The problem with multilingualism

Multilingualism ‘masks deficient teaching of reading’ 
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A501918

THE multilingual nature of South African society is used as an easy excuse for the fact that many primary school pupils have reading problems but it is masking the fact that reading skills are often poorly taught, according to a Pretoria academic.

“In SA, reading problems tend to be masked by language proficiency issues … although English is used as a main language of teaching in South African schools, poor literacy results cannot be solely attributed to second-language instruction as teachers and learners are struggling with literacy in the African languages as well as English,” says Dr Sarah Howie, director of Pretoria University’s Centre for Evaluation and Assessment.

( Article )