Unisa champions indigenous languages in academia

The School of Arts under the College of Human Sciences (CHS), in collaboration with the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), kick-started its Language Development Plan roadshow workshop at the Bloemfontein Regional Campus on 09 April 2025.

Bloemfontein Regional Centre students who attended the Unisa-DHET Language Development Plan workshop

This initiative is funded by the DHET and is led by the Director of the School of Arts, Professor Siyasanga Tyali, under the ownership of the Dean of the College of Human Sciences, Professor Zethu Nkosi. The project is currently coordinated by Professor Sibusiso Ndlangamandla, who championed it to success.

The workshop aims to advance multilingualism in higher education and to introduce the Unisa Language Policy (2023) and the Unisa-DHET Language Development Plan for 2024 – 2026. Some of the key activities of the Unisa-DHET Language Development Plan 2025 are as follows:

• Translate key concepts and difficult terminology for identified at-risk modules
• Encourage students to write their master’s and doctoral theses in their mother tongue
• Conduct multilingual policy socialisation
• Produce a written academic report on the use of the university’s multilingual glossaries in all the spoken and written official languages of South Africa
• Encourage regions to support students in their preferred African languages
• Produce a multilingual booklet on the commonly used Unisa signage across all campuses

Ndlangamandla said the DHET is supporting the university financially to pilot interventions in indigenous languages to support students so that they can comprehend content subjects in their mother tongue, while simultaneously developing all languages. He further explained that this process was being managed by gradually moving away from using only one language towards including other languages.

Prof Sibusiso Ndlangamandla

“This is in line with the demographics of the students and nation-building through cultural diversity and multilingualism,” he said. “The Language Development Plan consists of four goal areas: teaching and learning, research and postgraduate studies, student support, and public communication. The team emphasised that 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 English.”

Students were informed about the shift from monolingualism to multilingualism, the principles of language equity, redress, justice, and academic success, which are based on recognising all the official languages of South Africa.

Rachel Maboa, a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, directed the programme with ease, ensuring that students felt comfortable to engage and share their thoughts on multilingualism. The interaction between the workshop facilitators brought a vibrancy to the event.

Maboa expressed her gratitude to the Bloemfontein staff members and students for seeing the importance of attending the workshop and being open to sharing their thoughts on raising awareness about multilingualism in higher education institutions.

The other team visited the Polokwane Region on 11 April 2025. The regions will be visited as follows: Durban on 15 April, then Rustenburg on 7 May, Mahikeng on 8 May, and Mbombela on 8 May.

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