LUSANDA MAHKUNTSU'S CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS AND LINGUISTIC RIGHTS REPORT CARD LAUNCH ADDRESS

Introduction

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Today I will be presenting on language rights in South Africa, based on the 2025 Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Rights Report Card by the FW de Klerk Foundation.

Language is more than just communication. It reflects identity, culture, and dignity. The Constitution recognises eleven official languages, and South African Sign Language will soon become the 12th.

Section 29(2) guarantees the right to education in a language of choice. Yet, despite these strong commitments, the FW de Klerk Foundation’s 2025 Report Card shows that language rights remain the weakest of our cultural, religious and linguistic rights. this tells us that while progress exists, there are still serious gaps between rights on paper and reality in practice.

South African Sign Language: Progress

As of early 2025, only about 8 per cent of national departments and public entities report being ready to implement South African Sign Language as an official language, with funding cited as the biggest barrier.

PanSALB requested various national organs of state to advise it what executive and administrative measures that they adopted to implement SASL becoming an official language. It subsequently released a Report on the National Organs of States’ Readiness for the Implementation of the Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Act, 2023 on 21 January 2025 (the “State of Readiness Report”). In the State of Readiness Report, PanSALB found that that funding is the biggest stumbling block to implementation, but that departments are trying to prepare for when the Act comes into effect: Some are already outsourcing interpretation services, while others are planning to. PanSALB was also told that departments struggle to fill available SASL interpreter posts, because suitable candidates preferred to freelance rather than taking up a full-time post. (Only the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture responded that it has a full-time sign language interpreter and was in the process of recruiting the second one to meet the demand.) Some also pointed out challenges in procuring SASL interpreters in rural areas. However, some, like the Department of Tourism are scheduling SASL training sessions for staff to ensure effective communication and service delivery. Therefore, PanSALB recommended that the Act come into operation, to allow budgets to be allocated by organs of state to improve the implementation and then compliance.

Education: Basic Education

In education, there has been some progress. The Mother Tongue-Based Bilingual Education model, which was pioneered in the Eastern Cape, is now expanded nationally. This means that by 2030, learners are expected to write their General Education Certificate in their home languages, and by 2033, National Senior Certificate exams too.

Basic Education Minister, Siviwe Gwarube has previously stated she has plans to expand mother tongue education across the country, ensuring parity of esteem for African languages (school books written in indigenous languages go a long way in restoring the esteem of indigenous languages) and promoting multilingualism in line with the Constitution and Language in Education Policy, 1997 (“LiEP”).

The launch of the IRIS, an AI-powered robot which can teach in all eleven official languages, is another important step. IRIS presents unprecedented opportunities to give effect to every learner’s right to receive an education in the language of their choice and to solving the poor literacy skills.

Department of Basic Education’s “The Status of the Language of Learning and Teaching in Schools: A quantitative overview: 2008-2016”, released May 2023, shows that in 2016 a total number of 45 810 schools existed. However, over half of the available schools taught in English, despite it being the mother tongue of only 8,7% of South Africans according to the 2022 census results.

Examining the Department’s data reveals a discrepancy between the language used in schools and the learners’ language needs. In the full report, which you can download using the QR code at the back of the printout on your seats, you will find tables showing what the proportional number of schools per the country’s linguistic profile from StatsSA’s 2022 Census would look like. What is important to note here is that the number of schools who have English as their language of learning and teaching is entirely out of proportion, while for every indigenous language there is a shortage of schools that has it as a language of learning and teaching.

Of note in this context is a study that found adopting English as the language of learning and teaching in a Soweto primary school created more problems than benefits. Learner participation did not improve, teachers lacked resources and multilingual teaching skills and the linguistic capital of learners was overlooked. The study concluded that these practices are exclusionary and that inclusive policies aligned with sociolinguistic contexts are urgently required.

However, risks remain. The BELA Act allows provincial heads to override school governing bodies on school language policy. This may weaken the protection of schools that have indigenous languages as their language of learning and teaching.

