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

Vice-Chancellors and language experts from all 26 public universities met from 28 to 29 September 2021 to facilitate a common understanding on the New Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions. They also began to contemplate how to implement this policy which came into effect in January 2022. 

The Colloquium, hosted virtually from Stellenbosch University, was a first in a series of engagements that would be hosted by universities under the leadership of the Community of Practice for African Languages (CoPAL).

This event proved to ignite robust intellectual engagement on the New Language Policy Framework. Speakers such as the USAf CEO, the Chair of the Teaching and Learning Strategy Group, the retired judge as well as the language experts representing their institutions did justice to unpacking the philosophical foundations and the implications of the newly gazetted policy framework, as well as the broader systemic issues foregrounding multilingualism, transformation, and decolonisation within the context of the CoPAL and the sector agenda. Deliberations further explored strategies to harness and deploy the necessary resources to support universities in successfully implementing the policy framework.

Alongside Vice-Chancellors, their deputies and language experts drawn from CoPAL, the Colloquium was graced by the presence of a retired member of the judiciary and senior officials from the departments of Higher Education and Training (DHET), Science and Innovation (DSI), Basic Education and (DBE), Arts and Culture. Senior representatives of the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) were also in attendance.

Continuing the discourse from the Teaching and Learning Strategy Group’s agenda (CoPAL reports to the USAf Board through this Group) at the Higher Education Conference of 2021, it became clear that language was being recognised as the centre of teaching and learning and a vehicle for transformation in higher education. It was emphasised that language facilitates cognitive development, epistemic access, inclusiveness, transformation, social cohesion, and overall nation building. Usage of mother-tongue language in teaching and learning was therefore recognised as a tool for enhanced student access, inclusiveness and success, and that universities must revise their language policies to give effect to this agreed approach.  

Deliberations in 2021 on the Language Policy Framework enhanced support to the language resource audit that was proposed by the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) to assess the available infrastructure across the 26 public universities, and what is required for the successful operationalisation of the policy framework. The study got underway from early in 2022, with findings of this study envisaged sometime during 2023.