A celebration of Umalusi's 20 years of assuring language assessment
Volume 41, issue 1 of Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (SALALS) celebrates Umalusi’s 20 years of quality assuring South Africa’s general and further education and training sector. Titled, 'The language enigma: Two decades of quality assuring language assessment in South Africa', the six articles in this special issue is an overview of education policy as it relates to language curriculum and the assessment thereof, while at the same time offering proposals for improvement from a quality assurance point of view.
The subject matter of the articles include problematizing the practice of versioning of learning and teaching materials from English into African languages, given the conceptual and linguistic complexities associated with the process; critiquing the logic of differentiating the South African language curricula along the lines of home and first additional languages; analysing the space allocated to vocabulary assessment in an African language context, and exploring the criteria for assessing and selecting a suitable software for digital learning of a language.
The authors are language experts associated with different institutions in South Africa and their wealth of experience in the quality assurance processes of Umalusi stand them in good stead.
This special issue comes at a time when Umalusi is looking ahead the next 20 years of quality assurance in education. The issue therefore contributes towards strengthening and enhancing ways of setting and maintaining standards of language curriculum across different language contexts.
The issue is published Open Access and can be read here.