Language is critical to higher education transformation as it impacts institutional culture, access and success. In 2008, the Report of the Ministerial Committee on Transformation and Social Cohesion and the Elimination of Discrimination in Public Higher Education Institutions declared that there be “substantive and sufficient multilingualism in academic and support activities” at all public universities in South Africa yet, an overwhelming majority of instruction and business is still conducted in English or Afrikaans, marginalising large groups of the Black student population. Now, ten years after this seminal policy work, this symposium assembles thinkers and experts who will grapple with the questions: what has been implemented at a language policy level so far?
