If unfixed, new school language policy could derail SA’s literacy

In her small office at Esidumbini Primary School in eThekwini, Grade 3 teacher Nonhlanhla Kleinbooi flips through her notebook to explain her concerns about language as she prepares learners for the next grade.

Her school is slowly rolling out Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education (MTbBE) in Grade 4. This means subjects like maths, previously taught in English from Grade 4, will now continue in isiZulu. Although the aim is to improve outcomes, new materials have introduced a new set of borrowed terms that confuse learners.

“In isiZulu, a rectangle is unxande,” Kleinbooi says, writing the familiar word on a scrap of paper. Next to it, she scribbles another term: irekhthengile. She pauses, shaking her head. “This is where we lose our learners. They understand the isiZulu word, but when we start borrowing, that sounds like a completely different language. It’s like starting school again.”

Kleinbooi’s frustration resonates in schools throughout eThekwini, iLembe and Zululand, where teachers voiced similar concerns with maths, science and technology terminology during a field trip to eight quintile 1 (no-fee) schools, coinciding with the release of early grade national reading benchmarks in all 11 official languages to which reading applies.

Hybrid language barriers

The 2025 Funda Uphumelele National Survey (FUNS) revealed that in KwaZulu-Natal only 40% of Grade 3 learners can read and understand text in their home language, leaving 60% ill-prepared for Grade 4.

There is a consistent pattern from Grade 1-4, the survey notes. Learners in no-fee quintile 1 to 3 schools “perform at particularly low levels” compared with quintile 5 schools, where 74% of Grade 4 learners reach the benchmark.

Only two quintile 4 schools are listed in Zululand on the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education database, leaving the vast majority to face significant educational disadvantages.

“Our learners are still struggling with the basics of isiZulu, from recognising letter sounds to reading fluently,” said Nonhle Zondi, a Grade 3 teacher at Maphumulo Primary School in iLembe.

“When we suddenly introduce borrowed terms in Grade 4, learning becomes even harder as our class sizes average between 40 and 60 learners, leaving little time for individual support.”

Numeracy is another concern, echoed in the South African Systemic Evaluation assessment (2022). In Grade 3, 66% of learners operate at the “emerging” and “evolving” level, i.e. they lack the required level of understanding. With maths now transitioning to being taught in the mother tongue in Grade 4, teachers expressed heightened concern about learner outcomes. They say mother-tongue instruction is effective in life skills and social studies, where learners express ideas through familiar vocabulary.

However, in maths, science and technology, where precise terminology is key, translation falls short. This has led to a surge of transliterated terms such as pherimitha (perimeter) and eriya (area), which teachers dubbed a “hybrid confusion”.

At Tshenilokwazi Primary School in Ulundi, principal and Grade 4 teacher Jotham Buza Zwane speaks from his workspace, a classroom divided in two, with one half his office, the other a staff room.

“Terms such as irekhthengile, pherimitha and eriya do not even align with isiZulu phonetics, which does not have the letter R,” he said. These borrowed terms are creeping into classrooms and baffling children.

“We can see the confusion. We want to teach in isiZulu because it is theirs, but science and maths have their own language, and the resources that we receive do not support that,” said Zwane.

“Teachers are right: isiZulu should remain isiZulu. We need textbooks written in the mother tongue – well-structured, well-moderated materials that reflect the South African context and take our environment into account. These gaps must be addressed if mother-tongue education is to succeed,” said Mugwena Maluleke, general secretary of the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union.

Language preservation vs English as a global language

KwaZulu-Natal’s education department has long used MTbBE to promote linguistic pride and improve comprehension in early grades. But English remains the gatekeeper of higher education and employment, with teachers fearing that learners may be left behind. “We cannot disconnect children from the global language of science and maths,” Kleinbooi said. “But we also cannot cut them off from their own language. That is the balance.”

Hloniphani Mzobe, a Grade 4 teacher at Esidumbini, highlighted a broader linguistic issue of how to preserve the integrity of indigenous languages while connecting learners to global scientific and mathematical terminology.

