Some didactic implications of the admission of black pupils to the Indian primary schools in Phoenix with special reference to language proficiency

Abstract

The influx of Black pupils seeking admission to Indian schools began in 1990 after the Democratic Movement's "all schools for all people" campaign was announced. The medium of instruction in Indian schools is English which is also the mother tongue. Therefore Black pupils who come on transfer from schools in the KwaZulu township are immediately faced with a language problem as they are taught in the mother tongue untii standard three, when they switch to English. This research project arose as a result of the researcher's experience with Black pupils, whom he - felt were severely linguistically underprepared for academic study in the senior primary phase. Furthermore, most present day teachers were trained for monocultural schools and have little or no experience of multicultural education. The main problem that this research focuses on includes the learning problems encountered by Black pupils in Indian primary schools and the concomitant teaching problems their teachers experience.