South Africa: Umalusi Welcomes Recognition of South African Sign Language

10 May 2023
Government of South Africa (Pretoria)
press release

Umalusi welcomes the adoption of the Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Bill [B1 - 2023] to amend section 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 to make the South African Sign Language (SASL) the 12th official language of the country.

Umalusi started work in this area some years back to promote the rights of people who are deaf and hard of hearing. In 2018 it published a research report titled "Sign of the Times: The Quality of the Teaching and Assessment of South African Sign Language". The aim of the study was to provide guidance to Umalusi in terms of how to approach quality assurance of the SASL Home Language curriculum's school-based assessment and examinations in Grade

12. The report is available on the Umalusi website: www.umalusi.org.za.

The inclusion of the SASL as the 12th official language implies that for teaching and learning purposes, the language must be allocated equitable resources. This is to ensure that, as provided for in the Constitution, the playing field is levelled for every learner to be taught and assessed on an equal footing.

Umalusi has external moderators whose task it is to quality assure the SASL HL question papers for the National Senior Certificate (NSC).

Read the original article on Govt of SA.

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