Educational challenges in multilingual societies: LOITASA phase two research

This book is the sixth in a series of books from the LOITASA (Language of Instruction in Tanzania and South Africa) project and reflects the work done in the sixth year of the project. LOITASA is funded by the Norwegian University Fund and began in January 2002. The project will come to an end in 2011. This book has its main focus research carried out in South Africa and Tanzania on the language of instruction issue. Most of the chapters in this book were presented at the Sixth LOITASA Workshop held at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa in May 2009.

About the Author :
Zubeida Desai is the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). She is the South African coordinator of the LOITASA project. In 1996 Desai was appointed on a part-time basis to the statutory body for language matters, the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) for the period 1996-2001. During this time she served as both Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of the Board. She has also served on numerous panels and committees in an advisory capacity. In 2001 she was one of 18 experts invited by UNESCO to finalise a document on the promotion of multilingualism and universal access to cyberspace. Desai has published widely in the field of language in education policy and language rights in various international and local journals and edited collections. Martha Qorro is a Senior Lecturer in Communication Skills in English in the Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics at the University of Dar es Salaam. She obtained her doctoral degree titled A Qualitative Study of the Teaching and learning of Writing in Tanzania Secondary Schools in relation to the Writing Requirements of Tertiary Education at the University of Dar es Salaam in 1999. She and Dr Zaline Roy-Campbell conducted A Survey on Students' Reading Competence in English in Tanzania Secondary Schools from 1986 to 1987 and later the two co-authored the book Language Crisis in Tanzania: The Myth of English versus Education published by Mkuki na Nyota in 1997. Martha Qorro is in the Editorial Team of the LOITASA project and has taken part in co-editing six LOITASA books that have so far been published under the project. She is currently the Dean of Students at the University of Dar es Salaam. Birgit Brock-Utne is the Norwegian project leader of LOITASA and runs the consultancy firm EDCON. She is connected to the University of Oslo as a Professor of Education and Development. She took the initiative of setting up an M.Phil. in Comparative and International Education which welcomed its first cohort in 1998. For most of the years until 2008 she was the Director of this study. Brock-Utne has her doctorate in peace studies and will be teaching peace studies at Wartburg College in the United States in 2010. She worked as a Professor of Education at the University of Dar es Salaam (1987-1992) and has since written numerous articles on education in Africa. She was a Professor of Peace Studies and African Studies at the University of Antioch (spring of 1992), the University of Hiroshima (fall of 2002) and the University of Indiana (spring of 2005). Brock-Utne's book, Whose Education for All? The Recolonization of the African Mind, was published by Falmer Press in 2000 and was republished in Korea in 2006. She has been on the board of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) and served on the Executive Board of the UNESCO Institute of Education for ten years. She sits on a number of editorial boards of scientific journals within the field of education and development.