As universities enter the second half of 2022, they are ramping up efforts to accelerate progress toward implementing the Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions requirements, which came into effect in 2022.<\/p>\n
Welcoming members of Universities South Africa\u2019s Community of Practice for the Teaching and Learning of African Languages (CoPAL) at their third meeting for the year on 22 June, USAf\u2019s Director: Operations and Sector Support, Dr Linda Meyer, commended them for the milestones achieved in the past two years. She encouraged them to maintain that momentum for the next five years if this group was to realise a more significant impact on the system\u2019s transformation by entrenching multilingualism in teaching and learning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot look at the academe the way we did in the past. In our pursuit for making multilingualism a success, we must not lose sight of the systemic and political foundations, as well as institutional dynamics at play,\u201d Dr Meyer said. She went on to say that \u201cwe cannot be celebrating people completing PhDs in their mother tongue when that should be a norm and not an exception to the rule. We need to push for more collaboration to build coherency in our actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his response to Dr Meyer, the Chairperson of CoPAL, who is also the Executive Director at the North-West University-based South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), Professor Langa Khumalo, agreed that \u201cwe need to look at the broader ecosystem to identify areas where we can influence change to a bigger effect. I continue to appreciate USAf\u2019s support in our work \u2013 which encourages us to push harder to normalise multilingualism\u2026 I thank Dr Meyer for her insightful words.\u201d<\/p>\n