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Decolonizing university education—the concerns consuming Indian students regarding the compulsory isiZulu module at UKZN
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Decolonizing university education—the concerns consuming Indian students regarding the compulsory isiZulu module at UKZN

Sana Jeewa
Frontiers in education (Lausanne), Vol.11
20/08/2026
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/10210/521105

Abstract

compulsory isiZulu Education
The isiZulu module has been an innovative, game changing implementation at UKZN over the past decade or so. Interrogating students of the Indian population who engaged with the module, my study aims to deduce an insight into the students attitudes towards it & how it has affected their use of the language more generally. By combining two different methods (quantitative questionnaires and qualitative interviews), the study analyses attitudes towards the IsiZulu module, isiZulu usage & student's abilities to communicate in isiZulu once the module had been complete. This study further discusses how social variables create boundaries which, to a large extent, divides the Indian & Black African community. Also, the study shows how there seems to be very limited multilingualism amongst the students investigated and that despite being committed to South Africa, interest in and knowledge of isiZulu remains uncommon amongst the learners, even after engaging with the isiZulu module. While this is taken from one population group's perspective, the success of the isiZulu module is still debatable given its relatively novel introduction to the academic world.
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url
https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1860563View
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