The Western Cape Education Department says it’s committed to promoting African languages in mainly English and Afrikaans speaking schools.
The announcement was made by MEC Debbie Schafer, who says the aim is to improve social cohesion. The Western Cape currently has the worst implementation rate of African languages in the country.
We are the province that has the most schools that are not predominately African languages speakers … It is already national policy and we planning to rolling it out over time.
— Debbie Schäfer, Western Cape Education MEC
Schafer says a pilot project began in 2015 where IsiXhosa was introduced in Grade 1.
More teachers are currently being trained in order to meet the demand.
In the second term of 2018, the project will be rolled out to an additional 254 schools, reaching over 26 000 learners in the province.
We want to roll it out over time to ensure that learners have basic conversational skills for social cohesion purposes.
— Debbie Schäfer, Western Cape Education MEC
