The English Controversy

Mauritius Times – 70 Years

“For the young people of the Commonwealth, the importance of the English language is that it opens the door to education at every level up to the highest”

By Peter Ibbotson

So, the controversy — English or French as the language of instruction — has flared up again. In view of this, I think it timely to say that everyone to whom I have spoken on this subject here in London (the “everyone” means people who are familiar with Mauritus through working there) agrees that English should be the language of instruction throughout all schools and from the earliest age possible. One opinion expressed was that all lessons should be taught in English from the second year upwards; the first year, the emphasis in school should be on teaching English through the medium of the mother tongue or else through Creole which is more widely understood than any of the various mother languages.

In the last week or so, the Stationery Office has published a new illustrated guide to the political and constitutional development of the Commonwealth, by Dudley Barker, entitled The Commonwealth We Live In. It is intended for the general reader; in chapter 9, Mr Barker devotes a long paragraph to the place of English:

“Then there is the link of the English language, the mother tongue of most of the people of the older Members of the Commonwealth (and, because of the earlier colonial association of the United States). Throughout the rest of the Commonwealth, it is the language of higher education, of trade and science, and to a large extent of administration. Some of these countries are naturally fostering their own national languages, or those tongues which have national status in a multitude of local languages. But it seems unlikely that they could discard English, or indeed that they would want to, since it opens up easy communications in trade, in culture and education, not only with the whole of the Commonwealth and the United States but with educated people throughout the free world. It helps to make more readily available to the countries of the Commonwealth the whole range of information services from Britain and other Commonwealth countries; not only the official services, but also the broadcasts of the BBC and the worldwide news gathering agencies in the English language. It gives access to the literature of the world. The value of books exported from Britain has risen nearly tenfold since before the last war, which means that the actual number of books exported has multiplied by four or five times; the bulk of these exports go to the Commonwealth. In addition to literature, many of the exports are of text-books of general, technical or scientific education which play a significant part in the development of trade and industry.

“For the young people of the Commonwealth, the importance of the English language is that it opens the door to education at every level up to the highest, not only in the schools and universities of their homelands, but in the universities and technical colleges of Britain, of other Commonwealth countries, and of the United States. Their own school systems were modelled originally on the English, Scottish or American educational patterns. Without the English language, it is difficult for many of them to rise above the level of primary education.”

While on this matter of English, I would like to refer to a letter I had on July 26 from a teacher in Rose Hill. In the Education Department bulletin recently, there was a warning against the use of the word “jobless”, which, the unnamed contributor of the Bulletin alleged was apparently a locally-coined word. I criticised this in the Mauritius Times stating that the word was in common use in England. My correspondent queries my criticism and asks me for a concrete example of the use of the word “jobless” in an English publication. I am happy to oblige; from page 5 of the weekly South London Observer, dated July 28, I quote the following: “Jobless and homeless, Peter J. Morbin (22), labourer, charged at Tower Bridge Court with breaking into 4, Bonar-terrace, Packham, and stealing nine packets of cigarettes, the property of Matilda Smith, was remanded in custody.”

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Grants and Loans

In June, 91 grants and loans were approved under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act, totalling £4.75 million (Rs 63.25 million). A sum of Rs 4.5 million was granted to British Guiana towards the cost of sea defence works, part of a comprehensive plan begun in 1954 for better sea defences to protect the coastal belt of agricultural lands. At least Rs 6 million has previously been granted towards the total cost of sea defence works. Smaller grants to British Guiana were ear-marked for primary school buildings and equipment (Rs 1 million), aerial photography (Rs 440,000), malaria eradication (Rs 320,000), post-primary education in the handicraft department (Rs 100,000), and identification of trawl specimens collected by a fishery research vessel (Rs 1,600). Grants for primary school building and extensions were made to Aden; for the development of African education to Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia; and for medical research to Fiji, so that an outpatients and operating theatre block could be built at Suva, at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital which is the teaching hospital for 120 students from the central medical and nursing schools.

An Economic Survey Mission, which has just reported on the three High Commission Territories of Basutoland, Bechuanaland, and Swaziland, has enunciated a guiding principle as regards the provision of finance for development in under-developed territories. The Mission thinks that it is preferable for territories to confine their loan programmes to self-financing projects: construction of, e.g., roads, schools, and staff housing should be financed by capital grants and not by loans which impose right from the start a burden of interest and redemption charges. This general enunciation of a principle is repeated with particular application to Swaziland: “since the financing by way of loans of such heavy capital items as roads construction and housing would place too heavy a burden of loan charges on the Territory and prolong the periods for which grants in-aid must be paid, additional loan charges should, as far as possible, be incurred only on account of self-financing projects”. The Mission recommends capital expenditure of £7 million (R$ 93 million) in the three territories, mainly for the development of agriculture, roads, education and water supplies.

I often wonder, however, why Mauritius figures so infrequently among the recipients of Colonial Development and Welfare grants and loans?

7th Year – No 311
Friday 12th August, 1960

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