The School of Languages, Literature and Communication will next year 2023 start new graduate programs in different languages including French, Kiswahili, English studies and Luganda among others.
This was disclosed during the school’s open day held on 9th December 2022 at the Yusuf Lule Auditorium. The school also launched two books and a journal of languages.
The Dean School of Languages, Literature and Communication Dr. Saudah Namyalo said the school has nurtured and churned out great men and artists through the gates of Makerere University.
“We are also here to celebrate out languages and cultures. We believe in unity in diversity. As you can see we have students from different ethnic backgrounds. We have been involved in different researches that’s why we are here today celebrating those achievements”, She said
To support the University in its strategic move of transforming into a research led university, Dr. Namyalo said the school will ensure that they have adequate graduate programs.
“The school has come up with master’s degree in French studies, Literature, Journalism and communication, Linguistics and many more. So the school is in the process of finalizing most of these curricular. And we believe with all these programs, we shall be able to do research in our languages”, Namyalo explained
Recognizing that the entire world survives partly on science and technology, Dean Namyalo stressed that linguistics believe that the country cannot have meaningful transformation if science and technology is dressed in foreign languages.
“So what we are doing as a school is to position ourselves, do research and publish to ensure that our languages can be used to teach science and technology. This is possible as we have seen it happen in other countries like China and Japan. We believe if we do the same we are going to have all these wonderful innovations by both highly and non-highly educated communicated in a language they understand. And that’s part of our agenda and we believe as linguistics, we have a very big block to add to science and technology advancement in Uganda”, she added.
Dr. Namyalo appealed to parents to pass on their heritage to their children calling upon them to speak to children in their mother tongue.
“We have the educated group of people thinking that when you speak with your child from birth in a foreign language, then they will become intelligent and prosperous but as linguists we think to the contrary and believe that if you deny your child opportunity to speak, grow and develop using their own mother tongue, you are doing a very big disadvantage to them.
