Phidiso Moloantoa, a Bachelor of Health Sciences in Medical Laboratory Sciences student at the Central University of Technology, recently participated in the national Lexicon project held in Cape Town.

When offered an opportunity for him to broaden his horizons and expand his critical thinking skills, Moloantoa grabbed it with both hands. The Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) had launched meetings to achieve its goals of translating medical terms into Sesotho names that are familiar to the Sesotho-speaking people, and Moloantoa stood out when they identified his general skills of thinking creatively, critically, and logically.

“Although it sounds simple, it wasn't an easy task to do, and it would take the whole day arguing with professionals and doctors, and through that, we learned a lot. It was an opportunity to broaden our psychology and argument skills. We had three meetings with PanSALB and then went back to attending normal classes,” he explains.

“I would love to thank the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences together with the Health Department for all they have decided to instil into our minds in the academic concepts we critically read and study to understand and apply in life to achieve all the goals of life we set for ourselves and the socio-economic landscape of South Africa,” he added, further thanking CUT for the opportunity.

The lexicon development project enhances and creates an enabling learning environment by using indigenous African languages to enable access to knowledge within the disciplines. It also aims to facilitate students’ understanding of discipline-specific concepts using indigenous African language terminologies.

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Phidiso Moloantoa, BHSc Medical Laboratory Science student at CUT, who participated in the national Lexicon project.