The right to mother tongue education: a multidisciplinary, normative perspective

Abstract

In the Preamble to the Language in Education Policy (1997), in terms of Section 3(4) of the National Education Policy Act (1996), the Department of Education recognises the benefits to be derived from mother-tongue education and commits itself to an additive approach to bilingualism within the education system. It explicitly expresses the intention 'to maintain home language(s) while providing access to and effective acquisition of additional languages.' (IV.A.5). Yet ten years into the new dispensation nothing significant has been done to alter a situation in which the majority of children are obliged to receive their basic education largely through the medium of a second or even a third language.