<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="bold">Language dispute at agriculture college not resolved - SRC</h1>
<span id="spnDate" class="block datestamp">2015-08-19 14:27</span>
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<p class="left">Thomas Hartleb, News24</p>
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<p>Cape Town – A dispute
over language policy at the Elsenburg Agricultural Training Institute in
the Western Cape is ongoing, despite claims that "progress" has been
made.</p><p>While AfriForum Youth said they felt "positive" about the
way forward, the college's Student Representative Council (SRC) said
they felt that non-white, non-Afrikaans speaking students were still
being victimised.</p><p>The dispute relates to the language of instruction at the institution.</p><p>Classes
were disrupted on Thursday and Friday last week by students unhappy
with the implementation of the institution's dual English/Afrikaans
language policy. SRC chairperson Sabelo Ngcobo said Afrikaans was being
prioritised. They wanted classes to be in English only.</p><p>The
Western Cape agriculture department is looking at the institution’s
language policy and has started mediation efforts between students and
management.</p><p>AfriForum Youth chairperson Henk Maree said discussions had been held yesterday with management.</p><p><strong>Positive about way forward</strong></p><p>"We
really do feel positive about the way forward," he said, adding that
the dispute was between English and Afrikaans and not between black and
white students. There were black and coloured Afrikaans-speaking
students on campus, said Maree.</p><p>He said about 70% to 80% of students were Afrikaans speaking, citing statistics he said management had provided.</p><p>Maree
said the teaching method currently employed was for a lecturer to go
through the material, page by page, first in English, then in Afrikaans.
He said this was time-consuming and proposed that trained translators
be employed. </p><p>But Ngcobo objected to the intervention of "outsiders" like AfriForum in the dispute.
</p><p>“If you are not Afrikaans and white, you are made to feel like an outsider,” he said.</p><p>Ngcobo
said if AfriForum was getting involved, the SRC too would look at
getting the help of other structures to back their cause. <br></p><p>“We
will call in any other formations, be it political, be it taxi owners,
that sympathise with our cause. We find ourselves facing outsiders. This
is not an English-Afrikaans matter.”<br></p><p>Western Cape agriculture
department spokesperson, Petro van Rhyn, said in a statement that in
the meantime the 50/50 English Afrikaans medium policy would stay in
place. <br></p><p><a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Language-dispute-at-agriculture-college-not-resolved-SRC-20150819">http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Language-dispute-at-agriculture-college-not-resolved-SRC-20150819</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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