Is it the correct time to introduce another language into our education system?

One would think that the education department would try to stabilize the situation with regards to the pass rates and the improvement of Maths and Science before introducing another subject, let alone Chinese.

It is an open secret that our current system is not the best in terms of results and a few administrative hiccups with Gauteng MEC of education Panyaza Lesufi  all over the province trying to put out the flames. What is unclear here is how will this new language be implemented and why do we as a young democratic country feel the need to burden ourselves with it. Is this a requirement for every member of the BRICS?  If yes then let us take our teachers to Russia and teach them isiZulu and see if this will get to work. Eye Witness News reported two years ago that over 400 million Chinese people could not speak the language but here we have our government willing to bring it to our shores. Will we learn a foreign language faster than our own languages? The very same language it’s natives are battling with?

I am not saying we should not try to learn other people’s languages as we already have French and Portuguese learners on the education system but my question is; Is the demand for the language that great for it to be introduced this soon or is the another reason we are not told of? Shouldn’t we try to focus on improving the literacy levels with our 11 official languages before we can add a few more other languages?

I mean, how do you explain a situation where the country has 11 official languages and less than half of the population knows a maximum of 4 languages and still we introduce an additional language to be taught at school? In the schools we are having a trouble of shortage of well-equipped teachers  which is why the pass rate is so low yet our government feels like that is not enough and they should add a Chinese (Mandarin) language to the school system. I am not xenophobic here but the same children you want to teach Mandarin are the same getting 30% for their home language at school. Even the medium of instruction, English, is not getting any justice in the education system due to the emergence of social media, the children cannot construct a proper English sentence. Clearly it is going to take us over 10 years before we can produce a 20% pass rate on the Mandarin language if nothing is changed on the current system.

Lastly, who is going to pay those teachers and the study material? The tax payers? Do they even have a say in this?  A few years ago we had text-books scandals flooding Limpopo province but I can guarantee you one thing here; the study material from the east will be all over the country like the political T-shirts at a rally once the plan has been fully implemented. And oh, this is the same language spoken by a certain Dalai Lama that has been denied entry into the country countless times like a leprosy patient during the Biblical times.

As I see it.