Third language a must for bursaries

MANY prospective teachers are being denied funding from the national education bursary scheme because they don’t speak or will be able to teach in an indigenous African language.

The Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) selection criteria for the Funza Lushaka Bursary Programme, offered to 25 percent of the student teachers intake at universities, say that people who want to study foundation phase (grades 1 to 3) teaching would need to be trained in an indigenous African language.

Most students are either paying for their own studies or have National Student Financial Aid Scheme funding, external bursaries or student loans.

Department spokesman Terence Khala said: “The intention is to recruit students who are trained to teach in an African indigenous language in the foundation phase.”

Studying a third language at university would not sufficiently prepare a student to teach reading and writing to pupils in grades 1 to 3, Khala said.

English and Afrikaans were not considered in this case.

This year, 13 972 students were granted the bursary.

A student, who spoke on condition that she remain anonymous for fear of being ostracised, said it was unfair that many hard-working and passionate students were overlooked because of the language they spoke.

“I have peers of many different races and everyone is united. We feel the opportunities afforded to the black African group were, during apartheid, offered to white Africans. What happens to coloured Africans or Indian Africans who are always in the middle and overlooked?” she said.

Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) spokeswoman Lauren Kansley said: “CPUT administers the bursaries based on the stipulations set by the DBE, including what home language the student speaks.”

The deputy dean of education at the University of the Western Cape, Vuyokazi Nomlomo, said the department had not consulted the faculty.

Faculty dean at Stellenbosch University Maureen Robinson said faculties of education were involved for years in discussions with the DBE about teacher provision, and the university was aware that there was a shortage of foundation phase teachers who could not teach in an indigenous African language.

A senior lecturer at the School of Education at the University of Cape Town, Clare Verbeek, said foundation phase teachers were trained as generalists who could teach literacy, mathematics and life skills.

“The intention of this specification is to purposefully increase the pool of qualified and competent teachers who can teach children in schools where the medium of instruction is an African language,” she said.