Education uplifts, it enriches lives, and it creates opportunities. Language should not be a barrier to accessing education of the highest quality, and here the POLOKELO project as implemented by the Language Directorate of the North-West University (NWU) is playing a leading role in the promotion of African languages in academic spheres.
The POLOKELO project is a language and cultural initiative focused on promoting and revitalising the use of southern African indigenous languages. Originating in South Africa, the name of the project, POLOKELO, is derived from Sesotho, meaning "repository" or "storage," reflecting its mission to preserve and promote the region's rich linguistic heritage. POLOKELO stems from the BAQONDE project, which is an initiative funded by the European Union and aims to promote multilingualism and enhance the use of African languages in South African institutions of higher education.
Four South African universities, the NWU, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the University of the Western Cape and Rhodes University, as well as three European universities – Trinity College in Dublin, the University of Groningen and the University of Salamanca (which is also the BAQONDE project lead) – have put together a realistic plan to create, develop and sustain an effective strategy to ensure the implementation of the recently approved Language Policy Frameworks for Public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa. The strategy prioritises the development of African languages as medium of education.
POLOKELO aims to build capacity among lecturers and students in the South African education system. Core initiatives of the project partners include the establishment of an inter-institutional network of African language development units (ALDUs) and the progressive creation of multidisciplinary materials in South African languages. These initiatives will be extended to other HEIs, and outreach activities at primary and secondary school levels should ultimately create sector-wide synergies around languages through capacity-building for their teaching, their intellectualisation and their embrace and use.
“POLOKELO is a repository of terms that was created to make sure that students and researchers have the language resources available to complete their goals. What makes POLOKELO so effective, is that it is an open-source project that will help students if they want to search for a specific term in a specific language. They can easily tap into the repository and find what they need,” explains Dr Kea Seshoka, director of the NWU Language Directorate.
“The most beautiful thing is that we also have South African sign language videos there. POLOKELO hosts a wealth of resources. As South Africans, multilingualism is part of our daily lives and we must continue to encourage each other to understand and value our respective languages.”
