Language Curriculum Planning in Implementing the School-based Management within Secondary Schools of South Africa Context

Abstract

South African secondary schools operate within a multilingual environment in which constitutional commitments to linguistic equality coexist with the continued dominance of English in teaching, assessment, learning materials, and educational advancement. This study examined the linguistic, institutional, and school-governance factors influencing language curriculum planning and developed a school-based management framework for participatory and context-responsive multilingual education. A qualitative multi-site case study was conducted in three secondary schools. Thirteen participants were purposively selected, comprising seven language teachers, three school principals, and three stakeholders involved in governance, curriculum support, or community participation. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, classroom and meeting observations, and relevant school documents. The data were analysed through iterative processes of data condensation, thematic display, and conclusion drawing. The findings revealed six interconnected constraints: English dominance, discontinuity between home languages and the language of learning and teaching, shortages of multilingual materials, uneven teacher preparation, institutional inequality, and unequal stakeholder influence in school governance. Teachers frequently used code-switching and translanguaging to support comprehension, but these practices were generally informal and insufficiently integrated into curriculum plans and assessments. The study proposes a six-stage school-based management framework comprising diagnosis of local language needs, inclusive stakeholder participation, collaborative planning, multilingual curriculum implementation, systematic monitoring, and continuous improvement. The framework also requires clearly defined responsibilities, teacher development, equitable resource allocation, inclusive assessment, and sustained district support. The study concludes that decentralised language planning can advance multilingual equity only when local autonomy is accompanied by institutional capacity, substantive participation, evidence-based decision-making, and mechanisms that prevent existing social and resource inequalities from being reproduced.