Calls for more African languages at universities

"Colonial languages have continued to dominate our institutions of higher education with little or no effort to address this situation, which has led to the suffering of many of our languages as a result," he said a Round Table discussion on African languages held at UNISA.

An expert report, commissioned by the department, shows that only two of the country's universities had made progress in terms of producing more graduates in African languages between 2005 and 2009, while the rest have seen a decline over the years.

The department now says, unless something is done, the future of South African languages as areas of academic study and research is under threat. The decline of these languages at universities has meant the closure of several language departments, dealing a blow to the country's literature and culture.

Nzimande has promised to work with the Department of Arts and Culture to come up with ways to attract more students to enroll in African languages.

Long term planning would include developing policies that would ensure the use of these languages as medium of instruction in science and economic courses.

Recommendations include offering more bursaries to students who show interest in African languages studies and incentives for teachers who upgrade their studies in this field.

Evidence suggests that the majority of the country's universities and universities of technology use English as the sole medium of instruction or, as it is the case in most historically African institutions, offer parallel instruction in English and Afrikaans.

According to the Council of Higher Education 2001 report, the University of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape remained the only institution where at the level of policy, Afrikaans was the only language of tuition for undergraduate level.

The department said while English and Afrikaans were the two most frequently reported home languages, the extent of linguistic diversity was evident in the fact that 50 percent of the total student enrolment reported an indigenous African language or other language as a home language.

"The extent of linguistic diversity within individual institutions depends on the degree to which students are recruited locally, regionally or nationally," said the report.