SADTU to strengthen its commitment to mother tongue-based education through the training of master trainers in MTbBE.
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU), as part of the Teacher Union Collaboration (TUC), is strengthening its commitment to transforming South Africa’s education system through the training of Master Trainers to capacitate them with the knowledge and skills required to support the implementation of Mother-Tongue Based Bilingual Education (MTbBE) as a transformative Pedagogy to widen epistemic access to make a meaning for all learners in the system.
The TUC is a partnership between the Department of Basic Education, the Provincial Education Departments and five major teacher unions: SADTU, NAPTOSA, NATU, SAOU and PEU, working together to advance teacher development programmes and improve the quality of teaching and learning in South African schools
The MTbBE training programme to train 180 Master Trainers will commence on Monday, 26 until 28 October with first group of 90 Master Trainers drawn from five of the nine provinces undergoing training at the Garden Court Hotel in Isando, Gauteng.
After the training of all Master Trainers, the programme will subsequently be cascaded to Intermediate Phase teachers in provinces in collaboration with provincial education structures. The ultimate objective of the programme is to reach and train 5 000 Intermediate Phase teachers across the country.
MTbBE enables learners to be taught and assessed in their home language while the learner also develops competence in another language, usually English. It is therefore bilingual education, not the rejection of English.
This approach seeks to enable learners to access, develop and build on their home language, thereby supporting conceptual understanding and cognitive development while simultaneously strengthening proficiency in the language of learning and teaching.
Although the programme is implemented through the TUC, mother-tongue education is not a new commitment for SADTU; it is a longstanding struggle rooted in the Union’s vision for an equitable, inclusive, and decolonised education system. SADTU has consistently challenged the historical marginalisation of African languages in education and called for greater investment in their development, promotion and use as languages of teaching and learning.
MTbBE recognises that African languages can be used to teach Mathematics, Science and other complex subjects. This challenges the colonial assumption that meaningful academic knowledge can be produced or communicated only in English or Afrikaans.
For SADTU, the introduction and expansion of MTbBE represent a significant step towards dismantling the 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.
A strong foundation in the home language supports conceptual understanding, cognitive development, and the acquisition of additional languages. It also affirms learners’ self-worth, cultural identity, and sense of belonging, ensuring that their languages and heritage are recognised as assets rather than obstacles to academic achievement.
MTbBE is also aligned with SADTU’s vision of a decolonised education system and the realisation of Section 29 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, which provides for everyone’s right to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice in public educational institutions where that education is reasonably practicable. Advancing mother-tongue education is therefore part of advancing constitutional rights, educational equity, and social justice.
The training of Master Trainers is particularly significant because it will build the capacity required to implement MTbBE effectively and sustainably across provinces. However, SADTU emphasises that successful implementation must be accompanied by sustained investment in teacher development, appropriate teaching and learning materials, the development of terminology in African languages and continued support for teachers as they put the approach into practice.
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.
SADTU’s participation in this programme reflects its broader commitment to strengthening the teaching profession and improving learner outcomes. Through its involvement in TUC, SADTU has also trained thousands of teachers in Coding and Robotics and Assessment for Learning.
For SADTU, the training of 5,000 teachers is more than a teacher development target; it is an investment in educational justice, linguistic diversity, and the future of South Africa’s children.
ISSUED BY: SADTU Secretariat