Dedicated infrastructure, resources, and collaboration, must drive multilingualism implementation at universities

“We must seriously advance transformation and decolonisation and not just make cosmetic changes and lip service. We need to use African languages to deal with the real issues of inclusion, social justice and access to knowledge. To achieve this, there has to be a shift in universities to using African languages more meaningfully,” said Professor Mbulungeni Madiba (left), Dean of Education at Stellenbosch University.

Professor Madiba was facilitating a discussion on Shifting Paradigms and the Role of African languages in Administration, Research and Teaching & Learning, during the 2nd Vice-Chancellors’ (VCs) Consultation Colloquium on the revised Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions, which was held in a hybrid format at the University of Pretoria’s Hatfield campus, from 1-2 December. The Colloquium was held under the leadership of Universities South Africa’s (USAf’s) Community of Practice for the Teaching and Learning of African Languages (CoPAL) in collaboration with the University of Pretoria.

Mr Khumbulani Mngadi (left), Director in the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Language Planning and Development Office said “language departments must drive the implementation, centrally. But where to locate those departments must be advised here. At UKZN, the language directorate sits with teaching and learning, which enables us to feed from the teaching and learning strategy and get direction from there on how the language issue should be approached.”

The second input moved that Council at all universities should have language sub-committees to influence Council decision making towards the development of African languages. “Every faculty should have their own subcommittee which would form part of the Senate language committees. Currently, only one or two faculties – usually Education and Humanities – generally drive the language agenda.”

Regarding translation, Professor Monwabisi Ralarala (left), Dean in the University of the Western Cape’s Department of Linguistics, said even though departments can provide translation or interpretation services, “the challenge goes beyond documents. For example, will university disciplinary hearings accommodate the language of the person at the centre of the hearing? Language has potential to influence the outcome of a process when people are able to articulate themselves in their mother tongue.” He made another example: “If an academic or researcher is being recruited to perform their functions in Afrikaans, let them be interviewed in that language. We must be deliberate and intentional in the decisions we make.”

Professor Nokhanyo Mdzanga, outgoing Deputy Chair of CoPAL and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Nelson Mandela University, mentioned as a problematic tendency, the assumption that anyone who speaks a specific language, such as a Xhosa speaking cleaner, can be called in to interprete when a non-English speaking Xhosa person is being interrogated on an issue.

The University of Pretoria’s Secretary for the SRC, Mr Tarik Lalla (right), persuaded that before the use of indigenous languages could be institutionalised for administrative purposes, all stakeholders’ support, including students’ buy-in, must first be secured. “We can have the most excellent policies but unless students embrace them, they will not work. We will be setting the entire project for failure. So, extensive engagement with our student bodies, to explain why we’re pushing for multilingualism, is inevitable.” The session’s chair agreed that it was critical to create language awareness across campuses.

In wrapping up this session, Prof Madiba said “we need to shift from cosmetic use of African languages to deal with real issues of inequality, social access and identity.” He also mentioned that the Pan South African Language Board had a very good set of guidelines for using indigenous languages for administrative purposes.

Professor Nobuhle Hlongwa, Dean and Head of the School of Arts at UKZN, maintained that African languists “should not be apologetic about using African languages in conducting and writing our research. We have to encourage staff members and colleagues to publish in African languages. Furthermore, we need to incentivise publication in African languages. Unless we do so, in the next five or 10 years, we will still be singing the same song.”

Professor of Law, Caroline Nicholson (right), who is also UP’s Registrar, asked the audience to differentiate between teaching a language and learning in a language. “In the teaching and learning environment, for instance, the teaching of the languages is very important for capacitating teachers to teach in those languages at school. In the research environment, I agree that we give people a choice. But we must also distinguish between research of a language and researching in a language. We need to increase our ability to understand various languages and the cultures that support those languages. We, at UP, are working on developing languages. I would certainly support a central approach to driving the process, particularly on engaging the students.”

Then Professor Madiba asked: What can we do in the short, medium to long term?

Ms Ntsoaki Malebo (left), Senior Director: Teaching and Learning at the University of the Free State said for developing lexicons and formulating terminologies to explain difficult scientific concepts, they had brought stakeholders on board — particularly students and academics. “When we develop a lexicon in Sesotho we don’t work alone; we approach other institutions where Sesotho is predominant. That way, we can then really start working and developing those terminologies that will enable us to teach science in African Languages.”

Dr Nokukhanya Ncgobo, Lecturer at UKZN’s School of Education, moved that publishers be involved in developing terminology. “Our terminology needs to be standardised and found in tangible products, such as research books.”

As Professor Hlongwa said she saw VCs and DVCs as being critical players for normalising multilingualism in public universities, Professor Mdzanga (left) saw it differently: “The whole process starts with me as an individual because the battle is really in the mind. Let’s not forget that some of us have been socialised to not really appreciate who we are. And the schools that we attended never had an African language as the language of learning and teaching. So now, in your 40s, you have to rethink and realise that you are important; that your language is important and can be used as the language of scholarship. A psychological process needs to take place to convince some of us on the importance of this transformation.”