The Tanzanian government will establish offices in foreign countries for the teaching of Kiswahili, a senior official said Tuesday.

Deputy Minister for Information, Youth, Culture and Sports Amos Makalla said in an interview that the government will open a Kiswahili teaching office in Ethiopia's Addis Ababa very soon. Thereafter, Tanzanian embassies will get instruction on setting up offices in countries where they are accredited.

Makalla said the move will help strengthen Kiswahili, which for over 50 years, has been one of the unifying factors of Tanzanians and is currently being promoted to become the East African Community (EAC) lingua franca. The language is also recognized and used in the African Union and the United Nations.

The Tanzanian Parliament last Thursday ratified a protocol on the establishment of the East African Kiswahili Commission, making Tanzania the second country that has ratified it after Kenya.

Ugandan parliament is yet to ratify the protocol, though it is one of the three countries which initially worked on it. Burundi and Rwanda have already placed their requests with the EAC secretariat to work for the promotion of Kiswahili, but will have to wait until the initial signatories of the protocol, including Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, ratify it.