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01 July 2022 | Story Marcus Maphile | Photo Supplied
The University of the Free State Library and Information Services (UFSLIS) hosted stakeholders from SABC Lesedi FM, the Free State Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture, the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), and delegates from the National Library for the launch of the first-ever African Languages University Press in South Africa and Africa.  The launch, which took place on 24 May, deliberately coincided with the Africa Month commemorations – as the UFS’ answer to the United Nations General Assembly (Resolution A/RES/74/135) proclamation of the period between 2022 and 2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages.  

This proclamation aims to draw global attention to the critical situation of many indigenous languages, and to mobilise stakeholders and resources for their preservation, revitalisation, and promotion. The University of the Free State Department of African Languages aims to be a publisher of high-quality original African language monographs and research in order to promote access, preservation, and use of marginalised African languages.  

In his opening remarks, Marcus Maphile, Assistant Director: Library Services, said, “As a broad academic publisher, the African Languages Press will be working across a number of markets, all presenting challenges and opportunities for established and engaged university presses. One of the opportunities will be to challenge the mainstream book publishers to re-enter the indigenous language publishing market.” He further said that this was done to make writing and reading in African indigenous languages fashionable, for other nations to envy our rich multilingual cultural heritage. 

The guest speaker for the launch was the UFS honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) recipient, Dr Jerry Mofokeng wa Makhetha, who applauded the University of the Free State for taking such a bold step towards enriching and developing African indigenous languages. 

The launch offered the UFS the opportunity to reach out and engage the international community on potential partnerships and collaborations towards developing African languages. The Library Director, Ms Jeanette Molopyane, provided insight into the challenges faced by libraries due to the shortage of books in African languages, while positioning the University of the Free State Library as a trendsetter and a leader in the development of best practices in the field of libraries.  

News Archive

Transformation in higher education discussed at colloquium
2013-05-16

16 May 2013

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The University of the Free State hosted the Higher Education Transformation Colloquium earlier this month on the Bloemfontein Campus.

On Monday 6 May 2013 till Wednesday 8 May 2013 the event brought together a wide range of stakeholders, including some members of university councils; vice-chancellors; academics and researchers; leaders of student formations and presidents of student representative councils; transformation managers; executive directors with responsibility for transformation in various universities, members of the newly established Transformation Oversight Committee and senior representatives from the Department of Higher Education and Training.

The event examined and debated some of the latest research studies and practices on the topic, as well as selected case studies from a number of public universities in South Africa.

Delivering a presentation at the colloquium, Dr Lis Lange, Senior Director of the Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning at the UFS, said transformation in South Africa has been oversimplified and reduced to numbers, and the factors that might accelerate or slow the process have not been taken into account.

Dr Lange was delivering a paper, titled: The knowledge(s) of transformation: an archaeological perspective.

Dr Lange argued that “in the process of translating evolving political arguments into policy making, the intellectual, political and moral elements that shaped the conceptualisation of transformation in the early 1990s in South Africa, were reduced and oversimplified.”

She said crucial aspects of this reduction were the elimination of paradox and contradiction in the concept; the establishment of one accepted register of what transformation was and it is becoming sector-specific or socially blind. This means that the process was narrowed down in the policy texts and in the corresponding implementation strategies to the transformation of higher education, the schools system, the judiciary and the media, without keeping an eye on the structural conditions that can influence it in one way or another.

Dr Lange said the need for accountability further helped with reduction of transformation. “Because government and social institutions are accountable for their promises, transformation had to be measured and demonstrated.”

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