Xhosa and Zulu Grade 2 and 3 Translations

Partner(s):

Non profit development projects working in the educational, welfare, health care environmental conservation and cultural sectors aiming to benefit the broader community are the target beneficiaries for The Charl Van de Merwe Trust. In this project, the trust supports the translation of SAIE BusinessVENTURES material into Xhosa and Zulu for regions speaking these languages.

Our Involvement:

In line with the South African position on the languages of instruction in education, SAIE has made initial provisions on the translation of its educational materials into local languages. Education minister Naledi Pandor on the 15th of February 2007 strongly supported the use of indigenous languages as the medium of instruction in schools.

The national curriculum requires mother tongue as the medium of instruction for grades 2 and 3. In the Eastern Cape and Western Cape 83% and 23% of the population respectively speak isiXhosa as mother tongue. isiZulu is spoken as the mother tongue in Gauteng (21%), KwaZulu-Natal (81%) and Mpumalanga (26%).

Xhosa and Zulu are the first language of instruction in many schools. Despite this, however, most SAIE materials are currently only available in English. This has constrained program implementation in some schools in the past. While the need is to translate the materials into both languages, the indication from KwaZulu-Natal educators has been emphatic for the grade 2 and grade 3 materials to be available in Zulu. They indicate that too much of their time is spent translating the materials from English; they therefore do not have enough time to complete the required amount of work during the allotted time. Furthermore, learning is not as effective as it would be with the materials in isiZulu. This means that there are a significant number of learners in the foundation phase who are currently not benefiting from effective education in entrepreneurship.

While the need is to translate the BusinessVENTURES programmes for Grades 2 and 3 into both languages, isiZulu would need to take precedence over isiXhosa because of information from the field.

Project Progress:

The Charl van der Merwe Trust has sponsored the translation into Xhosa and Zulu of BusinessVENTURES materials from grade 2 to grade 3. The Xhosa materials for these grades will be provided to 4 schools and the Zulu materials will be provided to 5 school.

Translation of Grade 2 and grade 3 programmes into isiZulu and/or isiXhosa will take place from August to October 2008. DTP of Grade 2 and Grade 3 programmes in isiZulu and/or isiXhosa will occur in November 2008. In December 2008 (before 15/12/08) the Grade 2 and Grade 3 programmes will be printed, and training educators and supplying them with the programmes will take place in January to February 2009.

Funder:

Product:

Translations

Location:

Western Cape