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26 May 2020 | Story Marcus Maphile | Photo Supplied
Marcus Maphile
The African continent is known for endless wars, extreme poverty, under-development, and highly contested borders left by the legacy of colonialism. Low levels of literacy among young people and adults remain a concern in many African states. African universities are slowly beginning to play a significant role in contributing to national innovation systems that seek to change the socio-economic and other fortunes of many poor and marginalised Africans. 

The African continent celebrates the 57th anniversary of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), and the relevance of the current African Union (AU) in the fight against socio-economic challenges caused by COVID-19 on the continent. The fear faced by most African countries emanates from inadequate healthcare systems and facilities. The debate on the opening of schools and institutions of higher learning is passed around like a soccer ball, as countries are aware that they lack the capacity to accommodate a surge of COVID-19 infections.

The African higher education and research sector is struggling to adapt. Will they be able to play a significant role towards finding a vaccine, producing new knowledge or research from African indigenous plants?  To be factual, in many ways this is not likely to happen, as most of the higher education institutions struggle with internet connectivity and high data costs. Many books and journals in libraries remain inaccessible, and most will only later record how developed countries moved to online teaching and learning with great success or failure.   All this will happen under the noses of illiterate Africans who rightly expect their higher education and research institutions to contribute towards finding immediate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic threat.

Most public and academic libraries remain closed and there is no word and contribution from highly decorated professionals towards sustaining reading habits and availing relevant materials for research towards finding a vaccine. There is no co-ordinated plan from library ministries and or library lobby groups. This is the context in which Africa Month 2020 is celebrated. It will be remembered as the year in which the promotion of reading and the opening of schools took a beating.

Marcus Maphile is Assistant Director: Library Marketing at the University of the Free State and he writes in his personal capacity.

News Archive

UFS committed to a two-language model
2010-08-13

  Prof. Jonathan Jansen

The University of the Free State (UFS) will continue to use a two-language model while it builds capacity for research and teaching in Sotho languages.

This was announced by the Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS, Prof. Jonathan Jansen, when he delivered the 29th DF Malherbe Memorial Lecture on the Main Campus in Bloemfontein yesterday, on the topic: The politics and prospects of Afrikaans, and Afrikaans schools and universities.

“In the course of time black students will learn Afrikaans, white students will learn Sesotho, and all students will learn decent English,” he said.

“Classes will remain in English and Afrikaans, especially in the first years of study. Dual-medium classrooms will break down the racial isolation where outstanding university teachers are comfortable in both languages. Parallel-medium classes will exist where large numbers enable such a facility.”

He said schools and higher education institutions that continue to use language as an instrument of exclusion, rather than inclusion, would remain “culturally and linguistically impoverished”. He said the future of Afrikaans in these institutions lay in its inter-dependence and co-existence with other languages.

“A strong two-language model of education, whether in the form of double- or parallel-medium instruction within a racially integrated campus environment is the only way in which Afrikaans can and should flourish in a democratic South Africa,” he said.

“It is the only model that resolves two problems at the same time: the demand for racial equity, on the one hand, and the demand for language recognition, on the other hand.”

He said the idea of an exclusively Afrikaans university was a “dangerous” one.

“It will lock up white students in a largely uni-racial and uni-lingual environment, given that the participation rates in higher education for Afrikaans-speaking black students are and for a long time will remain very low,” he said.

“This will be a disaster for many Afrikaans-speaking students for it will mean that the closed circles of social, cultural and linguistic socialization will remain uninterrupted from family to school to university.

“Rather than prepare students for a global world marked by language flexibility and cultural diversity, students will remain locked into a sheltered racial environment at the very stage where most South African students first experience the liberation of the intellect and the broadening of opportunities for engaging with the world around them.

“The choice at the Afrikaans universities, therefore, must never be a choice between Afrikaans and English; it must be both.”

Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication (actg)
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell:   083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl@ufs.ac.za
13 August 2010

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