1. South African Sign Language: Presentation to the Joint Constitutional Review Committee Parliament, Cape Town, 13 November 2009

2. Board Members

3. INTRODUCTION Legislative Mandate Section 6. (5) of the Constitution enjoins the state to establish a Pan South African Language Board by national legislation to: (a)promote, and create conditions for, the development and use of- (i)all official languages (ii)the Khoi, Nama and San languages; and (iii) sign language; and

4. Intro… Section 2 of the Pansalb Act 59 of 1995 establishes the Pan South African Language Board to: (b)Promote and ensure respect of all South African official languages thus ensuring that they enjoy parity of esteem (c)promote and ensure respect for – (i)all languages commonly used by communities in South Africa, including German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Portuguese, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu; and (ii)Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit and other languages used for religious purposes in South Africa.

5. SA SIGN LANGUAGE Joint Committee on Constitutional Review met with DeafSa on 16 February 2007. PanSaLB was requested in that meeting to promote SASL and report back to parliament on progress made.

6. PROGRESS RE:SASL National Language Body established Teaching and learning material produced DVD on health terminology produced Front line staff at hospitals and govt. depts. trained on sign language

7. PROGRESS Cont… Joint awareness programmes with DeafSA in various provinces SASL debate in schools- Gauteng Parents of deaf learners trained- Mpumalanga Engaged DoE for SASL to be included in the curriculum

8. Declaration of SASL as 12 th official language Request made by DeafSA for SASL to be declared official language DeafSA requested PanSALB to lobby for SASL to be official language Request declined as our mandate is to promote official languages recognised by the constitution. Lobbying would open flood gates for to lobby for other languages

9. Cont… Whilst PanSALB does not wish to express opinion on the matter Regard to be had on Constitutional provisions relating to Sign Language. PanSALB view SASL to rank equally with other official languages in emphasis

10. Conclusion Constitution review committee to do feasibility study re: request Broader consultation as required by the law Consultation with other stakeholders

11. THANK YOU!