Despite progressive policy shifts and technological innovations like IRIS, English remains disproportionately dominant as the language of learning and teaching, creating barriers to true multilingualism. To unlock the cognitive and academic benefits of mother tongue instruction:

South Africa must accelerate the implementation of MtbBE. This requires scaling up teacher training in multilingual pedagogy.
Investment in IRIS across all public schools is strongly encouraged to bring about the practical integration of multilingualism in schools now possible.
It is recommended that to overcome parental preference for English (driven by its perceived economic advantages), the Department of Basic Education launch a campaign to promote the benefits of mother tongue education amongst parents, emphasising that this will not sacrifice fluency in English.
Additionally, the Department should set measurable targets for language parity and incentivise school governing bodies to integrate indigenous languages meaningfully into teaching, research and assessment.

Education: Further Education

Universities are also starting to take language more seriously. For example, Walter Sisulu University is promoting isiXhosa and Sesotho in research. The University of Cape Town has adopted a new policy that includes Afrikaaps, Khoekhoegowab, N|uu and Sign Language alongside the main (English, isiXhosa and Afrikaans) teaching languages. And Unisa has created multilingual study guides, giving thousands of distance learners support in their own languages.

However, although universities have adopted multilingual policies, the practical use of African languages in teaching and research remains very limited. The gap between formal policy and classroom reality continues to undermine parity of esteem.

Government: Progress

At the local government level, municipalities are constitutionally mandated to reflect the language needs of local communities in their communication and preferences of their residents. Here, we’ve seen some positive developments:

The City of Cape Town has introduced multilingual chatbots and digital platforms allowing citizens to access services in English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa. These show how technology can be used to make public services more inclusive.

But overall, municipalities’ compliance with Section 6 remains poor: Many rely on outdated language policies. However, it is important to point out that even the most up-to-date language policies do not guarantee implementation.

According to PanSALB’s Five-Year Strategic Plan 2025–2030, only half of local governments complied with the language-related prescripts. Similarly, a June 2025 study revealed that the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, despite recognising six official languages, continues to issue most communications (circulars, tenders, public notices) exclusively in English. These are practices that ignore community needs.

It is recommended that local governments always use the latest statistics available from StatsSA and supplement these by, for example, the following:

Identify their residents’ language needs by integrating language preference questions into existing municipal service interactions, such as permit applications, rate payments, or complaints; and
Use short online surveys distributed through municipal websites, social media or messaging platforms like WhatsApp to identify their residents’ current language needs.

Furthermore, it is recommended that all spheres of government (local, provincial and national) leverage the new AI technology that allows for service delivery interactions to occur in the user’s language preference: For example:

Using Generative artificial intelligence (“GenAI”) to produce multilingual public service videos for diverse populations;
Using Live AI Translation for public meetings that provides real-time captions and translations;
Using AI-Based Document Translation Platforms that offer secure, large-scale translation of government documents (even including PDFs and scanned files) to ensure that critical information, e.g. tenders, bylaws, policies and public notices, are available in all official languages;
Exploring Real-Time Speech-to-Text and Speech Translation that would enable multilingual communication in live interactions, such as service counters or call centres, public hearings and emergency hotlines; and
Using AI-Powered Multilingual Chatbots, as the City of Cape Town is doing, to provide real-time, conversational support in multiple languages via websites, mobile apps and messaging platforms for routine queries.

The above represent cost-effective methods that contain the potential to completely revolutionise the way government (in all spheres) and citizens interact and should be explored. The ultimate goal is to minimise linguistic barriers to ensure equitable access to government services for all South Africans.

Conclusion

In conclusion, language rights in South Africa remain fragile, but there are also promising signs of progress. To move forward, PanSALB must be strengthened, funding must be secured, compliance with Section 6 and Section 29(2) must be enforced, and innovation and technology must be harnessed.

Protecting and promoting languages is not just about culture. It is about equality, inclusion and democracy. Thank you.