UWC Explores Mother Tongue Instruction as Solution to South Africa’s Literacy Crisis

More than seven out of every 10 South African learners (76%) at Grade 4 level can’t understand what they read in any language, a report found. The 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) highlighted the urgent need for targeted interventions.

The interventions suggested collaborative efforts to equip all children with foundational literacy skills essential for academic achievement and lifelong success.

According to a journal article published in January last year, children who began their education in their native language were more likely to develop strong cognitive and linguistic foundations. This meant a smoother transition to learning in additional languages. But the challenge is a lack of resources and trained teachers who are proficient in various languages. The Centre for African Language Teaching (CALT) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) hosted a Reading Indaba this June to address some of these challenges. The event was aimed at fostering collaboration among key stakeholders to develop strategies to improve literacy rates in the country. A significant focus was to revitalise indigenous languages, particularly isiXhosa, in the educational sector.

The Indaba was titled Exploring and Discussing Actionable Solutions to Identified Reading Challenges: Empowering Participants with Practical Strategies and Interventions to Improve isiXhosa Reading Outcomes in Primary Schools and Beyond.

Professor Rajendran Govender, UWC’s Dean of the Faculty of Education, said the higher education sector could improve literacy rates in indigenous languages by producing proficient teachers.
“We want to strengthen the teaching of isiXhosa at schools and learners’ literacy development. We want to work with stakeholders, parents, teachers, and the Western Cape Education Department and the Eastern Cape Education Department, where most of our teachers and learners speak the language,” he said.

“We need to look at new ways of engaging pedagogies and the digital landscape, the digital skills, and we find this enables learners to be more interested in wanting to learn. I think UWC is at the cutting edge because we have the Centre of African Language Teaching and the state-of-the-art education building with all the facilities.”

Professor Vuyokazi Nomlomo, the keynote speaker of the indaba and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Teaching and Learning at the University of Zululand, shared Prof Govender’s sentiments.
“I think it’s important to reflect on our practice on how we train our teachers, and take an inward journey of how we understand ourselves as teachers and educators. What practices can we implement to produce teachers of a good quality who will be able to intervene in challenges facing our country when it comes to reading in African languages,” she said.

Lathitha Hlanjwa, a third-year UWC education student focusing on the Foundation Phase, said she felt well-prepared for her upcoming teaching practice at a school where IsiXhosa is the home language. She said confidence stems from CALT co-ordinator Dr Thembisa Kosi’s innovative collaboration programme between the teacher education programme (B.Ed) and a primary school.

Both Hlanjwa and Dr Kosi viewed this collaborative programme with primary schools as one of the approaches that could enhance reading for meaning. In a real-world classroom setting with real-time language support, the programme fostered a deeper understanding of effective teaching practices in diverse environments. The real-time language support was facilitated through technology that allowed seamless interaction and collaboration with experienced educators.

“The collaboration has been an eye-opening experience for me. It highlighted areas where I need to improve my fluency in isiXhosa. By being actively involved in the classroom, I’ve noticed a significant improvement in my vocabulary. This experience has solidified my belief in the importance of teacher training in the languages of instruction used in the schools they’ll be working in, and not just in English.”