Tyranny of language and discourse on CBC

I have said many times before that I subscribe to the theory that our ancestors, Homo sapiens, invented language in order to gossip and tell stories.

I should add that they also wanted to use this system of sounds to think. And as we know, thinking has three strands to it, namely, creative thinking, critical thinking, and problem-solving. 

However, in the history of humankind, we know of situations where this complex means of communication is used to prevent us from thinking. Some intellectually ill-equipped leaders engage in what I call phrase-mongering, some kind of linguistic gymnastics, and the rest of us jump on their verbal bandwagon. This, in my view, is what is happening with our discourse on CBC.

In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, are in a bloody conflict with each other. Yet their teenage children fall in love at first sight. Romeo is a Montague and Juliet is a Capulet. Romeo climbs the wall surrounding the orchard of the Capulets and at this site, he overhears Juliet utter the following words:

What's in a name?

That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title.

Here we have a situation where the two young lovers are not imprisoned by names, by language. Their lives are not governed by linguistic symbols. What matters to them is the essence of their being and their love.

They don’t care about the labels: the Montagues or the Capulets. In short, they do not succumb to the tyranny of language.

Careerists

I have been in academia for close to half a century now. I have seen the best, I have seen the worst, and of course those in between. In this privileged demographic, we have a group called careerists.

These people would do anything for money and for the sake of advancing their careers. Give them a big assignment like educational reform and they will plagiarise somebody else's curriculum design, however outlandish this might be. They will not care about its effect on the Kenyan child, or the cost to the taxpayer.

How is all this related to our topic: the tyranny of language? These academics were fascinated by the phraseology associated with the system they were recommending. To begin with, the honourable compatriots were taken in by the phrase ‘competency-based curriculum’.

To them, this combination of words sounded very clever. Unlike Shakespeare’s Juliet, they didn’t bother about the semantic content of the words. Instead of using language to think, to conceptualise, these good people fell under the spell of verbal gimmicks. In other words, they gave in to the tyranny of language.

When members of the task force invited me to make my presentation, I sincerely thought we would have a conversation about the linguistic conundrum of having secondary in primary and the strange logic of spending money putting up new classrooms for Grade 9 when we will have empty spaces in our secondary schools which were designed for four-year groups.

They didn’t give me the chance: but I wanted to tell them that we could rename Grade 7 and Grade 8 as intermediate and take Grade 9 to secondary. However, to these respectable academicians, the designations Junior High and Senior High were sacrosanct – they were cast in stone. I even tried to tell them that during my time in school, Standard 5 to Standard 8 were referred to as “intermediate”.

They didn’t want to listen to me: they had made up their minds to simplify and tinker with CBC, a demonstrably mediocre educational system. Yes, they didn’t want to interrogate the semantic essence of the word “secondary”.

Those in my age bracket, with grandchildren going to school, might have felt sentimental to be told by these experts that CBC is big on values. I use the word “sentimental” because our grandparents grew up in traditional societies which emphasized moral values.

"Fuzzy extrapolations"

But I say to you: don’t be fooled. What the promoters of CBC are calling values are just fuzzy extrapolations. For instance, they say when students work in groups they develop a sense of unity. Unity in itself is not a moral value. Yes, you can unite to do good. But let’s not forget that gangsters are usually united in their mission to commit crimes.

Those of us who have read or watched Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar will remember that the conspirators were united under the leadership of Brutus to assassinate Caesar, and they succeeded. The Nazis were united against the Jews whom they threw into gas chambers. Back here in Africa, the Hutus were united against the Tutsis whom they slaughtered. So, to argue that unity is a moral value is an exercise in futility.

I have told everybody who cares to listen to that, if I were a vice chancellor of any of our universities, I would be screaming at the framers of CBC. With an obsessive attachment to the borrowed permutation 6.3.3.3, and without any attempt to provide an academic rationale, the proponents of this system have reduced the duration of our undergraduate programmes from four to three years.

It does not worry them that this compromises the quality of our graduates. Further, the proposed system cuts the income our universities get from tuition by 25 per cent. So, my dear vice-chancellors: CBC is what should give you sleepless nights, and not the nebulous formula you call the differentiated unit cost.

My biggest quarrel with CBC is the proposal that learners specialise after Junior Secondary, the equivalent of our current Form One. Again, talking about language: the word the devotees of this system use is “pathways”.

When you hear them use this word, which they’re very proud of, you are deluded into thinking they are saying something extraordinarily brilliant. But let me confess to the reader that I cringe when I hear about these narrow and premature specialisations.

Near-death experience

In 2010, a narrowly trained and morally bankrupt doctor at the University of Nairobi Health Services tried to kill me. He even psychologically prepared my wife, the mother of my children, for my impending death. If the then Chief Medical Officer, a former classmate of mine at Friends School Kamusinga, had not intervened and assigned another doctor to me, you would not be reading this essay.

After I was discharged from the hospital, I wrote to the then Vice-Chancellor requesting him to take disciplinary action against the doctor. This did not happen. The boss of the university was himself a medical doctor, and I would not want to speculate on why he chose not to punish this gentleman who wanted to send me to an early grave.

In America, where we got our 8.4.4, all professional specialisations are postgraduate. Undergraduates who intended to take medicine do a BSc in pre-med courses; but they are also expected to take courses in the humanities and social sciences, to fulfil what is called breath requirements.

To be admitted into an American medical school, you not only need to show you passed your pre-med science units, you have to prove you have a strong background in the humanities. Americans believe, and rightly so, that the humanities are the carriers of moral values.

But come to Kenya and you meet these promoters of CBC who will want you to believe that “pathways” is one of the most consequential concepts in the English language. I have called this the tyranny of language. We do not use language to think; it thinks for us. And our children and grandchildren are told they will get the jobs that mirror these pathways.

Let’s be clear. Education is not just about getting jobs. There are a lot of stupid people in this world who have jobs. Education is about enriching our minds, it is about expanding our intellectual horizons, it is about understanding ourselves in relation to the world around us, and finally, it is about deepening our capacity for empathy, the ability to step into the shoes of other people in order to see the world from their point of view. Education rests on three central pillars: critical thinking, creative thinking, and problem-solving. Jobs are a by-product of this age-old human institution.

The nation is waiting for the report of the task force. I have already indicated that after my meeting with them, I became apprehensive about the general thinking of these experts.

But I am a dyed-in-the-wool optimist when it comes to the general progress of human societies. In 2022, Kenyans elected Dr William Ruto against all odds. With a PhD from the University of Nairobi, he became the best-educated and the most intellectual president in the history of our country.

And so, as I conclude this essay, I want to say to President Ruto, if he is reading what I am writing: Listen to the pretentious verbiage and the pedantic recommendations of the promoters of CBC. But also, listen to your inner voice – the voice that will not let you down, the voice that will not deceive you. And on that note, I rest my case.

Henry Indangasi is a Professor Emeritus, Department of Literature, University of Nairobi