AfriForum congratulates UP student on historic milestone for Setswana mother-language education
This media statement is also available in: Setswana
Cover image: Dr Bodibadi Modungwa at her graduation ceremony. Source: Facebook, University of Pretoria
The civil rights organisation AfriForum today congratulated Dr Bodibadi Modungwa on completing her PhD in Setswana – the first thesis in this language at the University of Pretoria (UP). AfriForum emphasises that undertaking advanced studies in local mother-languages is of critical importance for the country’s various language and cultural communities to be truly free and prosperous and to promote the development of these languages to fulfil higher language functions.
Modungwa obtained her PhD earlier this month for her research on Setswana mother-language education for grade 11 and 12 learners. She attained this achievement after more than three decades of dedicated work in education and the promotion of mother-language education. According to an article on the UP website, Modungwa sees this milestone as a confirmation of the value of her mother-language and Setswana culture, while also “opening doors for further research, preservation and recognition of African languages in higher education”.
According to Barend Uys, Head of Intercultural Relations and Cooperation at AfriForum, mother-language education offers diverse benefits. “People who first master language use, reasoning ability and the understanding of abstract concepts – such as mathematical formulas – in their own language can more easily master it in a second or third language. In addition, it has been proven that people who receive mother-language education at school perform better academically in the long run, are less likely to leave school before passing matric and are likely to obtain more qualifications,” he explains.
Modungwa has proven through her performance that Setswana has a rightful place as a language with higher linguistic functions and a language that should be further developed for the benefit of its speakers.
“To keep a language alive, it must be able to be used fearlessly – and Modungwa has achieved a historic milestone for this language at UP through her fearless and unashamed use of Setswana for her PhD studies. We hope that her work will serve as an incentive for more proud Setswana academics to help further develop this language into a dynamic and thriving scientific language that can stand its ground in the company of other languages with established and extensive higher functions,” concludes Uys.
