Language in Education: South Africa

By Emily Hines ’17

Going into our school visits in South Africa, I was interested in looking at language use in schools because my research for our final EDU217 project compared language in education policy (LiEP) during the apartheid era (1948-1991) and after apartheid officially ended in 1994. During the apartheid era, the only official languages in South Africa were English and Afrikaans, and learners (the South African term for “students”) were forced to receive instruction in only those languages in secondary school. This mandate led to the famous Soweto Uprising of 1976-1977, during which students protested compulsory education in Afrikaans due to its classification as the “language of the oppressor” (Plüddemann, 2015, p. 189).

In part due to these protests, the new constitution in post-apartheid South Africa incorporated language policy promoting multilingualism and gave official status to nine indigenous languages in addition to English and Afrikaans, making language a “fundamental right for all citizens that the state is obligated to pursue actively” (Marback, 2014, p. 355). Schools were allowed to choose their own Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT), aiming to erase some of the horrors of apartheid by creating public space for languages other than English and Afrikaans.

Having this historical context in mind going into our trip, I was interested to see to what extent the ideologies of this new constitution were actually reflected in South African classrooms and society more generally. Would we see indigenous languages being used as the LoLT in schools? What role would English play? Based on my reading regarding schools’ ability to choose their LoLT, I had gathered that, while English was the chosen LoLT in certain schools, indigenous languages were also valued and chosen as mediums of instruction in specific areas. I came into the trip expecting to see some English in the classroom, but also some of South Africa’s other official languages as well.

When we visited our first school, Inkwenkwezi Secondary School in Cape Town, I was immediately struck by the large quantity of English present in the school’s library (where we had our meeting with the principal). A mural around the room read, “I am the master of my fate,” all of the directional signs were written in English, and it looked like all of the library’s books were written in English as well. When I asked the principal of the school if all of the Language of Learning and Teaching at the school was English for all subjects, he said simply, “English is the LoLT because it is the language on the exams.” I don’t think I had realized that Matric exams were offered only in English, and therefore students would be at a disadvantage if they did not learn English in schools. The prevalence of English in this classroom in particular stood out to me because it defied my expectations regarding just how prominent English would be in the South African school system. Inkwenkwezi is where I first realized that English really dominates the South African school system, and when I started thinking about how the legacy of colonialism directly influences language choice.

The prominence of English in classrooms persisted during many of our school visits and became less and less surprising to me each time. English was widely used as the LoLT, and was often promoted over other indigenous languages. When we visited the Sparrow School, for example, the director said that, despite the Home Language requirement that students achieve proficiency in an indigenous language, the school itself passes students based on English competency alone, as it is viewed as the skill necessary for advancement in larger society. Similarly, at Bishop Lavis Secondary School in Cape Town, the primary language of instruction is English because, as our host teacher Ms. Jillian explained, students need to know English to get a job and succeed in wider society. Based on our school visits, therefore, I got the impression that multilingualism is not valued in the classroom as much as proficiency in English.

On our visits outside of the classroom, the value placed on multilingualism proved to be a slightly different story. While English was the dominant language in the parts of South Africa that we visited in that street signs and storefronts were mostly written in English, indigenous languages were often presented by individuals as something unique and wonderful about South Africa. We ate dinner one night at a fantastic restaurant called Mzansi, founded and operated by a woman who referred to herself as “Mama” who cooks meals for guests in her own home. Part of the experience of eating at the restaurant is getting to listen to her tell her own life story and the story of the restaurant, and as part of her presentation she spoke to us in Xhosa, her own native language, saying “this is what it sounds like to speak my mother tongue – lots of clicks.” She seemed proud of her language and also seemed to recognize that it would hold value with us as tourists who were presumably eating at her restaurant because we wanted an authentic South African experience.

Various other tour guides we interacted with spoke about their home languages as well, from our tour guide at Constitutional Hill, who also taught us about the clicks in Xhosa, to Nelly, the driver of our safari van at Krueger. Linda, the leader of our Soweto bike tour, also spoke to us in English but interacted in Zulu with local people whom we passed by. While these individuals spoke fluent English to us, they made a point of telling us their indigenous language and teaching us a few words. I took as an indication that multilingualism is valued by South African individuals and within specific communities.

Thinking back to my original project regarding language use in South African during the post apartheid era, it seems that the new constitution’s value on multilingualism is reflected more so in the tourism and community sectors than the educational sector. While our limited time in South Africa did not provide any concrete answers as to why this may be, the legacy of colonialism in South Africa makes the need for English great in larger society, and it seems fitting that schools would direct resources towards fulfilling this need.