{"id":126997,"date":"2016-06-15T10:37:03","date_gmt":"2016-06-15T08:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=126997"},"modified":"2016-06-15T10:58:40","modified_gmt":"2016-06-15T08:58:40","slug":"compulsory-african-language-policy-for-schools-in-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/126997\/compulsory-african-language-policy-for-schools-in-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Compulsory African language policy for schools in 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gauteng schools will be spearheading a new language policy in 2017 that will make it compulsory for all grade 1 pupils to take an African language as a second additional language subject, according to a report by The New Age<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Afrikaans would still form part of the languages available, the report said, but as there are now three language subjects, other African languages beyond English and Afrikaans must be taken.<\/p>\n

According to the Gauteng education department, the policy, called the\u00a0Incremental Introduction of the African Languages<\/a> (IIAL), is still being finalised, but will ultimately help pupils in basic education have a more positive attitude towards school.<\/p>\n

In 2017, the policy will be trialed at 12 schools in Gauteng, where 16 teachers have been allocated. Once the trial is over, a budget will be made available for a full roll-out, the New Age reported.<\/p>\n

Under the IIAL,\u00a0from grade 1 to grade 3, pupils will now have five compulsory subjects:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Home language<\/li>\n
  2. First additional language<\/li>\n
  3. Second additional language<\/li>\n
  4. Mathematics<\/li>\n
  5. Life skills<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These subjects will be carried through to grade 12 (with Life Skills becoming Life Orientation from grade 7, onwards).<\/p>\n

    In grades 1-9, learners must pass the third required official language at first additional language\u00a0level at achievement level 3 (40-49%).<\/p>\n

    In the FET Phase, the third required official language must be passed at level 2 (30-39%) provided that the official language at home language\u00a0level has been passed at level 3 (40-49%), the department said.<\/p>\n

    It has been proposed that an additional 2 hours of instruction time per week be added to pupils in grade 1 and 2 to make room for the new languages – and additional 3 hours for grade 3.<\/p>\n

    For the intermediate and senior phases, an additional 5 hours per week should be added, taking the average school day up from 5.5 hours a day to 6.5 hours a day.<\/p>\n

    One of the biggest criticisms and challenges faced by the second additional language policy is the lack of skilled teachers available to take on all of South Africa’s official languages.<\/p>\n

    Aside from localising classes (teaching the dominant additional language of the area), the department also proposed two other solutions:<\/p>\n

    In a cosmopolitan area wherein all languages are found, schools may be designated to offer specific languages. There would be dominant languages side to side with minority languages.<\/p>\n

    In instances where there are very few learners for particular languages scattered across a phase, the multi-grade model can be ideal. Learners from different grades can be brought into one class and taught by one teacher.<\/p>\n

    More on language<\/h3>\n

    Dysfunctional education system is apartheid\u2019s fault: Education MEC<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Stellenbosch University ordered to teach in Afrikaans<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

    These are the most spoken languages in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Gauteng schools will be spearheading a new language policy in 2017 that will make it compulsory for all grade 1 pupils to take an African language as a second additional language subject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":76599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-126997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126997"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127007,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126997\/revisions\/127007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}