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UFS stakeholders reflect on multilingualism in education

14 May 2025 | Story Tshepo Tsotetsi | Photo Tshepo Tsotetsi

Multilingualism stakeholder engagement session — Prof Vasu Reddy, UFS Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Internationalisation; guest speaker Prof Leketi Makalela; and Dr Nomalungelo Ngubane, Director of the UFS Academy for Multilingualism.

Multilingualism is not just a concept at the University of the Free State (UFS) – it is a growing practice, a challenge, and an opportunity all at once. This was made clear during a stakeholder engagement session on 7 May 2025, hosted by the Academy for Multilingualism at the UFS’s Bloemfontein Campus, where staff, academics, and strategic partners gathered to reflect on the university’s language journey.

In his reflections, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Internationalisation, Prof Vasu Reddy, emphasised that, “Scholarly conversations such as these are not just simply intellectually important, but socially and politically, and it is critical to learn from each other, exchange ideas, and make change.” He described the Academy as a “novel intervention” and noted how engagements like this help “break silos that languages sometimes create” – a crucial step towards realising the promise of multilingualism and translanguaging in academic spaces.

Progress, challenges, and collective ownership

In her presentation, Dr Nomalungelo Ngubane, Director of the Academy for Multilingualism, provided an overview of the institutional language policy and its implementation status, now in its third year of a five-year plan. She highlighted key strides: the translation of 116 PhD abstracts into Sesotho, Afrikaans, and isiXhosa; the development of South African Sign Language terminology in psychology; and the training of 16 tutors in translanguaging, among others.

Dr Ngubane stressed the importance of shared ownership of the policy’s rollout. “It’s very important that the language policy is understood by all stakeholders. It’s a collective journey, and it becomes even more powerful when people own it and take it forward into their departments, faculties, and student spaces,” she said. While she acknowledged that meaningful development of African languages as academic mediums is costly and resource-intensive, she noted that small, deliberate steps are being taken.

Ubuntu translanguaging: rethinking the classroom

The keynote address was delivered by Prof Leketi Makalela, full professor and founding Director of the Hub for Multilingual Education and Literacies at the University of the Witwatersrand. A globally recognised scholar and the holder of the SARChI Chair in Advancing African Languages for Social Inclusion and Access, Prof Makalela added a powerful perspective rooted in research and teaching practice.

He began his address with a reflection: “I believe I landed on this little rock called Earth to ensure that human beings have deep access to the world in which they were born, and you can only be part of this greater world and make full sense of it through language.”

Later, he challenged the monolingual mindsets that dominate higher education. “People still want to treat languages as different entities, and that’s where the issue is. That’s where the education system is not aligning with the realities of multilinguality.”

Prof Makalela said multilingual students face dual disadvantages: compromised epistemic access [access to knowledge systems] due to monolingual bias, and diminished identity affirmation. His response? Ubuntu translanguaging – a model that embraces cohabitation of languages and student-led meaning-making.

“It’s a misconception that the lecturer must translanguage,” he said. “It is the student who should translanguage. The lecturer should only facilitate and respect that internal process.”

He outlined a clear, three-step translanguaging teaching method:

• Pre-lesson: Activate prior learning and scaffold vocabulary and concepts.

• During lesson: Create space for multilingual thinking – allow students to write, reflect, and engage in their own languages.

• Post-lesson: Validate understanding, and open the classroom to diverse linguistic expressions.

Prof Makalela stressed that the real innovation lies in normalising these practices institution-wide. “Existing multilingual tutorials are useful, but real transformation happens when every lecturer opens up their lessons to multilingual engagement.”

News Archive

MBA Programme - Question And Answer Sheet - 27 May 2004

2004-05-27

1. WHAT MUST THE UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE (UFS) DO TO GET FULL ACCREDITATION FOR THE MBA PROGRAMMES?

