O umbundo na esfera educacional da província de Benguela (Angola)

Umbundu kweci catiama kelilongiso kolupale wombaka

Abstract

This article is the result of a scientific initiation research project, which deals with the ethnic-linguistic valorization of the Umbundu national language in Angola. The objective is to evaluate the teaching-learning process of this Angolan mother tongue as a first language (L1), in relation to Portuguese as a second language (L2), in southern Angola, in the province of Benguela. It focuses on the period of school literacy, that is, when there is the teaching of the written modality of Portuguese, the official language in Angola, competing with the national language. Therefore, the article: presents a contextualization of the education system of the country and the region studied, focusing on a brief literature review; conducts a brief field research with a questionnaire applied to teachers, directors and parents, totaling 14 questions and 11 participantes; compares two primary school study plans. Thus, we seek to understand the difficulty and challenges of implementing the teaching of Umbundu in schools in the province. The study also considers the use of this national language in the family context from the perspective of the parents. The research is relevant because African mother tongue teaching in the context of Angola has been a difficult task to implement due to linguistic prejudices from the colonial era and present until the present day. In a way, we believe that this work contributes to the commitment of the Angolan educational sphere to promoting the teaching of national languages ​​in schools, in line with international guidelines (UNESCO, 2010) to encourage mother tongue teaching as an educational policy of including children in basic education.