The basic education department has established a language unit and hired an expert from Wits University to encourage the teaching of subjects in African languages from grade 4.
Minister Angie Motshekga told parliament in June that her department was putting a plan in place to promote SA's nine African languages as those of learning and teaching beyond grade 3.
She said the department was establishing an African languages mother-tongue education task team, but was still “in the very early stage of the plan”.
Pupils in grades 1 to 3 at most SA schools are taught in their home language.
The teaching of maths, natural sciences and technology in grades 4 to 7 in Xhosa and Sotho has been successfully piloted at some Eastern Cape schools for several years.
Godwin Khosa, CEO of the National Education Collaboration Trust (Nect), which is collaborating with the department on the project, said professor Leketi Makalela from Wits had been hired in January “to provide research-based advice on the implementation of the language in education policy”.
He said Old Mutual had provided R3.8m in seed funding to the Nect, part of which would be used to pay for Makalela’s services and the language unit.
Three years is not enough for learners to switch to learning everything in English as the majority of learners come from environments where English is not even spoken
— Professor Mbulungeni Madiba
“Old Mutual, the Nect and the department agreed to support the establishment of a language unit in September.”
Khosa said Makalela and a team from the department had completed the design of cross-province research and would start data collection on August 15.
Xolile Mntungwa, principal of Entilini Primary in Tsomo, said pupils at his school who were taught in Xhosa performed better than those taught in English.
Grade 5 pupils averaged almost 64% in maths and 60.8% in natural sciences in the midyear exams after being taught in Xhosa, while those taught life skills and social sciences in English averaged 50.72% and 44% respectively.
Academics this week welcomed the initiative but said one of the biggest challenges was the shortage of trained teachers to teach in all 11 official languages.
Professor Mbulungeni Madiba, dean of education at Stellenbosch University, said teaching pupils in their home language should be compulsory from grades 1 to 6.
“Three years is not enough for learners to switch to learning everything in English as the majority of learners come from environments where English is not even spoken. So they cannot develop cognitive language proficiency skills in English.”
He said a pupil's home language was “a linguistic resource which they can really master and then develop academic language proficiency in, while being taught English”.
“I am saying English and the home language are important. Let’s develop academic skills through the language [in which] learners have high proficiency.”
Professor Loyiso Jita, dean of education at the University of the Free State (UFS), said “learning and conceptualisation improve significantly when children are taught in a language they are most familiar with”.
He said for the past five years teacher education qualifications required universities to train teachers of grades R to 6 to be competent to teach in English or Afrikaans and another indigenous language.
“Theoretically, that means universities have been producing grade R to 6 teachers who can teach their subjects in at least one African language.”
He said about 500 primary school teachers graduated this year at UFS and “should be competent to teach in at least one African language”.
“The challenge that remains is getting learning material in all the required African languages.”
Professor Kotie Kaiser, from North West University, said most pupils had to switch to English as the medium of instruction in grade 4 and that “there is overwhelming evidence in their results” that they were not coping well with the transition.
She said research showed the use of the mother tongue could contribute to better cognitive development and “therefore improve learners’ academic performance”.
Kaiser said one of the challenges was that teachers had to be trained to teach concepts and vocabulary through the medium of the mother tongue but “tertiary institutions are not geared to include all the official languages in their teacher-training programmes”.
Professor Elizabeth Henning, from the University of Johannesburg, asked whether the National Treasury had funds for “such a massive overhaul of the system”.
In similar vein, the University of KwaZulu-Natal's professor Labby Ramrathan said the grand plan may never be realised due to the substantial challenges, which included teaching capacity, facilities, diversity of pupils and curriculum issues.
“Perhaps the minister should consider only gateway subjects such as maths, for which teaching and learning should be offered in some of the official African languages.”
Professor Chika Sehoole, dean of the education faculty at the University of Pretoria, said that although there were not enough teachers to teach subjects in African languages, more could be trained. “If this is made a national priority, it can be done. It was done with Afrikaans.”
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