all our languages. Oshiwambo, Otjiherero, Rukwangali, Damara/Nama, Lozi, Afrikaans, German, or any other Namibian language can be the partner language in any region. The goal is the same: English for opportunity; Namibian languages for identity.
The benefits are immediate and long-term. First, families reconnect. Grandchildren can talk to grandparents again. Parents can help with homework again. Secondly, pass rates and retention improve, because comprehension comes before terminology.
Thirdly, we stop losing talented learners who are filtered out by English language barriers instead of ability. Fourthly, we strengthen Namibia’s linguistic diversity, which is a source of national pride, not a problem to be managed.
Other countries show it can be done. Canada’s French immersion and the United States’ two-way dual language programs produce students who are bilingual, biliterate, and academically strong. They do not choose between languages. They gain both.
This is not anti-English. It is pro-Namibia. It is part of the decolonisation project we started in 1990 but left unfinished. It is now up to Parliament and the Ministry of Education to correct the failure of colonial and apartheid rule.
We can keep English for global engagement while keeping Oshiwambo, Otjiherero, Rukwangali, Damara/Nama, and other native languages alive for cultural continuity and deeper learning.
It is high time to dismantle the colonial structure of single, foreign-language dominance over native languages.
Therefore, Parliament and the Ministry of Education, Innovation, Youth, Sport, Arts and Culture must consider dual language education a national policy as soon as possible. Train teachers and develop dual-language materials. Allow assessments in either language where content is the measure.
If we do not act now, we will keep hearing that sentence in every village: “Junior cannot speak Oshiwambo” – a situation whereby children cannot speak their mother tongue. One day, no one will be left to translate it as language disappears silently.
Our children’s future and their roots should not be in conflict. They should not have to choose between English and their mother tongue. In a truly independent Namibia, they can, and they must, have both. Because to save the language is to save the nation. Language is national security and identity.
