UCT LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT PLAN 2024 ACTIVITIES

This serves to appraise the university community about language matters at UCT including the UCT Language Development Plan. In the last communique, it was indicated that the University of Cape Town (UCT), like all other public universities in South Africa, successfully applied for the funds to align its language policy with the New Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions (NLPFPHEIs) in South Africa, that was promulgated in 2020.

The UCT development plan includes various activities whereby MEP is working with the faculties and the PASS divisions. The following are some of the developments with regards to the roll out plan:

UCT Language Indaba

The theme for the 2024 UCT Language Indaba is “promoting understanding on the proposed UCT language policy and is scheduled to take place on the 12^th of August 2024 at Leslie Social. There will be showcasing of the UCT departments’/divisions’ language activities. In addition, the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) and the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) to share how they would support the faculties and divisions with language related resources.

The Literature Competition

The Literature Competitions Committee (LCC) under the leadership of the lecturer from MEP was established. The applications are being received and the closing date is 25 August 2024. Once the adjudication is done by the identified and trained adjudicators, the final decision will be made by the LCC.

Marketing of the activities

Marketing is done via the UCT news updates, MEP website and various social media platforms and flyers and posters to the UCT community. In addition, the MEP director had a UCT radio interview speaking about UCT language policy matters, including the UCT Language Indaba and other language related activities. The MEP Academic Coordinator provides creativity and administrative support for all the activities.

Update on the Proposed UCT Language Policy Review Process

Through the Language Policy Committee (LPC), UCT has now developed a proposed language policy in consultation with the faculties and professional services division. The proposed language policy was successfully tabled at the meeting, scheduled on the 5^th of August of the Senate Executive Committee (SEC) by the LPC chairperson. Feedback will be provided at the next LPC meeting scheduled for the 22^nd of August. Credit is also accorded to the LPTT who worked tirelessly in consolidating all the inputs received for the language policy review.

Collaborations

The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) amongst several universities nationally is underway that is aimed at working in collaboration on language activities. In addition, as part of regional collaborations, the MEP staff members participated in the IsiXhosa Orthography workshop that was facilitated by PanSALB and hosted by the Stellenbosch University (SU) on the 1^st of August 2024. In between the workshop session, the directors from MEP at UCT and from the Language Centre at SU, met to discuss language matters for further collaborations between the two universities

We trust that the UCT community have an idea on developments regarding language policy matters at UCT, and we are looking forward to fruitful engagements. For more information, please contact us