English, Development and Education: Charting the Tensions

Gibson Ferguson

Introduction

As one might expect, given divergent perspectives on the global diffusion of English (see e.g. Phillipson, 1992; Pennycook, 2000), the relationships of English to development are contested and controversial. On the one hand, an almost unanimous community of applied linguists see the continued use of English as a medium of education in primary schools in Sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere, as impairing the quality of education, and hence as holding back development. On the other hand, there are abundant official discourses that portray English-language skills as essential for economic competitiveness, for entry into the knowledge economy and for access to foreign investment and technology. Not uncommonly such views are buttressed by development experts who argue the benefits of widespread English-language skills. An example would be Green et al. (2007: 218), whose report for the UK Department for International Development (DFID) concludes:

Are there any straightforward lessons to be learnt regarding the benefits of promoting particular kinds of skills through education? Two points seem to emerge clearly from our analysis.

First widespread fluency in English language has proved to be a considerable asset in many developing countries, especially for the growth of service industries, as India is now finding. Some successful developers, like Singapore and Hong Kong, had this advantage built into their education systems through colonial inheritance and public policy decisions from the start since English was a major language of instruction....

At the popular level, meanwhile, there is a seemingly insatiable demand for English-medium education and/or the early introduction of English as a curricular subject (see e.g. Trudell, 2007; Muthwii, 2004; Probyn, 2001, 2005; Annamalai, 2004; Nunan, 2003 with respect to Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa, India and East Asia). And this pressure has been reflected in policy: for example, in the drift to English-medium education in South African schools despite official multilingualism (Kamwangamalu, 2004), in the ever earlier introduction of English as a curriculum subject in East Asian countries and in the rapid growth in private English-medium schools in India, Tanzania and elsewhere (see e.g. Graddol, 2010; Lassibille et al., 1999).

If the relationships of English to development are controversial, they are also complex and difficult to ascertain reliably. One reason lies in the very variable relationship of education, hence of English, to development across different societies with different economies and labour markets, different education systems and different sociolinguistic ecologies. The failed neo-liberal 'Washington consensus' approach to development, positing (almost) universal recipes for economic growth, has long since given way to more nuanced understandings of development, and of the role of local factors – governance, social cohesion and social capital, culture, equality, etc. – as conditioning the potential for, and the pathways toward, development (see e.g. Robertson et al., 2007). Thus, there are likely to be few policy prescriptions that are universally applicable, and the relationship of English to development is not a constant across societies.

Another source of complexity lies in the very definition of development. Narrow economic conceptions seem to have given way to broader conceptions that embrace improved governance, security, better health, social cohesion, environmental sustainability and so on. Similarly, poverty can be defined from various perspectives – narrowly as a lack of income, or more broadly as a complex of multiple, interlocking deprivations – as precarious livelihoods, isolated places, hungry and sick bodies, low physical security, disrespect by the powerful, discriminatory social relations and disempowering institutions (see Narayan et al., 2000: 2). Our purpose here, however, is not to interrogate these definitions – there is insufficient space for that – but rather simply to note them, and observe that if development is indeed multifaceted, it is possible that English relates to the facets in varying ways – perhaps advancing development in some directions while thwarting it in others.

It is apparent already, then, that in discussing English and development one enters a terrain bestrewn with tensions, even contradictions – for example, between access and quality, equity and efficiency, educational research and public pressure, aspiration and economic reality. This chapter explores some of these tensions. Our focus is mainly on Sub-Saharan Africa, but because English-language skills are typically acquired through the formal educational system, it is useful to first briefly review what is known about the relationship between education and development generally.

Education and Development: The Wider Context

For many years, influenced substantially by human capital theory, education has been seen as having positive benefits for development. A historically influential methodology for probing the economic benefits of education has been rate of return analysis, a form of analysis that matches life-time earnings against the cost of education. Broadly speaking, these analyses indicate positive social and private returns to investment in education at all levels (Psacharopoulos & Patrinos, 2002), especially at the primary level. This finding, in combination with the rise of the poverty reduction agenda (see Robertson et al., 2007) and the...