“This is a balancing act that continues to challenge us educators. Words such as
pherimitha or unxande may sound natural to isiZulu speakers, but they disconnect learners from the global language of science and mathematics.”

Educators fear that without urgent support, KwaZulu-Natal risks entrenching the disparity it set out to change: where English first-
language learners get a head start and the majority spend years trying to catch up.

English and Afrikaans home language learners receive schooling in their mother tongue through to Grade 12 (matric), allowing conceptual understanding and literacy development in their strongest language.

Gaps are highlighted when comparing KwaZulu-Natal with the Western Cape and Gauteng, with FUNS showing the largest proportion of children meeting reading benchmarks by Grade 4, at 60% and 62% respectively. This largely reflects the more favourable socioeconomic context of these two provinces, according to the report.

Maluleke noted that “no language is completely pure. English itself borrowed from French and Latin. What matters is that the borrowed words make sense to learners and fit the structure of the local language.”

The 2024 progress review of the Department of Basic Education (DBE) notes the need to improve MTbBE implementation. Among 58% of Grade 3 learners nationally taught in a language other than Afrikaans and English, there is an urgent need for more effective teaching resources for reading, writing and maths.

Resource challenges

Challenges are not limited to the materials that are not native to isiZulu. The schools visited lacked not only basic school infrastructure, but also resources to implement MTbBE effectively. “We share worksheets from WhatsApp groups,” said Zwane. “Sometimes we print them ourselves because the department does not send enough copies.”

Though many educators declined to be identified in fear of reprisal, all schools visited by this reporter print their own materials.

Sbongile Masango, a principal at Hlophekhulu Primary in Ulundi, noted: “Making our own copies needs a budget as we have to buy paper and ink, which is unbudgeted for, and we have to fund-raise for that.”

The DBE set 2025 for the roll-out of MTbBE in Grade 4, but there is no dedicated, ring-fenced implementation budget. A total of R57-million is allocated over the medium term (three years) to cover curriculum, policy, support and monitoring. A total of R4-billion is separately allocated for printing and delivering mathematics and literacy workbooks (grades R to 9).

Maluleke recommended that a dedicated budget be allocated for MTbBE teaching. Training needed to be across the board, not ad hoc, “because eventually, we want to see maths and science being taught in African languages even in Grades 6 and 7”.

Addressing isiZulu as a foundational language of learning is critical nationally. FUNS shows that nearly 70% of schools in KwaZulu-Natal teach in isiZulu, amounting to almost 80% of isiZulu nationally.

FUNS tries to address multilingual complexities by providing language-specific baseline data to enable targeted support and ensure that assessments are realistic and aspirational. During the benchmark briefings, supportive teacher coaching was highlighted as vital for improved outcomes.

“We hold two things in tension,” noted Lesang Sebaeng, DBE acting deputy director for research coordination, monitoring and evaluation. “Benchmarks must reflect our context, but they must also predict later success in reading and comprehension. They are not meant to be static. As the country improves, targets will be revised.”

Concurrent to the survey tools, the DBE developed Early Grade Reading Assessments for classroom use. Sebaeng said these tools provide teachers with a diagnostic instrument to gauge individual learner progress and adjust their teaching.

“Teachers will have to design these assessments from scratch, but they will have access to guides for creating their own aligned materials if they wish to,” she said.

Meanwhile, teachers at Esidumbini are adopting teaching in isiZulu while introducing English equivalents.

At Mapholoba Primary in iLembe, Grade 4 teacher Phaphamani Ngcobo said: “If we teach ‘ubungakhondawo’ alongside ‘area’, they recognise both later. It helps learners understand both languages, rather than borrowed terms such as ‘eriya’.”

Without urgent fixes, the system risks entrenching disadvantages where English-first learners maintain a head start.

“As the DBE works to refine MTbBE, it must prioritise the on-the-ground needs of teachers to ensure that the policy truly improves comprehension and literacy outcomes for all learners,” said Kleinbooi. DM

This article has been produced with the support of the Henry Nxumalo Foundation.

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.