Varsities themselves wasting vast sums of money

THE warning of the risk of permanent damage to the higher education system, posed by the crisis precipitated by the #FeesMustFall campaign, is a timely reminder that the challenges faced by universities go beyond the fees debacle.

The statement by the Academy of Science of South Africa suggests it is the government which is to blame, for it underfunds tertiary education and is also responsible for the serious problems which beset many township and rural schools.

It is criminal that learners go without libraries and dictionaries while millions are lost to irregular spending and corruption in education departments every year. The consequent lack of preparedness on the part of so many learners compounds university funding problems.

Nevertheless it is also time for some soul-searching on the part of universities, including on ways of saving money. For example, is the current and seemingly top-heavy, centralised and expensive University of KZN bureaucracy, with its geographically spread out campuses, the most efficient and cost effective management model?

One of the costs incurred in recent years stands out as wasteful and not in the best interests of students: the translation of lecture material into Zulu.

I am not promoting language imperialism: I fully support the constitutional imperative to “elevate the status and advance the use” of indigenous languages, but I believe there are better ways of doing that.

I taught social anthropology at the then University of Natal when racial restrictions were lifted. Within a decade in the 1990s, 75% of the students were black.

Despite many having received Bantu Education, most coped with English course material and some did very well.

I do not recall failure rates increasing significantly as student racial composition changed.

An experimental programme in the social sciences – Teach Test Teach (TTT) – which gave groups of prospective students a couple of weeks of lectures, and selected those who performed well, showed that even some students who did not meet the usual criteria for admission had potential and, when they were admitted for study, many graduated.

The students had been given access to books especially written for them on different subjects.

According to Zulu-speaking academics and professionals, the standard of English among many matriculants has declined markedly, instead of improving post-1994, which corresponds with an apparent drop in the quality of language teaching at far too many schools.

This raises questions about how such students achieve matric passes which allow them to apply for university.

Sub-standard

According to Thandi (not her real name), who has checked numerous translations done in the course of research, many of them are seriously sub-standard.

The issue of translation of technical terms and concepts – “culture” is an example – is fraught with problems, so new Zulu terms must be invented.

The TTT programme produced a very useful conceptual dictionary which provided simple English explanations for discipline-related concepts.

There are also complaints from Zulu-speakers about the way the language is being spoken, with the “highfalutin’” (instead of conversational) Zulu used on some radio programmes being a literal turn-off.

It seems that many young people no longer speak their mother tongue properly because it has become mixed up with soap opera jargon.

Even if all these obstacles were overcome, the biggest problem is that from first year onward students should be doing several readings for assignments and, if they are studying for a profession, reading professional journals – which are all in English.

Instead of wasting precious resources on translations, students needing it would be empowered by being given compulsory bridging courses (and good dictionaries).

Like the compulsory Zulu courses for English-speakers, a focus should ideally include bridging language (and racial) divides among learners and building social cohesion – a process that should ideally have started at school.

The bridging of divisions among black students who speak different languages is also facilitated by the use of English.

It should be obvious from history that a command of English does not diminish pride in one’s own language.

Afrikaners, most of whom learnt good English, are a prime example of that.

Without English, the founders of the ANC would not have been able to communicate and form a broadly based African liberation movement, yet John Langalibalele Dube, through his iLanga laseNatal newspaper and promotion of Zulu literature, and Sol Plaatje, through his writings, showed their pride in their own heritage.

How else than via English can the aims of the African Renaissance, and an appreciation of the works of Nigerian and Kenyan literary giants be developed? Instead of spending funds on translations, which would be better spent assisting poor students, universities should be ensuring quality training for translators.

There are complaints that many court translations are bad – which has very serious implications for the administration of justice. Translators must have excellent skills in both languages.

Thandi’s English language skills are superb, for she was fortunate to attend a school with a library, and read all its books – but she is a staunch promoter of proper Zulu language skills and is herself an extremely impressive imbongi (praise singer).

Universities should be leading the way in nation-building while, at the same time, promoting the heritage and languages of their diverse students, which can be complementary and not contradictory processes.

De Haas is an independent researcher and KwaZulu-Natal violence monitor.

despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother’s murder. This led him to jump off the building, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth-story window.

The son, Ronald Opus, had actually murdered himself. So the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

Are they having us on? It’s a fair yarn anyway.

Tailpiece

SCOTSMEN Jimmy and Wullie have a meal in a swish restaurant.

They call the waiter and ask for the bill.

Wullie: “Don’t worry aboot the tab, Jimmy, I’m payin’ for everythin’.”

Next day Jimmy’s body is found in an alley. A newspaper headline reads: “Horrible murder of Scottish ventriloquist.”

Last word

BEING a woman is a terribly difficult task since it consists principally in dealing with men. – Joseph Conrad