From policy to practice. A study of the implementation of the Language-in-Education Policy (LiEP) in three South African Primary Schools

Abstract

There is a general consensus among educators and researchers looking into the state ofeducation in Africa that the primary language of the students is the language through whicheducation should take place. As each formerly colonised territory in Africa has achievedindependence, policies for the newly independent states have been formulated. The last fourdecades have shown us that very often the articulation of policy, particularly language policy,has more to do with a sense of political expediency than reasons of economic or educationaldevelopment (Alexander, 1989, 1992). Multilingual language policies which recognizelinguistic pluralism as resources for nation-building are increasingly becoming commonplace.Many of these policies envision implementation through bilingual education, which open upnew possibilities for oppressed language groups (both indigenous and immigrant languagesgroups) and their speakers. However, Akinnaso (1993) points out that there is often amismatch between policy and the plan for implementation, particularly with regard tolanguage policy in education. Thus the implementation plan has little potential for achievingthe goals of the policy. The situation in South Africa is one in which multilingualism is bothsupported and contested, despite the progressive commitment to equality of language rights in the country’s constitution (Alexander, 1992).The new Constitution of 1993 in post-apartheid South Africa embraces language as a basichuman right and multilingualism as a national resource, introducing nine major Africanlanguages (Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu, Sepedi, Sotho, Tswana, Swati, Venda, and Tsonga) asofficial languages alongside English and Afrikaans, along with the dismantling of theapartheid educational system. To transform the previous apartheid education system into adiversifying one, where the “rainbow” of identities and languages are accepted, and toconstruct a national identity that is multilingual and multicultural constitute ideologicalparadoxes which are a challenge to implement (Hornberger, 1991). For Hornberger (1991)multilingual language policies are essentially about opening up ideological andimplementational space in the environment for as many languages as possible, and inparticular, endangered languages if they are to evolve and flourish rather than dwindle anddisappear. In this investigation I analyze the effectiveness of the South African multilinguallanguage policy in promoting additive and functional multilingualism and in opening up the ideological and implementational space needed for the survival of the previously oppressedAfrican languages.