Children can be seen in class at the Olievenhoutbosch secondary school on their first day back at school since the beginning of the national lockdown to help prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, 8 June 2020, Pretoria. Picture: Jacques Nelles
The Department of Education in the Eastern Cape has announced that matriculants in the province will for the first time, write their trial exams in IsiXhosa and Sesotho.
The department’s spokesperson, Malibongwe Mtima, confirmed this historic move in an interview with SABC News on Tuesday.
Mtima said the subjects that will be translated include Mathematics, Physical Science, Life Sciences, History, Agricultural Science and Accounting.
When asked what inspired this move, Mtima said the department aims to boost indigenous languages as the constitution permits.
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“We ensure that all languages are given equitable status, so that at least learners or people that are speaking certain languages do not feel inferior. At the end of the day, we are using it for academic purposes,” Mtima said.
Through this initiative, the department is hoping for pupils to achieve great levels in their educational studies as it would be easier to comprehend using their home languages.
He said the department is working together with the National Lexology and the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), to successfully achieve the mandate of the initiative.
Mtima cleared concerns around the broadness of both IsiXhosa and Sesotho languages, when it comes to the various terminologies and concepts in the subjects.
He said they will use a translation system.
“We are going to use the concepts as they are, so that they can have the same meaning. For instance, we are not calling mathematics, isibalo. We are calling it imathematika, so that it does not lose its meaning.
“There are words that we do not have, even in English, for instance Greek and Latin words.”
About 800 schools in the province are participating in this initiative. He said the test out trial has already started.
“We are happy with what we are getting. On the six subjects we have identified, the pupils are submitting on time and there are no hiccups.”
The department has since written to Umalusi, to get the go ahead or the approval for the pupils to continue and write their final examinations in the two languages.
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