Sign language to be compulsory

KARISHMA DIPA karishma.dipa@inl.co.za

DEAF and hard of hearing youngsters often find themselves isolated in a society that struggles to communicate with them effectively.

In March 2018, it was announced that South African Sign Language (SASL) would officially be recognised as a home language in the country’s education system. Speaking at the time, Umalusi spokesperson Lucky Ditaunyane stressed that the country needed to do more to accommodate deaf learners.

“Deaf learners in South Africa no longer need to feel like foreigners in their own land and at last they can exercise their rights to be taught and assessed in their own language,” he said.

“This may be a bigger step than many people realise‚ for in recognising SASL as a home language in our education system‚ the system is by implication recognising deaf culture as a fundamental part of South African culture.”

Almost two years later, the government has heeded the call with plans to include SASL in all schools within the next 10 years.

This announcement was made in the draft National Youth Policy for 2020–2030 which was published in the Government Gazette last week.

Other aspects in the gazette included radical, multifaceted strategies to combat racism in schools, improving pupil’s skills and education levels to enable them to succeed in the workforce, offering a “second chance” matric programme and making indigenous languages compulsory for all pupils.

Lucas Magongwa, a SASL & deaf studies division of languages, literacies and literatures lecturer at Wits University, said while the move is long overdue, he was excited by the government’s plans to make SASL compulsory at all schools.

“Learners in mainstream schools should have the option of learning SASL as a recognised school subject, a privilege other languages of SA are enjoying,” said Magongwa.

While the exact number of deaf people in SA is not known, it is estimated that there are about 400000 people with hearing impairments in the country. The Deaf Federation of South Africa has reported nearly 800000.

But Magongwa believes the figures could be considerably higher.

“It is possible that many deaf people could not complete the forms and many parents tend not to record their children as being deaf.”

Phillip Cook, the principal at De La Bat Skool in Worcester, which serves as a special school for the educational needs of deaf pupils, agreed that while research suggests that about 1% of the country’s citizens are born deaf, this number could be much higher considering those who experience hearing loss due to age, disease and trauma.

“Another factor to consider is the location of deaf people in remote areas that are undetected,” said Cook.

Cook said progressively introducing sign language in all schools will create a greater awareness of a marginalised community.

“It will hopefully lead to a greater effort of inclusion and accessibility to a wide range of life.”

Magongwa said it will bring awareness and acceptance of deaf people as members of society. “Teaching SASL in public ordinary schools will increase the population of sign language users thus deaf people will have more people they can communicate with, everywhere.

“We are going to see more teachers who enter schools for the deaf already proficient in SASL because if people learn SASL at schools, they are likely to continue learning it at university level. When they graduate as teachers, they are fluent in SASL.”

Despite the strides being made, Magongwa and Cook insist more needs to be done.

Magongwa said there were only about 42 sign language medium schools experiencing systemic challenges in implementing SASL as a subject.

“It is likely to be a more challenging task introducing SASL in mainstream schools because there are so many schools nationally,” said Magongwa.

There is also a shortage of qualified SASL teachers.

Meanwhile, Cook listed funding, provision of relevant learning and teaching support materials, recruiting trained SASL educators and offering SASL on first and second additional levels, as more challenges the government could face.

Magongwa said an increasing number of deaf youngsters were entering tertiary education institutions.

“In the early 1990s I was the only qualified deaf teacher in South Africa but now we have 50 or more.”

He added that while SASL might be challenging for a hearing person to learn, there are still many who make notable progress in language learning and become proficient in SASL.

Deaf people will have more people they can

communicate with.