Issue

Vol. 12 No. 2 (2014): Journal of Higher Education in Africa: Special Issue on Academic Freedom in Africa

3 - African Languages Policy in the Education of South Africa: 20 Years of Freedom or Subjugation?

https://doi.org/10.57054/jhea.v12i2.1530
Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5223-8561

Corresponding Author(s) : Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi

Ramoupi.N@che.ac.za

Journal of Higher Education in Africa, Vol. 12 No. 2 (2014): Journal of Higher Education in Africa: Special Issue on Academic Freedom in Africa

Abstract

This paper focuses on the indigenous African languages policy in educa- tion debates in post-apartheid South Africa, and provides a policy review of language in education in the past 20 years of liberation in the South Africa. The research problem is that the post-1994 governments of South Africa stated in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996) that indigenous official African languages must be in the curricula of the education system. But the findings reflect that this constitutional mandate has not been accomplished in the twenty years of South Africa’s liberation. Conclusions drawn are that the former two official languages used in the education policies of the apartheid South Africa, i.e. English and Afrikaans, have continued to be used in pretended implementation of indigenous of- ficial African languages in the curricula of education of a free South Africa.

Keywords

Indigenous African languages language policy in education culture and heritage African history biculturalism mono- culturalism Kiswahili liberation multiculturalism
Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi. (2014). 3 - African Languages Policy in the Education of South Africa: 20 Years of Freedom or Subjugation?. Journal of Higher Education in Africa, 12(2), pp. 53–93. https://doi.org/10.57054/jhea.v12i2.1530
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Author Biography

Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi

PhD. holds a doctoral degree in African history major and minors in Public history and African Studies from Howard University, Washington D.C., USA (2013). Currently he is a Culture and Pan-Africanist historian. Currently a Senior Lecturer of History, Head of History and Chairperson of the Transformation Committee at the Wits University’s School of Education. He's a co-editor of Robben Island Rainbow Dreams: The Making of Democratic South Africa’s First National Heritage Institution (2021).
Dr Ramoupi's current book project is titled Izingoma Zo Mzabalazo Esiqithini: Culture History of Robben Island Maximum Security Prison in South Africa, 1960 -1991; and expected date of publication is September 2022 by Skotaville Publishers, with funding from the NIHSS. He is the Advisory Board Member of America’s Voices Against Apartheid (AVAA)
https://www.americasvoicesagainstapartheid.com/

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