2.2. Transitions from Dual-Medium to Monolingual Frameworks and Student Disadvantage
The divergence between statutory intentions and actual classroom practice underscores a persistent structural tension in South African higher education governance. While constitutional and national policy frameworks mandate the active promotion of multilingualism, institutional realities frequently reflect an entrenched reliance on English as the sole language of formal instruction [1]. This institutional inertia is frequently legitimized through assumptions regarding global competitiveness, which position indigenous African languages as unsuitable for rigorous academic and technical discourse [2]. However, empirical analyses of institutional shifts indicate that adopting monolingual English policies fails to resolve systemic student learning challenges and instead removes existing linguistic scaffolding without introducing indigenous language development [3]. In response to this access paradox, localized interventions involving terminology planning and bilingual glossaries have demonstrated significant pedagogical value in bridging the conceptual divide [1]. Providing structured bilingual resources enables learners to draw upon their primary linguistic resources to master complex disciplinary concepts, directly challenging the notion that academic success requires strict English monolingualism [1], [2]. Consequently, achieving substantive epistemic access requires institutional language policies to move beyond symbolic compliance and invest in systematic lexicographic and translanguaging infrastructure across academic disciplines [2], [3].