The use of language criteria for admission to higher education in South Africa: issues of bias and fairness investigated

Abstract

The implementation of the new National Senior Certificate (NSC) has necessitated the setting of new admission criteria for higher education (HE), both nationally and at an institutional level. In addition to setting their own point criteria in relation to the NSC, many institutions have chosen to set additional language criteria for admission, which have a bearing on only one or two languages (the current language(s) of teaching and learning, English and Afrikaans), despite the fact that these institutions have adopted multilingual language policies which include one or more African languages as additional languages of teaching and learning. This article problematises this response. A case study of an HE institution is presented, firstly in order to highlight the processes adopted by the institution's newly developed Language Policy Implementation Committee (LPIC) to challenge the English-only criteria proposed initially, and, secondly, to provide empirical evidence of the bias and differential access that would result from such English-only criteria. The discussions between members of the LPIC and the admissions committees led to the adoption of multilingual language admission criteria, even though the main language of learning and teaching (LoLT) has remained English.

The mystery of student selection: are there any selection criteria?

“…These changes include the implementation of a new outcomesbased curriculum at school level, a new end-of-school examination replacing the old Grade 12 final examination and a new certificate (NSC) replacing the Senior Certificate (SC) at the end of 2008 (Koch 2007;Koch and Dornbrack 2008).…”

“…That being said, there is a language problem that impacts greatly on the academic performance of students (Wurr 2003). Accordingly, the assessment of competence in terms of language, or the use of language criteria for admission, is considered to be important for the purposes of determining access to higher education, in order to ensure that students will cope with the use of the language of teaching and learning of the institutions (Koch and Dornbrack 2008). Many students appear to lack the ability to deal with language at an academic level, even when they appear to be quite proficient in communicating socially in a particular language (Koch and Dornbrack 2008).…”

“…Accordingly, the assessment of competence in terms of language, or the use of language criteria for admission, is considered to be important for the purposes of determining access to higher education, in order to ensure that students will cope with the use of the language of teaching and learning of the institutions (Koch and Dornbrack 2008). Many students appear to lack the ability to deal with language at an academic level, even when they appear to be quite proficient in communicating socially in a particular language (Koch and Dornbrack 2008). Koch and Dornbrack (2008) claim that it is apparent that the use of students' performance in a single language as an indication of AL in the language of teaching and learning can be regarded as biased and problematic.…”

“…Many students appear to lack the ability to deal with language at an academic level, even when they appear to be quite proficient in communicating socially in a particular language (Koch and Dornbrack 2008). Koch and Dornbrack (2008) claim that it is apparent that the use of students' performance in a single language as an indication of AL in the language of teaching and learning can be regarded as biased and problematic. According to them, the results clearly indicate that, in the case of students who enter tertiary education with well-developed academic skills in their first language, this language is a better predictor of AL, or the ability to cope with academic work, than school achievement or test results in the language of teaching and learning.…”

Testing in bilingual education projects: Lessons learnt from the Additive Bilingual Education Project

“…While they seemingly have had little effect in many of the USA's states, these documents continue to raise awareness of these issues and debates continue. Evidence of the negative consequences of English-only tests, as well as bias in these tests, has also been produced in South Africa (Koch, 2007;Koch and Dornbrack, 2008). However, the use of English-only tests in education in South Africa remains largely uncontested and this institution of (employing tests in a language that is not even the language of LOLT) continues to be supported by discourses, such as the ones mentioned above.…”