Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Studies globally and locally have shown that the education sector in Africa and South Africa in particular still faces a plethora of crisis years after decolonization as learners fail to achieve satisfactory results during their schooling. One of the main reasons for this is that colonial languages such as English still dominates the political economy and the curriculum in most schools even though a majority of learners are proficient enough in their African languages to effectively engage the curriculum. Through literature, it’s evident that where teachers and learners share a common home language, there is frequently a gap between language policy and practice for African languages and yet these languages are not officially integrated into the curriculum as languages of assessment even when they are only “smuggled” during teaching and learning. The aims of this paper are first, to describe and discuss the South African current situation in the basic education system by outlining the language classroom practices, relevant policy imperatives and policy implementation challenges in post-apartheid education. Secondly, to argue that indigenous African languages such as isiZulu and Sotho have a role to play in improving the ailing basic education sector in South Africa through its contribution as an alternative assessment tool and not only as smuggled tools of teaching and learning. If officially integrated into the curriculum, learning will be socially responsive and population-focused so that it has a meaningful contribution to the curriculum development in the South African education sector.