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<header><h1>'Afrikaans use denies black students access'</h1><p class="gmail-meta"><a href="https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news">News</a><span> / </span><span>13 June 2018, 08:51am</span><span> / </span><span><strong>Bongani Nkosi</strong></span></p><div><div class="gmail-social-icons"><ul><li><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iol.co.za%2Fthe-star%2Fnews%2Fafrikaans-use-denies-black-students-access-15451156" title="Share on Facebook"><img src="https://www.iol.co.za/assets/images/social-icons/facebook-rnd-ico.svg" alt="Share on Facebook" id="gmail-article-facebook-share"></a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?via=IOL&text='Afrikaans%20use%20denies%20black%20students%20access'&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iol.co.za%2Fthe-star%2Fnews%2Fafrikaans-use-denies-black-students-access-15451156" title="Share on Twitter"><img src="https://www.iol.co.za/assets/images/social-icons/twitter-rnd-ico.svg" alt="Share on Twitter" id="gmail-article-twitter-share"></a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&title='Afrikaans%20use%20denies%20black%20students%20access'&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iol.co.za%2Fthe-star%2Fnews%2Fafrikaans-use-denies-black-students-access-15451156" title="Share on LinkedIn"><img src="https://www.iol.co.za/assets/images/social-icons/linkedin-rnd-ico.svg" alt="Share on LinkedIn" id="gmail-article-linkedin-share"></a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news/afrikaans-use-denies-black-students-access-15451156#email-share" class="gmail-show-popup" title="Share via Email"><img src="https://www.iol.co.za/assets/images/social-icons/email-rnd-ico.svg" alt="Tell a Friend" id="gmail-article-email-share"></a></li></ul></div></div></header><div class="gmail-article-body"><figure><div class="gmail-sixteen-nine"><img class="gmail-imgLandScape" src="https://image.iol.co.za/image/1/process/620x349?source=https://inm-baobab-prod-eu-west-1.s3.amazonaws.com/public/inm/media/image/iol/2018/06/13/15451156/stt.jpg&operation=CROP&offset=0x-1&resize=620x348" alt="" title="The highest court in the land was now poised to be the final arbiter in the raging battle by Afrikaans lobby groups to have the language reinstated as a parallel medium of instruction at a number of universities."></div><figcaption><span class="gmail-imageCaption">The
highest court in the land was now poised to be the final arbiter in the
raging battle by Afrikaans lobby groups to have the language reinstated
as a parallel medium of instruction at a number of universities.</span></figcaption></figure><div class="gmail-articleBodyMore" id="gmail-article-more-body">Afrikaans
simply had to fall as a dominant language at Stellenbosch University
(SU) because it denied black students access, the institution says in
papers filed at the Constitutional Court.
<p>The highest court in the land was now poised to be the final arbiter
in the raging battle by Afrikaans lobby groups to have the language
reinstated as a parallel medium of instruction at a number of
universities.</p>
<p>SU will square off at the court with Gelyke Kanse, a lobby
group that wants the Western Cape-based institution to reinstate
Afrikaans as a parallel medium of instruction. </p><div class="gmail-teads-inread gmail-sm-screen" style="height:391px;text-align:center;max-width:100%;overflow:hidden;margin:16px 0px"><div style="margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px"><div class="gmail-teads-ui-components-adchoices" style="display:block"></div><div class="gmail-teads-ui-components-label" style="display:block">ADVERTISING</div><div class="gmail-teads-player" id="gmail-teads0"></div><div class="gmail-teads-ui-components-credits" style="display:block"><a href="http://inread-experience.teads.tv" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span class="gmail-teads-ui-components-credits-colored">inRead</span> invented by Teads</a></div></div></div>
<p>Gelyke Kanse brought an application aiming to set aside a high court
ruling that favoured the university’s 2016 decision to adopt English as
its single medium of instruction. </p>
<p>In a founding affidavit filed at the Constitutional Court, the
group’s counsels, Jan Heunis and Karrisha Pillay, argued that the
university’s new language policy was inconsistent with the constitution.
</p><div id="gmail-ad-inarticle-middle"><div id="gmail-google_ads_iframe_/116466607/IOL/the-star/news/afrikaans-use-denies-black-students-access-15451156_4__container__" style="border:0pt none;display:inline-block;width:300px;height:250px"></div></div>
<p>The constitution granted everyone a right to be educated in an
official language of their choice, provided this was practical, they
said. “We submit that the ongoing annihilation of Afrikaans as a
language of instruction does not accord with the positive obligation
imposed on national government by section 6(4) of the constitution.”</p>
<p>They further accused the university of not dumping Afrikaans for
transformation purposes, but as a reaction to the growing number of
white, English-speaking students and lecturers. </p>
<p>“That the Anglicisation of the SU had little to do with
transformation is evident, for example by the fact that 85% of the
English-speaking students who entered SU between 1995 and 2015 were
white,” Heunis and Pillay said. </p>
<p>“Accordingly, we submit, the new language policy is aimed at
addressing the needs of English-speaking white students, as opposed to
students of colour.</p>
<p>“This does not meet the objectives of racial equity or integration.”</p>
<p>The university rejected this claim, saying the majority of its new
students in recent years were black. “It is difficult to understand why
this is relevant,” said SU’s counsels, Jeremy Muller and Nick de Jager,
in their responding affidavit. </p>
<p>They said 63% of the institution’s first-year students in 2015 were
blacks who did not write Afrikaans in matric. The majority of black
African students could not learn in Afrikaans,” Muller and De Jager
said. </p>
<p>The policy SU adopted in 2014, which used English and Afrikaans as
parallel languages of instruction, was not favourable to black students.
</p>
<p>“Whatever the reason for the increasing use of English at SU over
earlier decades, the reality in 2016 was that the 2014 policy
disproportionately denied black African students access to education,”
argued Muller and De Jager. </p>
<p>AfriForum has waged - and lost - similar legal battles against Unisa,
the University of Pretoria and Free State University. The North-West
University was now the only university still using Afrikaans and
English. </p>
<p>SU said Gelyke Kanse was barking up the wrong tree over phasing out of Afrikaans at the country’s universities. </p>
<p>“The applicants’ real concern - the nationwide decline in Afrikaans
tertiary education - should be addressed by a challenge to the
ministerial policy, not a challenge to individual universities’ language
policies that are consistent with that policy.”</p>
<p>Constitutional Court registrar Kgwadi Makgakga has informed the parties that the matter will be heard on September 13. </p></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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