By Lebone Rodah Mosima
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) is aiming to train 5,000 Intermediate Phase teachers across the country through its Mother-Tongue Based Bilingual Education (MTbBE) programme.
As part of the Teacher Union Collaboration (TUC), SADTU announced on Sunday that a training programme for 180 master trainers would begin on Monday, 26 October, and run until Wednesday, 28 October.
The first group of 90 master trainers, drawn from five of South Africa’s nine provinces, was scheduled to undergo training at the Garden Court Hotel in Isando, Gauteng.
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The training will equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to support the implementation of bilingual education in schools before extending the programme to Intermediate Phase teachers through provincial education structures.
“MTbBE enables learners to be taught and assessed in their home language while the learner also develops competence in another language, usually English,” SADTU said.
“It is therefore bilingual education, not the rejection of English.”
The union said the approach supported learners’ conceptual understanding and cognitive development while strengthening their proficiency in the language of learning and teaching.
SADTU said mother-tongue education was a longstanding commitment rooted in its vision for an equitable, inclusive and decolonised education system, rather than a new initiative introduced through the TUC.
It has consistently challenged the historical marginalisation of African languages in education and called for greater investment in their development and use as languages of teaching and learning.
“MTbBE recognises that African languages can be used to teach Mathematics, Science and other complex subjects,” SADTU said.
“This challenges the colonial assumption that meaningful academic knowledge can be produced or communicated only in English or Afrikaans.”
It said expanding MTbBE would help address linguistic inequalities inherited from apartheid and colonialism.
“No learner should be disadvantaged academically because they are expected to learn complex concepts in a language they have not yet sufficiently mastered.”
“Every learner deserves an education that builds on their existing knowledge, language, and lived experiences.”
But SADTU also said that successful implementation would require sustained investment in teacher development, appropriate teaching and learning materials, the development of terminology in African languages, and continued support for teachers.
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“By investing in teachers and advancing Mother-Tongue Based Bilingual Education, the union is helping to lay the foundation for an education system in which every learner can learn with confidence, succeed academically, and take pride in their language and identity,” it said.
The latest training follows the national MTbBE Summit, held in February 2026, where the Department of Basic Education (DBE) reviewed implementation progress and discussed expanding bilingual education throughout the schooling system.
President Cyril Ramaphosa also emphasised the importance of expanding mother-tongue bilingual education during his State of the Nation Address and at the Basic Education Sector Lekgotla in January.
During the lekgotla, Ramaphosa said: “Since 1996, our Constitution has enshrined multilingualism as a social, educational and economic norm. By the end of 2025, nearly 12,000 schools had access to Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education (MTbBE)”.
Ramaphosa encouraged the department to expand teacher training in appropriate methodologies, align curricula and assessments, and integrate language development across literacy and numeracy.
