Attitudes of University of Botswana Faculty of Humanities students towards minority languages

Abstract

Some twenty-four odd years ago, The Revised National Policy on Education intimated that Botswana should incorporate local languages other than Setswana in the education system, although this has still not come to fruition. We administered a questionnaire to undergraduate students at the University of Botswana to find out the languages the students speak, and their attitudes towards minority languages spoken in their country as well as to determine what their views were towards including the said languages in the curriculum. We found out that (1) the students speak a variety of local languages: Setswana, Ikalanga, Shekhalahari, Setswapong, Ndebele and Shona, (2) we also determined that while overall the attitudes of the students towards the country’s minority languages were positive, there were nonetheless differences in the students’ responses towards incorporating minority languages in education between Setswana L1 speakers and minority language L1 speakers, an outcome which likely depicts the language ideology portrayed in the nation’s language policy.