College of Human Sciences

Unisa and DHET collaborate to raise multilingualism awareness

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The College of Human Sciences' (CHS) School of Arts,, in collaboration with the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), continued their quest to promote multilingualism through the Language Development Plan Roadshow, hosted at the Mbombela Regional Campus on 27 May 2025 and the Cape Town Region on 12 June 2025.  Previously, the roadshow teams visited the North West regional offices (Rustenburg and Mahikeng) on 26 and 27 May 2025.

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United for multilingualism: Unisa & DHET's Institutional Language Development Plan team


The importance of implementing multilingualism in higher education

Kgomotso Khoza, Mbombela Regional manager, warmly welcomed the team and those in attendance. Khoza urged staff members and students to use the opportunity presented by the Unisa-DHET team to benefit their learning journey. She further encouraged students to feel at ease and to generously share their thoughts on ways to advance multilingualism in higher education institutions.

In Cape Town, the regional manager, Motale Nkoang, welcomed the students and the Unisa-DHET team. He applauded the team for including the regional campus in their roadshow. "We are humbly honoured that our students were included in the piloting of this project that aims to raise awareness and ensuring that our languages also play a vital role in teaching and learning."

Jimmy Mabina, the Project Coordinator of the roadshow, noted that this initiative is funded by DHET and led by the Director of the School of Arts, Prof Siyasanga Tyali, under the tenure of the Dean of the College of Human Sciences, Prof Zethu Nkosi. The team consisted of Dr Kganathi Shaku (Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages), Prof Clifford Ndlangamandla (Department of English Studies), Rachel Maboa (Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages) and Katlego Pilane (CHS: Marketing and Communications).

Dr Shaku presented an overview of the Unisa Language Policy, which is based on recognising all twelve official languages of South Africa, highlighting its key provisions and implications. Students were informed about the shift from monolingualism to multilingualism; the principles of language equity, redress and justice; and the role of multilingualism in academic success. The workshop aimed to advance multilingualism in higher education, as well as to introduce the Unisa Language Policy (2023) and Unisa-DHET Language Development Plan for 2024–2026.


Improving overall comprehension of subjects in mother tongue

Dr Lethabo Masha, a lecturer in the Department of English Studies shared the objectives of the Unisa-DHET language plan. Masha explained that the DHET is supporting the university financially to conduct pilot programmes in indigenous languages to support students to improve their overall comprehension of the subject contents in their mother tongue, while simultaneously developing these languages. "The Language Development Plan consists of four goal areas: teaching and learning; research and postgraduate studies; student support; and public communication. The plan seeks to get buy-in from all stakeholders and encourage a collective effort to implement all African languages and ensure that they are on par with the English language."

* By Nnana Martina Jege, Communication and Marketing Specialist, College of Human Sciences

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Publish date: 2025-06-23 00:00:00.0

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