According to the Council on Higher Education’s (CHE) evaluation, the three MBA programmes of the UFS clearly and significantly contribute to students’ knowledge and skills, are relevant for the workplace, are appropriately resourced and have an appropriate internal and external programme environment. These programmes are the MBA General, the MBA in Health Care Management and the MBA in Entrepreneurship.

What the Council on Higher Education did find, was a few technical and administrative issues that need to be addressed.

This is why the three MBA programmes of the UFS received conditional accreditation – which in itself is a major achievement for the UFS’s School of Management, which was only four years old at the time of the evaluation.

The following breakdown gives one a sense of the mostly administrative nature of the conditions that have to be met before full accreditation is granted by the CHE:

a. A formal forum of stakeholders: The UFS is required to establish a more structured, inclusive process of review of its MBA programmes. This is an administrative formality already in process.

b. A work allocation model: According to the CHE this is required to regulate the workload of the teaching staff, particularly as student numbers grow, rather than via standard management processes as currently done.

c. Contractual agreements with part-time staff: The UFS is required to enter into formal agreements with part-time and contractual staff as all agreements are currently done on an informal and claim-basis. This is an administrative formality already in process.

d. A formal curriculum committee: According to the CHE, the School of Management had realised the need for a structure – other than the current Faculty Board - where all MBA lecturers can deliberate on the MBA programmes, and serve as a channel for faculty input, consultation and decision-making.

e. A system of external moderators: This need was already identified by the UFS and the system is to be implemented as early as July 2004.

f. A compulsory research component: The UFS is required to introduce a research component which will include the development of research skills for the business environment. The UFS management identified this need and has approved such a component - it is to take effect from January 2005. This is an insufficient element lacking in virtually all MBA programmes in South Africa.

g. Support programmes for learners having problems with numeracy: The UFS identified this as a need for academic support among some learners and has already developed such a programme which will be implemented from January 2005.

The majority of these conditions have been satisfied already and few remaining steps will take effect soon. It is for this reason that the UFS is confident that its three MBA programmes will soon receive full accreditation.

2. WHAT ACCREDITATION DOES THE UFS HAVE FOR ITS MBA PROGRAMME?

The UFS’s School of Management received conditional accreditation for its three MBA programmes.

Two levels of accreditation are awarded to tertiary institutions for their MBA programmes, namely full accreditation and conditional accreditation. When a programme does not comply with the minimum requirements regarding a small number of criteria, conditional accreditation is given. This can be rectified during the short or medium term.

3. IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE ACADEMIC CORE OF THE UFS’s MBA PROGRAMMES?

No. The UFS is proud of its three MBA programmes’ reputation in the market and the positive feedback it receives from graduandi and their employers.

The MBA programmes of the UFS meet most of the minimum requirements of the evaluation process.

In particular, the key element of ‘teaching and learning’, which relates to the curriculum and content of the MBA programmes, is beyond question. In other words, the core of what is being taught in our MBA programmes is sound.

4. IS THE UFS’s MBA A WORTHWHILE QUALIFICATION?

Yes. Earlier this year, the School of Management – young as it is - was rated by employers as the best smaller business school in South Africa. This was based on a survey conducted by the Professional Management Review and reported in the Sunday Times Business Times, of 25 January 2004.

The UFS is committed to maintaining these high standards of quality, not only through compliance with the requirements of the CHE, but also through implementing its own quality assurance measures.

Another way in which we benchmark the quality of our MBA programmes is through the partnerships we have formed with institutions such as the DePaul University in Chicago and Kansas State University, both in the US, as well as the Robert Schuman University in France.

For this reason the UFS appreciates and supports the work of the CHE and welcomes its specific findings regarding the three MBA programmes.

It is understandable that the MBA review has caused some nervousness – not least among current MBA students throughout the country.

However, one principle that the UFS management is committed to is this: preparing all our students for a world of challenge and change. Without any doubt the MBA programme of the UFS is a solid preparation.

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