The education sector has been an influential instrument since colonization. This is because it is one of the primary agents of socialization which influence people’s thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours. It is a fundamental component which moulds and reproduces members of society. Its influence cuts through the civil, public, and public sector.

By Siphokazi Mbolo.   Find her on the twitter handle @SiphokaziMbolo

 

The objective of this paper is to analyse the national question in South Africa from the lenses of language policies in higher education institutions and the education sector at large.

Introduction

 

The national question in South Arica is embedded in the oppression of the black majority by the white minority. It is a question about who belongs, who is a citizen. In this telling, belonging to a nation is connected to one’s geographic origin, race, ethnicity, and language. Language has been a fundamental component in the oppression of black people as language was politized and used as an oppressive tool by the colonial and apartheid governments to control and limit black development.

 

In trying to resolve the language question through higher education institutions, the government has developed language policies such as the Language Policy for Higher Education (2002), and the Language Policy of the Department of Higher Education and Training (2017) to recognize the legacies of language inequalities in South Africa. This is pivotal for the democratic government and the Department of Higher Education and Training as history has taught us that language patterns – language policies and language practices – have either reinforced or refuted societal tendencies towards the disproportionate distribution of opportunities and resources.

 

The Constitution recognizes the role of language and linguistic diversity as a crucial component to nation building and as a contributor to a unified common South African identity. The declaration of eleven official languages signifies positive measure to establish social cohesion and inclusion while upholding the ideals of democracy.

 

In this light, the Department of Higher Education and Training has put a call for all South African higher education institutions to develop their own language policies which favour the development of indigenous languages. The significance of linguistic diversity and language diversity policies has been appreciated by some higher education institutions. For example the University of the Witwatersrand which stated in its 2003 Language Policy that “Currently millions of South Africans do not complete their schooling, partly because they are taught and assessed through the medium of English or Afrikaans and have no access to concepts in a language that they fully understand. To overcome this legacy, it is essential to develop the African languages of South Africa to provide equal access to education”.

 

Why the Education Sector and Higher Education Institutions?

 

The education sector has been an influential instrument since colonization. This is because it is one of the primary agents of socialization which influence people’s thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours. It is a fundamental component which moulds and reproduces members of society. Its influence cuts through the civil, public, and public sector.

 

The apartheid government saw education as an area of interest as it would be an effective avenue to control people’s attitudes to mould them into agents to sustain the unjust regime. It could also limit the development and skills of black communities which would ultimately impact their access to job opportunities and economic participation, thus favouring and creating more opportunities for English and Afrikaner people.

 

Edition, Edition, Briefs, & Hub, (2008)[1] assert that education was sought after by the apartheid government because it, “not only reproduced and promoted the values, cultural norms, and beliefs of apartheid society but also as an instrument to maintain and legitimize unequal social, economic, and political power relations”. Therefore, stifling the development of black people through education and language solidified the apartheid’s objectives of separate development and the marginalization of the black communities. It was part of the regimes broader plan to ensure that white systems and privileges were promoted.

 

The challenge with Higher Education Institution Language Policies

 

Despite the attainment of democracy, South Africa is still defined by continuous colonial social relations – legacies of inequality, racial and class divisions. The post-1994 nation-building project has failed to address the oppressive structural socio-economic base which continues to reproduce itself in the democratic dispensation. It has failed to cultivate a common identity while preserving people’s diverse ethnic, racial, linguistic and other concerns. This is the same as the language question. The government has continuously reproduced language policies for higher education institutions which maintain white hegemony and perpetuate divisions along racial, ethnic, and tribal lines.

In the Department of Higher Education and Training’s recommendations for higher education language policies, dominant regional languages are the basis for language selection where for instance the University of Cape Town would choose English and IsiXhosa to be mediums of instruction. The University of Limpopo to choose English and Xitsonga or Tshivenda and the University of Johannesburg to choose English and IsiZulu or Sepedi.

The recommended criterion of dominant regional languages adopted by institutions such as the University of KwaZulu-Natal (English and IsiZulu) and the University of the Witwatersrand (English, Sesotho, and IsiZulu) are problematic in that they do not consider the rapid constant internal migration in the country. More importantly, such recommendations rekindle the spectre of apartheid language tensions by excluding speakers of other languages.

 

Under the apartheid governments Extension of University Education Act of 1959, different higher education institutions were built to cater for different racial and ethnic groups. The apartheid government sought to organize higher education like broader society, along racial, ethnic and linguistic lines. The ideological aspiration was to indoctrinate black people into internalizing that, “… their otherness (inferiority) was natural. It aimed to imbue the subaltern child with an ethnic (tribal), cultural identity, with the hope that it would identify with its own people and ethnically defined Bantustan. It aimed to constitute thoroughly docile subjects whose will to resist would be crushed and policed by themselves” (Reddy, 2004, 9)[2].

 

There was geographical conception of African languages where the University of Zululand catered for Zulu speakers, the University of Fort Hare catered for Xhosa, the University of the North catered for Sotho, Tsonga, Tswana, and Venda groups. This means that by encouraging contemporary higher education institutions to adopt dominant regional languages, we are encouraging the democratic state to replicate apartheid divisive and exclusionary language models.

 

Therefore is a monolingual English education the solution? Absolutely not.

