<div dir="ltr"><h2>Sparks to fly when Maties brass meets</h2>
<div class="">by <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/staffprofiles/2012/08/02/bekezela-phakathi-profile">Bekezela Phakathi</a>, 14 September 2015, 05:54</div>
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<img src="http://www.bdlive.co.za/incoming/2013/01/03/blade-nzimande-xxx-high-res/ALTERNATES/crop_400x250/Blade+Nzimande+XXX+high+res" alt="Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande. Picture: SOWETAN" height="250px" width="400px">
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Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande. Picture: SOWETAN</div>
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<strong>Companies and organisations: </strong><a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/tags/organisations/departmentofhighereducationandtraining/">Department of Higher Education and Training</a></li><li>
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<div class=""><p>THE stage is set for a heated meeting of the
Stellenbosch University council at the end of this month with signs
that members are at odds with one another on the transformation debate.</p><p>This
is despite the council declaring in Parliament earlier this month that
it was united on the salience of transformation at the university.</p><p>Whatever
happens, the September 28 meeting of the 30-member council is likely to
be a historic session for one of SA’s oldest universities.</p><p>Up for
discussion is a progress report on the task teams that are working on
the various student groups’ language proposals and claims, says
university spokesman Martin Viljoen.</p><p>Coming after the Rhodes Must
Fall campaign at the University of Cape Town, the transformation
spotlight turned to Stellenbosch University, with the establishment of
Open Stellenbosch earlier in the year.</p><p>The group, predominantly
made up of students, said it wanted to tackle "institutionalised racism"
at the university by highlighting racial exclusion and the university’s
controversial language policy.</p><p>The university council has an
oversight responsibility for academic and operational issues, and
institutional, admission and language policies.</p><p>Members of the
council include vice-chancellor Prof Wim de Villiers, vice-rector for
social impact, transformation and personnel Prof Nico Koopman, media
tycoon Koos Bekker and Piet le Roux.</p><p>Mr le Roux caused uproar on
social media after a controversial tweet last week in which he seemed to
denounce the transformation agenda.</p><p>This came just a week after
the university council had told Parliament’s portfolio committee on
higher education that it was united on driving transformation at the
institution.</p><p>"Blade Nzimande en #transformanie gaan nie wen nie.
Ondersteun die Afrikaanse Alumni-vereniging. (Blade Nzimande and
transformation won’t win. Support the Afrikaanse Alumni Association),"
Mr le Roux tweeted, in an apparent response to Higher Education and
Training Minister Blade Nzimande’s calls for transformation to be
"radicalised" at Stellenbosch.</p><p>Mr le Roux is the convener of the
recently formed Afrikaanse Alumni-vereniging. The group has said the
"continuing attack on Afrikaans as the language of instruction is
unconstitutional under the banner of ‘transformation’."</p><p>After the
controversial tweet, the hashtag #pietlerouxmustfall started trending on
Twitter and Open Stellenbosch again called for the council to be
dissolved.</p><p>The activist group — now emboldened by the Rhodes Must
Fall campaign — has long agitated for the dissolution of the university
council, blaming it for the snail’s pace of transformation at the
institution.</p><p>Open Stellenbosch seized upon a video, Luister, which chronicles incidences of racism on the campus.</p><p>The film was produced by media company Contraband Cape Town and distributed on social media by members of Open Stellenbosch.</p><p>One
university staff member agrees that the council has not done much to
support transformation. "It is predominantly made up of alumni who want
to maintain the status quo … so it will be interesting to see how the
transformation debate unfolds," says the staff member, who requested
anonymity.</p><p>Members of Open Stellenbosch are demanding that the
university pays more attention to transformation issues and that it
makes all classes available in English. They argue that the current
language policy is biased towards Afrikaans.</p><p>But the university
has maintained that its language policy gives equal status to English
and Afrikaans, saying it wants to provide 75% of its modules in both
languages in the coming years. Postgraduate classes are already in
English.</p><p>The university's language policy states that "Afrikaans and English are applied in various usage configurations".</p><p>It
further says that "parallel medium teaching and real-time educational
interpretation are used as preferred options where practically feasible
and affordable".</p><p>Some black students at the institution and
members of the Open Stellenbosch group argue that this policy
essentially neglects people who cannot understand Afrikaans as the
interpretation service is often of poor quality and things are easily
lost in translation.</p><p>Constitutional law expert and Stellenbosch
University alumni Pierre de Vos said in a blog last week that attempts
to transform the institution — both in terms of its demographic make-up
and its culture — have been hampered by its language policy.</p><p>"I
would therefore argue that any language policy that made it more
difficult for non-Afrikaans-speaking black students to study at
Stellenbosch would be discriminatory. Such a policy would not be
reasonable and Afrikaans students would not have a right to have it
maintained," Prof de Vos said.</p><p>He also said, ultimately, the issue
is about correcting the wrongs of apartheid and creating a fairer and
more equal society — "although many defenders of the status quo will
deny this".</p><p>Speaking to Business Day, Prof de Vos said:
"Personally, I believe all universities should become more serious about
multilingualism, assuming that English is, as a practical matter, the
academic language, but also trying to accommodate linguistic diversity
by encouraging students and staff to become more multilingual.</p><p>"For
example, why do universities like the University of Cape Town or
Stellenbosch not give extra admission points to applicants who can speak
isiXhosa?" he asked.</p><p>Department of Higher Education spokesman
Khaye Nkwanyana says Mr Nzimande believes transformation has evolved too
slowly at former white institutions, especially at former Afrikaans
entities.</p><p>"Dual-language instruction is a constitutionally
guaranteed option and buttressed by the 2002 language policy," Mr
Nkwanyana says.</p><p>"But where this exists, in this context of
Afrikaans and English, parity usage of these languages must be
guaranteed and be put in practice. None must supersede the other so that
nonspeakers of the former suffer prejudice because of its prominence in
teaching."</p><p>Nkwanyana argues that an institutional culture that is
still conservatively white and Afrikaans-oriented is the main reason
why there is an unwelcoming environment for black academic staff who
struggle to survive in these institutions.</p><p>Prof de Villiers has
made a commitment to engage with all stakeholders on the transformation
debate, although he has decried the tactics of Open Stellenbosch.</p><p>"They
want to set the agenda for meetings and interactions with them are not
constructive … they want to engage as a collective. We are committed to
open discussion and will continue doing so," he says.</p><p><a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/education/2015/09/14/sparks-to-fly-when-maties-brass-meets">http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/education/2015/09/14/sparks-to-fly-when-maties-brass-meets</a><br></p></div><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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