Is it really necessary for us as Country to continue teaching Swahili as an examinable subject in our schools!

Couldn’t we leave it to parents and the society in general to teach Swahili in our communities – the same way vernacular dialects are handled in rural Kenya.

Let’s face it what tangible benefit do we derive from teaching Swahili all the way to high school.
I understand all the sentimentalities about national language et cetera, which in practical terms amounts to no more than ornamentalism.

Come to think of it, does the Swahili spoken across Kenya have any direct connection with Kiswahili the subject in our Schools. Would that spoken Swahili suffer any significant negative effect if we stopped teaching Swahili as a compulsory and examinable subject up to form four?

Why burden our kids with such subjects that aren’t taking them anywhere anytime soon?
Make no mistake about it Swahili as a subject aren’t a walk in the park. What with all the Ngelis, kanushas, kinyumes, methalis, ningali…, ningeli…., uchache, wingi, ndogo, wastani, ukubwa and so on.

Is it even a complete stable and stand alone language – it keeps on morphing constantly, compared to other languages. If you left high school more than 15 years ago, the Swahili you learnt has considerably been modified – sanifu vs mufti.

As an economy we expend resources to teach it to all of our kids, all the way to KCSE. Then what! How many thereafter take it further than that and to what purposes! May be training as teacher to go back and teach the same – which leaves us in a vicious cycle. May be a few journalists to serve a E. African population. Irony is, even here in Kenya, the real prime time for watching Television, and catching up with News – 9pm, the language of choice is English!!

To serve this narrow and limited need, we can make Swahili a choice subject for the few who are so inclined so they may end up becoming journalists in Swahili or “Scholars” for whatever it is worth.

For our Schools therefore, I would suggest that we only universally induct the pupils to Kiswahili up to class three and then drop it.

They can then concentrate on Maths, Sciences, economics and other disciplines relevant to today’s world such as ICT.

I don’t know about CRE/IRE.

Kiswahili kitukuzwe, kwani lugha ya taifa.

First, it's 'Kiswahili'.

You seem to be suggesting that a language shouldn't morph rapidly as kiswahili seems to be. But a language should always morph and it's rate isn't to be governed from a center. Language in fact can only be centrally managed under oppressive conditions.

An important point you seem to be missing is that the utility of language doesn't have to be measured using GDP. Language, at the very least affords users 'existential comfort' which basically means language reduces the sense of alienation between humans and the universe.

In this case, if Africans, or even Kenyans should abandon the native language that links them together as a nation and state, and given how much time an individual may take to learn a foreign language like English - 16 years in my estimation- and how many people actually get this amount of time to learn, then it's easy to see how much alienation and anarchy the nation state may have.

If we consider the age you're expecting to drop Kiswahili from school, we may wonder what rationale has been used for such a suggestion. If anything a language facilitates cognitive development. And the age you're prescribing is at the very beginning of cognitive development. The question is, why this particular age? And how does it impact the development of the child and the people around them?

Finally, who told you that the most important subjects that one should learn are ? And why do they necessarily exclude other languages? For example, I'd expect you to recommend that children learn 'Chinese'. How can one learn non-native languages without learning their own native language(s). For me one can only learn a language if it is backed up by everyday realities and or if the language can be translated and compared to a native language that describes everyday realities.

I suggest we rethink this proposal and mainly through a remembering of what language is and its utility.

Kiswahili is our national language and lingua franca in Eastern Africa and the Great Lakes region. It is an important subject and also a very beautiful language.

Ati leave it to which parents? Parents who can't teach there children their own language leave alone any examinable subject?

We all did Kiswahili and it did not hurt us so I see no reason to exclude it. But assuming we drop it, which language do you suggest we replace it with? French? Chinese? German?

For its practical benefits to a nation - international commerce.
Swahili is out of its depth on this.

If everybody had their way to do away with subjects they were not good at in school, where would we be?

International commerce isn't the only benefit that we should aim for as a people. Before commerce there's identity.

Your preferred disciplines are out of depth on the issue of identity.

While at it why call your language vanacular? It's derogatory!

Does anyone here believe that Kiswahili would die off from our streets, markets, bars and other public fora, if universally we taught it only up to class three!

And for heavens sake nobody has called for banishing of Kiswahili from our public square.

This is a call to unburden our kids in school with a subject that isn’t taking them nor the country anywhere – noting that whatever benefits we draw from Swahili language would not be any lesser if we didn’t teach it in school up to KCSE.