The news released by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) on April 10, that it had collaborated with the Chinese government and the University of Nairobi to launch a pilot program for teaching of Chinese mandarin language in Kenyan schools is good news indeed and provides an assurance that the leadership at the TSC has foresight about changing demographic trends globally and how they affect lives of Kenyans on a continuous basis. Consider the following historical facts:
This is a turning point considering that due to colonialism in Africa, all Africans are either bilingual or multilingual as they can speak vernacular languages, national languages or either English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese or Arabic depending on which of the colonizers ruled them before independence.
Whereas a typical Kenyan with basic education can speak at least 3 languages; vernacular, English and Kiswahili, only 11percent of Englishmen/women are bilingual implying that a Kenyan can communicate to more people worldwide than a typical Englishman/woman.
Additionally, as at 2025 the World population is estimated to be 8.3 billion people. Out of these 1.5 billion (18%) speak English, 1.2 billion (14.5 %) speak Chinese, 610 million speak Hindi, 559 million speak Spanish, 310 million speak French, and 133 million speak German.
This means that a Kenyan who can speak English and Chinese can communicate well with 32% of the world population even before factoring in an additional percentage of those that they can speak Kiswahili. This is a major advantage for commerce, industry, diplomacy, service industry and even military logistics.
Before this decision was made by the TSC, students in secondary schools had been restricted to learning French, German and Arabic languages as second foreign languages. As indicated above French and German languages do not add much advantage to Kenyan students presently as it used to in the past because of the declining influence of French and German languages. Did we retain these languages in the curriculum for this long due to western influence on Kenyans /Africans?
In addition, the United Nations official languages are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. German language is not. The African Union languages are Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Kiswahili. Here Kiswahili beats the German language.
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The UNESCO official languages are Arabic, Chinese, English, Russian, French, Spanish, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese and Bachoga Indonesia. German language missing. This means that the German language is on a decline in international usage.
To be fair to the German language however, the message I am passing here is that learning it would provide opportunities of working only in Germany or Germany companies abroad unlike English and Chinese that has a wider scope presently.
But still there is a glimmer of hope about learning German language. In 2025 about 650,000 children were born German against about 1,000,000 deaths. It also had 24% of its population above 65 years. This means that Germany would have to import migrant workers to run their factories and all manner of businesses to fill the gaps created by declining local population.
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Already a few Technical and Vocational Training Institutes in Kenya in collaboration with German agencies have started teaching the German language to artisans in these institutes so that they can be offered employment in Germany and Austria. This being the case the decision to introduce teaching of Chinese in secondary schools is a first of other steps that will support initiative to get jobs to Kenyans abroad.
The Public Service Commission could do the same by introducing Chinese as a parallel course in national polytechnics or as a post graduate course. Likewise, the medical training institutes could follow suit.
The TSC may also wish to carry out more research by asking themselves important questions. What has driven the former French colonies; Rwanda and Burundi and the former Portuguese colonies – Mozambique, Guinea and Guinea Bissau to increasingly adopt English in their countries? What are the major determinants of adopting one language and not another among the foreign languages?
Does economic, demographic, scientific, cultural or political forces affect these choices? Can Kiswahili be dropped from being a core subject up to grade 12 in favor of agriculture or science subjects in the time allocation for teaching? Are Tanzanians better business people than Kenyans or Ugandans because they speak better Kiswahili? This is an ongoing exciting conversation that we must engage in.All in all the step taken by TSC is proactive and laudable.
By Benjamin Sogomo
benjeminsogomo@gmail.com
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