Uganda‘s cabinet has approved the adoption of Swahili as an official language, according to a statement.
The cabinet also suggested making Swahili instruction in primary and secondary schools obligatory.
With around 200 million speakers worldwide, Swahili, which has its roots in East Africa, is one of the ten most commonly spoken languages.
From sections of Somalia all the way down to Mozambique and all over the Democratic Republic of the Congo, people speak this language and its dialects.
The East African Community bloc ordered member nations to adopt the language to facilitate communication, according to a tweet from the Ugandan cabinet.
The Government tweeted; “Cabinet approved the implementation of the 21st EAC Summit directive in Uganda to adopt Kiswahili as an official language of the community. Cabinet also recommended that the teaching of Kiswahili in primary and secondary should be made compulsory.”
Since gaining its independence in 1962, only English has been the official language of Uganda. Kiswahili was suggested in 2005 to be the second official language, but secondary schools have only offered it as an elective since 2017.
Kiswahili was chosen as the official language of the EAC in 2017 despite being the lingua franca of the area and widely spoken as both the national and official language of Tanzania. Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and most recently the Democratic Republic of Congo are all members of the EAC.
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