'Multilingualism promotes unity'
12 June 2003
The use and promotion of all 11 official languages will provide an opportunity for ordinary South Africans to make choices on ways in which they want to be educated, according to Arts, Culture, Science and Technology Minister Ben Ngubane.
Addressing a two-day conference on the government’s National Language Policy Framework in Benoni on the East Rand on Thursday, Ngubane said the framework, approved by Cabinet in February, aimed to foster respect for language rights and linguistic diversity, and to promote national unity.
"It is important that South Africans be afforded an opportunity of achieving in their own languages, of not dropping out of school because of difficulty with a second or third language as a medium of instruction," Ngubane said.
Ngubane dismissed perceptions that multillingualism was a costly exercise, citing examples of progressive multilingual countries such as Belgium, Canada, Finland and Switzerland.
"The
value of multilingualism for South Africa is not exclusively measurable in rands and cents. The truth is that monolingualism also has financial costs for South Africa."
The minister challenged sceptics to think about the hidden costs implications for the country, such as loss of human resources resulting from school dropouts, poor performance and poor communication.
Ngubane launched a multilingual mathematics dictionary at the conference, which he said would go a long way to ensure the success of the language policy.
The minister also announced that the Northern Cape government and his department would be starting a project to record the San and Khoi languages which were on the verge of extinction.
Source: BuaNews
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