The Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) has welcomed the signing into law of the BELA Bill as a progressive step towards promoting the equitable use of all official languages and elevating the status of previously marginalised languages. The bill includes a section that directly addresses accountability by School Governing Bodies (SGBs) regarding language policies they adopt to ensure that no language is used for division, dominion or racial exclusion.
The proposed amendments around school language policies are commendable as they provide checks and balances by the government to the transformational imperatives embedded in the constitution especially the learning and teaching in every public school of previously marginalised languages. PanSALB further commends the bill for its emphasis of the use of South African Sign Language as a language of learning, teaching and assessment in public schools. The BELA Bill provides an oversight role by the Head of Department of Provincial Department of Basic Education which will strengthen governance regarding the adoption and implementation of language policies. PanSALB supports the strengthening of accountability and the consideration of demographics and the linguistic needs of South African communities which supports the transformational agenda set out in the Constitution.
However, the board has expressed concern that the BELA Bill does not make provisions for mediation and conciliation measures in the case of a stalemate between the school governing body and the government. PanSALB is a constitutional institution established to create conditions for the development and use of official languages including Khoi and San languages. Its role includes mediating on language rights and linguistic human rights violations which suggests that PanSALB would be the first mediator before parties can go through expensive court processes. The advantage to approach PanSALB by the school governing bodies in case of a stalemate with the education department is that the board has sociolinguistic and language-in-education expertise to recommend accordingly. PanSALB fully supports and actively advocates for mother tongue-based bilingual education and calls for vigilance to guard against the use of language as an exclusionary tool in a society that is linguistically and culturally diverse and has bitter history of linguicism – racism based on language.
