The long-awaited ideal of having tertiary students taught in indigenous African languages is a step closer to realisation.
Leading SA universities have partnered with several European counterparts to launch the “Baqonde” project funded by the EU.
Baqonde, meaning “[let them] understand” in the Nguni languages, is also an acronym for “Boosting the Use of African Languages in Education: A Qualified Organised National Development Strategy” for SA.
The three-year project is aimed at boosting the use of African languages — isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho, isiNdebele of Zimbabwe and Kiswahili — as a medium of instruction in tertiary institutions.
The collaborating SA universities include Rhodes University, North West University, University of KwaZulu-Natal and University of the Western Cape, while the three European institutions of higher learning are Salamanca University in Spain, Trinity College Dublin in Ireland and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
Rhodes University’s African languages associate professor, Dion Nkomo, said since the project started at the beginning of 2021, the interest from academics to collaborate had been overwhelming.
He said over time, academics in African languages had collaborated with the university in politics and international relations, economics, drama, pharmacy and education, among other fields.
Nkomo said as part of this project, they would be establishing a Rhodes University African Languages Development Unit (Rualdu), which would contribute towards implementing the university’s language policy.
Training of academics and tutors in multilingual pedagogues would top the agenda and the establishment of Rualdu was the main focus for this first year of the project.
The university initiated a process establishing a Centre for Multilingualism and University Council, which was approved in its recent meeting on June 10.
“We are procuring the relevant equipment which will enable the production of multilingual audiovisual and subtitled lectures, multilingual annotations on key readings available in PDF format and multilingual glossaries, in addition to the usual translation of teaching materials such as course outlines, readings and assessments,” Nkomo said.
He hopes Rualdu will serve as a foundation which should institutionalise and sustain multilingualism as a priority in line with the Institutional Transformation Plan.
Nkomo is working with Drs Bulelwa Nosilela and Hleze Kunju in spearheading the project.
Deputy vice-chancellor for academic and student affairs Dr Mabokang Monnapula-Mapesela has been appointed to serve on the Baqonde Project Board, which is constituted by the vice-chancellors and deputy vice-chancellors of the seven collaborating institutions.
Higher education and training department chief director of university policy and development support, Mahlubi Mabizela, said the project was encouraging and the kind of enthusiastic response the department hoped could be emulated by other institutions.
“The project is leading us towards the restoration of dignity and parity of esteem for our indigenous languages, and that is commendable indeed,” Mabizela said.
The translated texts are earmarked for publication in 2021.
So far, the text is available in ChiShona of Zimbabwe (produced by Dr John Mambambo, a postdoctoral fellow at the Rhodes University School of Languages and Literatures), though translations of the texts already exist in several European languages.
HeraldLIVE
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