Durban — Umalusi has welcomed the recognition of South African Sign Language (SASL) as the 12th official language in the country.
Umalusi spokesperson Biki Lepota said 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 SASL the 12th official language of the country.
“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,” Lepota said.
“Umalusi has external moderators whose task is to quality assure the SASL HL question papers for the National Senior Certificate (NSC).”
Lepota said that 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.
Meanwhile, last week, Deaf Federation of South Africa national director Bruno Druchen said that making SASL an official language in terms of the Constitution was unopposed in Parliament, and this has been warmly welcomed by deaf South Africans.
“We are stoked and it was a day filled with emotions,” Druchen said.
“This landmark move follows many years of campaigning by DeafSA, the deaf community and supporters, in recognition of our language and the right to access public services such as health and education using SASL.”
“This bill will mean that there is more accountability to recognise the rights of deaf people to access services as minority language users in our own language, SASL, but also to promote SASL as a language for all,” Druchen said.
He said that when President Ramaphosa ascends the bill, it places responsibility on the South African government to provide improved guidance to public services and government departments across all provinces on the use of SASL, with support from DeafSA.
“DeafSA wants to thank all political parties for the approval of the bill and a special thanks to all the deaf community members in South Africa for their patience. We celebrate the deaf pioneers that were before us. The long-awaited dream has come, and we are looking forward to when the president signs the bill,” Druchen said.
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