<div dir="ltr"><h2>Stellenbosch report opens up to English</h2>
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<img src="http://www.bdlive.co.za/incoming/2015/09/02/stellenbosch-september-1-2015/ALTERNATES/crop_400x250/Stellenbosch+September+1++2015" alt="Students hold placards at a protest against alleged racism on campus brought to light by a documentary, Luister (Listen), in Stellenbosch on Tuesday. Picture: AFP PHOTO/RODGER BOSCH " height="250px" width="400px">
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Students hold placards at a protest against language
policy after the release of a documentary, Luister (Listen), in
Stellenbosch. Picture: AFP PHOTO/RODGER BOSCH </div>
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<div class=""><p>STELLENBOSCH University’s language task team
has recommended that Afrikaans and English should have equal status as
mediums of teaching at the institution.</p><p>Student pressure group
Open Stellenbosch has been agitating for the language policy to be
tweaked, arguing that it is biased towards Afrikaans, thereby
disadvantaging black students.</p><p>Earlier this year, a language task
team was established to make specific recommendations on language policy
as well as the implementation of a language plan.</p><p>On Monday, the task team released its report to the student representative council (SRC).</p><p>The
university said options pertaining to the acceleration of
parallel-medium teaching would be investigated urgently, and priority
given to the conversion of modules with high enrolments to
parallel-medium teaching next year. The student feedback process on the
language plan would be revised to ensure a rapid response.</p><p>The
university has said it wants to provide 75% of its modules in English
and Afrikaans in the coming years. Postgraduate classes are already in
English.</p><p>The current language policy, which critics say is vague,
states that "Afrikaans and English are applied in various usage
configurations", while "parallel-medium teaching and real-time
educational interpretation are used as preferred options where
practically feasible and affordable".</p><p>Some black students and Open
Stellenbosch have argued that this policy essentially neglects those
who cannot understand Afrikaans since the interpretation service is
often of poor quality and things are easily lost in translation.</p><p>Prof
Arnold Schoonwinkel, vice-rector for learning and teaching, said on
Monday longer-term strategies should be formulated in partnership with
faculties to increase the multilingual offering above 75% in English and
above 75% in Afrikaans much earlier than 2020. "It is simply not
possible to change to fully fledged parallel-medium teaching in the
remaining months of this year to allow for all classes to be taught in
English and Afrikaans from January 2016. Part of the process is a
consideration of the physical infrastructure requirements and timetable
changes."</p><p>Comment from the SRC and Open Stellenbosch was not available on Monday night.</p><p><a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/education/2015/09/22/stellenbosch-report-opens-up-to-english">http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/education/2015/09/22/stellenbosch-report-opens-up-to-english</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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