The Editor, Sir:

Charles Evans letter on July 9, prompted me to write this letter.

I came across an interesting piece of work on the Web by Lena McCourtie of The University of Winnipeg, titled: The Politics of Creole Language Education in Jamaica: 1891 - 1921 and the 1990s. This work drew heavily on annual reports of 'Her Majesty's Inspectors', for the three decades covering 1891-1921 that reveal the difficulties experienced by Jamaican Creole speakers in "acquiring English and developing their writing skills".

It quoted from an inspector writing in 1895 as follows: "children leave school from the highest standard, no better equipped in the correct use of the English language than the people surrounding them who have in many instances never been to school at all".

He went on to argue that it was quite pointless to expect pupils to do good work in other subjects when the medium of instruction itself was very little understood, often misunderstood and mistaught or neglected in the great majority of our schools.

weakest point

In 1898 another inspector wrote, 'in writing, composition remains, and appears likely to remain by far the weakest point'.

Is any of this familiar? It is to me because over a century later the same problems exist and we are saying the same things.

Another letter writer in the same July ninth edition (Horace McFarlane) stated boldly that Jamaica's native language is English and that our speech is broken English.

The Polish driver of a bus I often take speaks broken English. He will say something like "Number 16 bus no go Dudley". Now that statement is not grammatically correct but every English speaker can understand it. Now try Jamaican Creole: "dis ya bus naa gaa Dudley". You get my point.

The use of English in Jamaica is largely restricted to written material, speech making and formal conversation between strangers. I doubt even the Most Honourable Prime Minister uses standard English in one to one meetings with his ministers. Under our current system the arts, sciences and communication lessons are going straight over the heads of many children. Instructing the children in the language that they understand will be like a bad-tasting medicine that is good for you. Unless we pinch our nose and take it we will still be having this argument 100 years from now.

I am, etc.,

KWANE SISULU

kwane_s@yahoo.co.uk

Birmingham UK

Via Go-Jamaica