South Africa: Mother's tongue lashes top school

[Francis Hult]

Via lgpolicy...
 
Mother's tongue lashes top school

By Nomfundo Mcetywa

Parents who sent their children to former model C schools did so not
because they wanted their children to be fluent in the "Queen's
language" at the expense of their own but because the quality of
education at African schools still remained poor. This was the
argument put forward in the Durban Equality court this week by the
legal team representing Ntombenhle Nkosi, the chief executive of the
Pan South African Language Board, who brought an application accusing
her son's former school, Durban High School, of discriminating against
him by teaching "substandard Zulu". The case is of national importance
and is likely to have ramifications for former model C schools as to
how they implement the national education policy on languages. The
ruling could force them to offer English and Zulu as first languages.

Humiliation

But it also boils down to money. The school told the court that such a
policy meant money had to be found out of its own funds to employ
extra Zulu teachers. Nkosi told the court, "Our children are being
taught what we call kitchen Zulu. These (indigenous) languages are
still subservient to English and Afrikaans." Nkosi's son had received
low marks in Afrikaans, achieving as little as 4 percent and 17
percent on his year-end report card. Nkosi said her son could have
been spared this humiliation had he had the option of taking Zulu at a
higher level instead of Afrikaans. At the time Nkosi's son was still a
pupil at DHS, in Grades 8 and 9, pupils had to study English as a
first language, Afrikaans as a second language and Zulu as a third
language.

After Nkosi laid a complaint with the school, DHS reviewed its
language policy and now offers both Afrikaans and Zulu as second
languages in those grades. In Grades 10 to 12, all pupils study
English as a first language and have an option between Afrikaans and
Zulu as a second language. Nkosi is still pushing for the school to
offer Zulu as a first language subject to pupils wanting to study it.
But the school's headmaster, David Magner, said this would be
impossible to implement as he had huge staffing constraints and a low
budget. Ironically, the court also heard that Nkosi owed the school
money for school fees. Magner said offering Zulu as a first language
would lead to segregation between black and white pupils.

Full story:
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=105&art_id=vn20080727085743865C807600


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