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Since 1995 I have been engaged in consultancies and since 2001 in research dealing with the language of instruction policies in Africa. To what extent are the policies being implemented? What is the role of research and consultancy when it comes to language policy? What happens when researchers or consultants come up with recommendations which do not please donors or the people of power? My paper builds on a consultancy on the language policy of Namibia from 1995, the stock-taking exercise of ADEA/GTZ/UIL of 2006, as well as on research results and experiences gathered within the LOITASA (Language of Instruction in Tanzania and South Africa) project. In the first part of the article I give two examples where the policy recommendations by the consultants/researchers have not been followed up. I give an example of a consultancy that has had some impact on the policy formulation in some African countries. Recommendations from only one of the four studies/consultancies looked at have been thoroughly followed up. These recommendations were in line with what the donors wanted, but did not logically follow from the research done. In the second part of the article I deal with the challenge of making policy research relevant for those most greatly affected by the policy. This means working for a paradigm shift in the research and consultancy on language policies in Africa. It also means looking at the power of misconceptions held by lay people. Towards the end of the article I discuss changing a belief system which has become common knowledge. I show examples of how Tanzanian colleagues in the LOITASA project are trying to do this.

The authors of the present article are engaged in a research project funded by the Norwegian Research Council. In this project the language policies of Tanzania and South Africa, as well as the practices of these policies in the classroom are analyzed. The article gives some preliminary results from the project. While the language policies of Tanzania are described as confusing, contradictory, and ambiguous, the language policies of South Africa seem clearer and more progressive. In Tanzania, Kiswahili is seen as the national language, while both Kiswahili and English are official languages. The issue of language has, however, disappeared from the constitution in Tanzania. In the constitution of South Africa, 11 languages are official and seen as equal. But when it comes to practice in the classroom in both countries, the majority of the learners struggle to learn academic content because of the foreign medium that is used as the language of instruction from secondary school onwards in Tanzania and already from the fourth grade in primary school in South Africa. The research reported here shows that whatever the official policies may be the teachers in the classrooms will use whatever language they and their students feel most comfortable with. Examples are given here of the coping strategies teachers and learners use in both countries like translations, code-mixing and code-switching. At the end of the day the learners have to write their exams in English however. The language in education policy in most African countries lead many African pupils to fall even further behind. What seems to be a learning problem or a matter of bad grade, drop out and repetition is really a language problem.

The first part of the paper discusses the uneven distribution of resources to higher education between the North and South. It then takes up the attitude of the World Bank towards university education in the South and does this by going through several World Bank publications and dwells on the 1994 publication called ‘Higher Education: The Lessons of Experience’. It also discusses the likely effects for the university sector in the South, especially in Africa, of the Jomtien conference on ‘education for all’. The linkage phenomenon between universities in the North and the South is discussed. The following question is raised: Is it at all possible to establish a North South cooperation in the university sector of an empowering kind? Negative as well as positive examples are given. The link that is really missing is then discussed. This is the link between the elites in the country and the people, the link between indigenous knowledge and the imported academic knowledge. This paper argues for a transformation of the universities of the South to include local knowledge. The most common problems of the South can only be understood by analyzing local experiences. A plea is being made for discussing indigenous education. Such a discussion compels us to come to terms with the situation in which even the social construction of a people's reality is and has been constantly defined elsewhere. For Africa to find her way out of the abyss in which she finds herself an alternative national development model is needed. This model is not likely to be found unless the African universities are strengthened and transformed. The transformation would have to do with a strengthening of indigenous research based on local experience.

The absence of indirect or structural violence is termed positive peace. In this paper the author attempts to apply the concept of positive peace to the concept of education for all, the way this concept was defined at the World Conference on Education for All (WCEFA) in Jomtien, Thailand, in March, 1990. The discussion focuses on three points raised at the Jomtien conference by countries from the South: the effects of the structural adjustment policies (SAP) on the education sector; the effects on higher education of a concentration of resources on basic education and the effects of EFA on the possibilities of strengthening indigenous culture. The discussion shows, through new research results and concrete examples, that the effects of SAPs like the reintroduction of school-fees in a poor country like Tanzania lead to greater inequalities and greater structural violence against the poor, especially the girls from the poorer homes. It further shows that there is a process going on in African countries of undermining local curriculum development and the local textbook industry thereby threatening the indigenous culture. An example from Zimbabwe of sustainable education which does not rely on external sources is given.