A Study On Language Education Policy In Namibia

Namibia,a newly independent country in Africa,is developing vigorously with great vitality.Namibia has achieved the transformation from a poor and backward country with the background of colonialism,extreme racialism and social inequality to a modern society with the environment of equality,democracy,non-discrimination,and harmony since 1990.This can be partly attributed to the government's emphasis and investment on education.However,a number of problems have also emerged along with the development of this country.Since the language education policy was put into implementation,it has been confronted with many kinds of problems.Due to the contradiction of language planning and language reality,together with the influence of various factors,the implementation of the policy falls into a dilemma.Language problem has been a highly controversial political issue.It is also a pressing issue that need to be resolved.By using the methods of text analysis,historical research and factor analysis,this study focuses on the language education policy in Namibia from three perspectives:the historical development,the implementation of the policy,the policy dilemma and its reasons.This thesis is divided into the following six parts:The first part is introduction which includes the purpose of the study,core concepts,the present research,the study design and the research significance.The second part gives a brief overview of the macro background of the Namibian language education policy from a horizontal perspective,including politics,economy,culture and education.Namibia is a sovereign and independent country.The political situation is stabilized.But the bureaucracy has been criticized for the big organizations,putridity and inefficiency.And it still has lots of social problems,such as high unemployment,slow economic growth and huge gaps between rich and poor.Also,Namibia is a multi-ethnic country.It's ethnic diversity is reflected in its linguistic diversity.The third part gives a description of the development of Namibian language practices and language education policy at different stages from a historical perspective.It includes the Pre-colonial period,the German period,the South African aparteid rule period and the independence period.The fourth part discusses the implementation of Namibian language education policy from the aspects of curriculum,teachers,textbooks and the examinations on the basis of a theory frame of implementation of language education policy proposed.by Professor Kaplan and Bauldauf and the actual situations of Namibia.The fifth part focuses on the policy dilemma and its reasons.While analyzing the history as well as the current situation in Namibia,this part probes into the difficulties and problems affect teachers,textbooks,policy operation regulation,education quality and social equity,and analyzes the underlying reasons from the historical,political,economic,cultural and language attitude angles.The last part is an evaluation and an outlook.This part provides a summary of Namibian language education policy,and also gives some suggestions on the corresponding strategies and a vision for the future.Proposals are made from the aspects of policy reconstruction,teacher training and indigenous language planning to perfect the language education policy in Namibia.