 

According to Smith (2013)[3], only one in twenty black students succeed in their academics due to language barriers. This means that almost half of black learners drop-out before finishing their education. Smith (2013) contends that the continued dropout-rate of black students compromises the realization of full transformation in our education institutions and South Africa at large. This dropout-rate raises concerns about biased access to knowledge as several black students in higher education institutions lack proficiency in English. Thus, Smith (2013) demonstrates that poverty in black communities is maintained in a monolingual English education system and this contradicts the government’s aspirations to create an equal and equitable society.

 

Similar to Afrikaans, English was politized and used to oppress black people. However, unlike Afrikaans, white people successfully created an illusion around the English language and associated it with intelligence, prestige, and social elevation. Therefore, when the missionaries banned black people from learning in their indigenous languages and attached them with narratives of backwardness and inferiority, black people grew accustomed to English as a development instrument and started to detach from their indigenous languages to escape inferiority.

 

Thus, when the Afrikaners came into power in 1948, the dominance and narratives of superiority, progress, and development attached to English persisted. Afrikaans was rejected and resented by black people with some labelling it the language of oppression. English became the language of liberation for black people. It became particularly popular during resistance campaigns and protests against the apartheid regime. English was an instrument to communicate with members of different ethnic groups and the international community, thus becoming a significant feature in the liberation process.

 

We cannot escape that English is a universal language. English is the language used for social, economic, and political interactions, not only in South Africa but across the globe. English is thus a tool South Africans can use internally and externally. Nevertheless, English should never be the sole medium of instruction in a linguistically diverse democratic country.

 

The sole dominance of English is a disadvantage to students who are supposed to be empowered by our democratic system but are not proficient in the language. It excludes black people from a system which is supposed to prioritize them as a group previously disadvantaged.  Yet, I’m not entirely convinced that English should be a medium of instruction instead of being a compulsory subject from the foundation phase to high school. I’m of the view that is enough time for one to obtain competencies in English to compete in the market, locally and internationally.

Resolving the Language Question in Higher Education Institutions

 

Resolving the national question means creating one united nation. We should strive to develop policies that embrace our unique differences and combine them into a single nation with provisions to protect people’s distinct languages, cultures, etc. One way to overcome the legacies of inequality and resolve the language question is to move towards meeting the aspiration of the Constitution where language is no longer an instrument of division and deprivation to access.

However, the reality is that despite attempts to elevate indigenous languages to the status of Afrikaans and English and incorporate them in the education system, many black parents and students prefer to be taught in English rather than indigenous languages. The rationale behind this is entrenched in legacies of Bantu Education where education in English was superior and education in indigenous languages was inferior.

Bantu Education managed to create an education system that marginalized much of the population by coupling indigenous language education with underfunding and an impoverished curriculum. Therefore, most black parents and student’s post-apartheid do not want an education taught in indigenous languages. This creates a growing rejection of indigenous languages in education as they are associated with failure, while Afrikaans, but especially English, is associated with success.  Ultimately, the stored perceptions from the apartheid regime reinforce the idea that education given in indigenous languages is inferior and that given in English is more advanced.

Since the attainment of democracy in 1994, we have not had an honest, open conversation, inclusive of all stakeholders in society about the role of language in the country’s oppressive past and how it can be inclusively transformed in the democratic dispensation to bring unity in a manner which does not hold divisive attitudes and consequences such as tribalism. The success and failure of any language policy are largely dependent on the attitudes held against those languages, and its users. The government needs to run educational workshops, seminars, etcetera, where people’s negative attitudes are engaged and countered. This would ensure a smooth development of not only language diversity policies but the realization of a multilingual united nation.

 

In addition, it is valuable for the government to consider research into language patterns, attitudes, and practices in South Africa – with the intention of drawing further comprehensions into contributing factors to languages policies, particularly in the education sector and the complex relations between English, Afrikaans, and indigenous languages in the background of South Africa’s racial, ethnic history and present multilingual aspirations.

 

In trying to resolve which indigenous languages should be developed, I concur with the two-propositions presented by Jacob Nhlapo in the 1950s to combine our linguistic groups.

 

Nhlapo[4] asserts that ‘Nguni (e.g. IsiZulu, IsiNdebele, IsiXhosa, Xitsonga, SiSwati, etc.) and Sotho (e.g. Sepedi, Setswana, Sesotho), etc.) languages should each be harmonized and standardized to produce two African languages since there are a lot of similarities amongst the Nguni languages; and the same applies to the Sotho languages. Secondly, Nhlapo argues that, “Alternatively, South Africa could develop either a new African language to be developed at the continental level; or adopt Swahili, which is widely spoken in almost sixteen African countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, DRC, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda, Somalia, Zambia, and Mozambique’.

 

By adopting one of these propositions, I believe we would be setting the tone to solve the language question in South Africa and making strides to overcoming our divisive and exclusionary legacies and promote a common South African and even African identity. It will set a tone where our nationhood is not defined by our differences but instead foster a nationhood where people’s linguistic, cultural, religious, etc diversity are appreciated and protected but not used as a basis for belonging to a nation.

[1] Edition, G., Edition, A., Briefs, A., & Hub, A. (2008). The enduring legacy of apartheid in education.

[2] Reddy, T. (2004). Higher education and social transformation: South Africa case study. Johannesburg. Pretoria, Council for Higher Education.

[3] Smith, D. (2013). South Africa’s Universities ‘Racially Skewed’, Claims Watchdog. The Guardian, 22.

 

[4] Masondo, D. 2015. Tribalism, language and the national question in post-apartheid SA. Politicsweb.