2nd Vice-Chancellors Consultation Colloquium on the revised Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions

The second Vice-Chancellors’ Consultation Colloquium on the revised Language Policy for Higher Education took place on 01 and 02 December 2022. It was hosted in a hybrid format from the University of Pretoria’s Senate Hall on the main (Hatfield) Campus.

This gathering brought together university leaders (current and retired), language experts, representatives from the departments of Higher Education and Training, Science and Innovation, Basic Education and the statutory bodies such as the Pan South African Language Board.

The 2022 colloquium, themed Moving the Conversation Forward, advanced the conversation on promoting South Africa’s indigenous languages by asking difficult questions that would ultimately unlock the required resources to achieve the full implementation of multilingualism in higher education. This is the desired goal of the new language policy framework.

Accordingly, delegates articulated and defined a whole gamut of resources that would be essential for the policy implementation. These included having enabling instruments such as institutional language policies, implementation frameworks and a DHET-driven capacity grant. In addition, infrastructure ranging from institutional language directorates to a shared national resource infrastructure network.

Ultimately, stakeholders converged on the view that various resources need to be harnessed and deployed for the successful implementation of the Language Policy Framework.