As empowered by section 6 (1) of the PanSALB Act 59 of 1995, as amended, the board of the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) held its Annual General Meeting on 29 April 2023 and the chairperson and deputy chairperson of the board for the next year were elected. Dr Dolly Dlavane was elected as the new deputy chairperson of the board. The board also reconstituted its five board committees. Dr Dlavane was re-elected to also serve as the core mandate committee chairperson, a position that she has held since the appointment of the board. 

Sections 6(5) (a) and (b) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996 provide for the national establishment of a Pan South African Language Board. In addition to the Constitution, there are pieces of legislation that also have either a direct or an indirect bearing on PanSALB’s mandate. The current board was appointed for five years by the former Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Mr Nathi Mthetwa, in April 2019. The board provides strategic leadership and oversight to PanSALB.

Notably, PanSALB has established three structures that serve to implement and operationalise its mandate, namely  to protect, promote, and create conditions for the development and use of all South African official languages, with a special bias towards the previously marginalised indigenous South African languages, including Khoi, Nama and San languages, as well as Sign Language. Dr Dlavane committed to serving all three structures as the deputy chairperson of the Setswana Lexicography Unit (Sefala), where she served for five years (2005–2010) and as the director of the Setswana National Language Body (SetNLB) (2011–2019), and she also represented the Setswana National Language Body at the Provincial Language Committee (PLC) (2011–2019).

The much-anticipated International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL 2022–2032), as declared by UNESCO, was launched to draw attention to the critical loss of indigenous languages and to the urgent need to preserve, revitalise and promote indigenous languages, and to create awareness of the importance of maintaining linguistic diversity and multilingualism for societal development. PanSALB has been instrumental in legislating the multilingual Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions, which came into effect on 01 January 2022. The framework requires all public institutions to develop strategies, policies and implementation plans for promoting meaningful multilingual education.

Amidst numerous delays due to the constraints of the Covid-19 pandemic it is heart-warming to realise and witness the advances made by the North-West University (NWU) that have been a catalyst for the implementation of this legislation. Of note is how the NWU’s Faculty of Education is intentional in implementing this legislation through its Multilingual Pedagogies short-learning online course, which currently has nine lecturers from the faculty enrolled.

The coordinated efforts by PanSALB and its stakeholders will also contribute towards attaining goals set out in the IDIL Global Action Plan to promote inclusive, equitable, intercultural education and lifelong learning environments and opportunities in indigenous languages.