The Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) has commenced with the teaching of Tshivenda and Xitsonga and has gone beyond rhetoric and mere academic talk in the development of the two languages, Mirror has established.

The vice-chancellor of GZU, Prof Obert Maravanyika, said when welcoming the Tshivenda and Xitsonga lecturers at the university campus in Masvingo last week, that the university, in pursuit of its niche of becoming a centre of creative arts and culture, took a bold step to teach African languages. He stated that there were now four languages being taught at the university, which are Shona, Ndebele, Xitsonga and Tshivenda.

He also said that it was his hope that the team of academics would continue to do more work in the area of promoting the Tshivenda and Xitsonga languages, which are spoken by a minority in Zimbabwe.

“It is our sincere hope that we shall continue to work towards promoting the two languages at our university, so that they get the due recognition they deserve, just like any other language taught at our institution,” outlined Maravanyika. He reiterated that they were trying to respond to calls by various stakeholders for institutions of higher learning to take a leading role in the reclamation and preservation of African societies´ cultural heritage. He added that the historic occasion at the university marked the culmination of a long process of consultations with various stakeholders, leading to the singing of the memorandum of understanding with the University of Venda in October 2007, an agreement which he said had been “operationalised”.

Maravanyika said that, apart from the university’s celebrating the commencement of the programme, they were also celebrating the existence of a platform for collaborative research between lecturers from Univen and GZU.