Essay by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, specially prepared for presentation at the Inaugural Lecture of the Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor. The article is the account of a personal and intellectual journey from southern Africa to the global North, from African history to diaspora studies, how this fascinating voyage has framed and enriched my scholarship and social engagements. [Full Text Article, html]
Education in Africa
Education is the key to sustainable human development. Through its specific education system each society transfers her values, her historical experiences and the acquired knowledge to following generations.
In Africa, Education has been used as a weapon, as an instrument of cultural alienation and oppression by the european colonial powers. How can Education finally be put at the service of the African Renaissance?
What kind of Education does Africa need to heal the wounds of the past and lay the foundations for a brighter, more humane future?
Full Text Articles
In Search of the Diaspora: A Personal and Intellectual Odyssey
A Historical Accounting of African Universities: Beyond Afropessimism
Article by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza. Afropessimism embodies two tendencies—vilification of African experiences and valorization of Euroamerican engagements with Africa, that Africa is incapable by itself of historical progress and that any progress evident there is the result of Euroamerican interventions. [Full Text Article]
The University and Sustainable Rural Development
Brian Ramadiro and Kimberley Porteus of the Nelson Mandela Institute for Rural Development and Education analyse the relationship between the university and rural development in an African setting before exploring other pedagogical possibilities to better orient University engagement with the requirements of rural educators. [Full Text Article, pdf]
Language in education policies and practices among the isiXhosa speaking population of South Africa
Article by Birgit Brock-Utne and Zubedai Desai, to be published in a forthcoming book, about the experiences made during the LOISA and LOITASA projects, a research project on the languages of instruction in Tanzania and South Africa. [Full Text article, pdf]
Community perception of change in a school’s language policy
Daryl Braam examines the langauge attitudes and perceptions of a local primary school community in the Western Cape towards the official national policy of additive bilingualism. [Full Text Article, pdf]
The status of isiXhosa as an additional language in selected Cape Town secondary schools
Thabile Mbatha and Peter Pluddemann report on a study of the status of isiXhosa as an additional language subject (XAL) in the Western Cape. The study set out to investigate the reasons for the apparent decline in the number of learners taking isiXhosa as a third (L3) or as a second language (L2). [Full Text Article, pdf]
Dual-medium and parallel-medium schooling in the Western Cape: from default to design
Peter Pluddemann, Daryl Braam, Michelle October and Zola Wababa report on a qualitative study of the interpretation and application of these two concepts in Western Cape schools. [Full Text Article, pdf]
Language policy implementation and language vitality in Western Cape primary schools
Peter Pluddemann, Daryl Braam, Peter Broeder, Guus Extra and Michelle October focus on language policy in schools in relation to language vitality indicators such as language repertoire, choice, proficiency, dominance and preference.
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The Rise and Possible Demise of Afrikaans as a Public Language
Hermann Giliomee offers a historical account of how Afrikaans reached the position described by Heinz Kloss, Jean Laponce and Lawrence Schlemmer. It also asks why there is a real risk that it may disappear as a public language over the medium to long term.
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Language rights, ethnic politics: A critique of the Pan South African Language Board
Timothy Perry interrogates the efficacy of PanSALB as a protector of language rights, evaluating in particular the degree to which PanSALB may, or may not, inadvertently lead to ethnic competition or ethnic conflict; and the degree to which its tribulations evince any authoritarian tendencies of the parties in power.
[Full Text Article, pdf]
Medium of Instruction and its Effect on Matriculation
Michelle October stresses the necessity for the empowerment of African language speakers in their mother-tongues, by showing clearly that there is a correlation between first and second language acquisition, as well as between home language, language medium and academic results.
[Full Text Article, pdf]
Multilingualism in South Africa with a focus on KwaZulu-Natal and Metropolitan Durban
Peter Broeder, Guus Extra and Jeanne Maartens examine rhetoric and facts about multilingualism in South Africa, with a focus on KwaZulu-Natal and the metropolitan area of Durban. The publication also examines the outcomes and shortcomings of available census data on language use and gives an overview of the ims, method, and sample of a survey carried out by the Department of Afrikaans and Nederlands at Natal University.
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The Case Against Bilingual and Multilingual Education in South Africa
Kathleen Heugh explores the historical and immediate contexts as well as the context of language in education and policy review and implementation examining various myths, misconceptions and misdiagnoses.
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Multilingual Environments or Survival: The Impact of English on Xhosa-Speaking Students in Cape Town
Rima Vesely describes the impact that English has made in the communities and schools of Xhosa-speaking Grade 10 students in two Cape Town townships, investigating the ramifications of apartheid’s influx control and education policies, as well as current language and education issues. [Full Text Article, pdf]
Pre-School Child Multilingualism and its Educational Implications in the African Context
H. Ekkehard Wolff focuses on individual multilingualism and its implications for institutional language planning in education considering sociolinguistics aspects and psycholinguistic issues of language acquisition and language learning. [Full Text Article, pdf]
Problems and Possibilities in Multilingual Classrooms in the Western Cape
FINAL RESEARCH REPORT compiled by Peter Pluddemann, Xola Mati and Babazile Mahlahela-Thusifor the Joint Education Trust under the auspices of the President’s Education Initiative of the national Department of Education [Full Text Article, pdf]
Literacy in the Early Years: Teaching and Learning in Multilingual Early Childhood Classrooms
Observations and reflection arising out of research done by Carole Bloch in 1995 and 1996. This project aims to help to facilitate effective multilingual teaching and learning in South African classrooms.
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Implications of Brown v Board of Education: A Post-Apartheid South African Perspective
Neville Alexander explores the meaning, for post-apartheid South Africa, of the historic Brown v Board of Education judment that formally ended segregated schooling in the USA fifty years ago. Written from within the radical tradition of anti-racist struggle, the paper considers the implications of the judgment for the shaping of social identities and education in the ‘new SA’. [full text article, pdf]
Langue, Education et Editions - L’indispensable interconnexion pour une pédagogie de la paix et du développement
Conférence par le Prince Kum’a Ndumbe III à l’occasion de la conférence “The Implications of Language for Peace and Development” (IMPLAN 2008) en l’honneur du Prof. Birgit Brock-Utne, Oslo Conference, 2-3 May 2008. (more…)
ADEA: Learning, but in whose Language?
The contributions collected in the following publication by ADEA provide a foretaste of ADEA’s thinking, research and advocacy on the crucial issue of the use of African languages in education. [Full Text, pdf]