Multilingual education in South African universities: policies pedagogy and practicality

Abstract

Universities in South Africa have over the last few years adopted multilingual language policies with a view to implementing multilingual education. The adoption of these language policies and the implementation of multilingual education accords with the new democratic constitution which recognizes 11 official languages at national level and the Language Policy for Higher Education (LPHE) adopted by government in 2002 to promote equity of access and success for all students in higher education. The aim of this article is to discuss the implementation of multilingual education in traditionally white English universities, and at the University of Cape Town (UCT). The argument of this article is that although multilingual education is not yet fully realized at UCT, the existing multilingual language policy has created agentive and implementational spaces for multilingual education in that university. The article draws insight from ethnographic theories and the multilingual education projects initiated at the university.