Language-in-Higher-Education Policy and the Intellectual Marginalisation of Setswana in South African Universities

Koketso Botlholo, itumeleng — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0800

South Africa’s higher education language policy framework formally recognises indigenous African languages, including Setswana, and mandates their development as languages of teaching, research, and institutional governance. Despite these commitments, Setswana remains marginal in high-status academic domains, with English continuing to dominate disciplinary instruction, postgraduate scholarship, research publication, and institutional administration. This article examines the structural, ideological, and institutional factors constraining the intellectualisation of Setswana within South African universities. Drawing on Critical Language Policy theory and intellectualisation scholarship, the study adopts a qualitative document analysis approach to interrogate national policy frameworks, institutional practices, and existing literature on African language development in higher education. The analysis reveals a persistent policy–practice gap shaped by English-dominant promotion systems, global publication pressures, limited integration of Setswana into disciplinary curricula, and entrenched institutional language ideologies. The article argues that Setswana’s limited intellectual expansion is not a consequence of linguistic inadequacy but of structural design within higher education systems. It concludes by proposing a systemic model of Setswana intellectualisation that integrates policy alignment, disciplinary expansion, postgraduate capacity building, research incentives, and ideological transformation. Meaningful intellectualisation requires coordinated institutional reform that positions Setswana as a legitimate language of advanced scholarship and epistemic authority.

Forum for Linguistic Studies

Language-in-Higher-Education Policy and the Intellectual Marginalisation of Setswana in South African Universities