First year students at the University of South Africa (UNISA) will get question papers in their mother tongue in the October-November exams.
The university has poured millions of rands into the project, which will see question papers being set in all the 11 official languages.
This after a pilot project in its College of Education proved when students understand what they are being asked, they perform better.
However, UNISA’s Prof Koliswa Morula says students must still answer in English: “In 2018, the College of Education translated 26 of their first year modules into all South African languages to improve college throughput and also comply with language policy for Higher Education as well as UNISA language policy.
“The report I got from the Dean at the College of Education is that there was an improvement of above 2%.”
