Stellenbosch weighs Afrikaans policy

Tue Nov 15 16:04:31 UTC 2005

>>From Business Day (S. Africa)  _
Tuesday, 15 November 2005

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Stellenbosch weighs Afrikaans policy
Sue Blaine

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Education Correspondent

STELLENBOSCH Universitys council will discuss its language policy when it
meets today, in light of the alumni bodys vote last week in favour of a
return to a pro-Afrikaans policy. The yes vote allows the convocation to
present the motion to the universitys council today, pressing its view
that the institution should position itself as an Afrikaans university.
The alumni body, which has six representatives on the 34-member council,
making it the single largest bloc of members, is influential, although it
has no direct decision-making powers, university spokesman Martin Viljoen
said on Friday.

The Stellenbosch convocation, which voted 623 to 76 to demand greater
protection for Afrikaans, has about 60000 members, and all past students
are members. Prof Vic Webb, of Pretoria Universitys Centre for Research
into the Politics of Language, said the motion was counterproductive
because it was based on a cultural argument that could not be sustained in
a multilingual society. Webb said the alumni body should have argued on
educational grounds for the protection of Afrikaans, which had lost a lot
of ground in recent years and had to be protected just the same as the
countrys other official languages.

Many members of the convocation who voted on Thursday night are opposed to
the policy introduced under university rector Prof Chris Brink to include
English as a language of instruction alongside Afrikaans. Brink says he is
trying to protect Afrikaans while accommodating other languages. He said
on Thursday night that research showed people learnt best in their mother
tongue, but in Western Cape, 79,5% of the coloured population is Afrikaans
speaking, and on a national level is the group with the lowest
participation rate in higher education.

Stellenbosch, as a role player, can make an important contribution in this
regard, he said. Two of the provinces three universities University of the
Western Cape and University of Cape Town are English medium, even though
more than half of the provinces people are Afrikaans speaking. At
Stellenbosch, 60,37% of students select Afrikaans as their home language.
Brink says Stellenboschs problem is similar to the European Unions, where
English is seen as overtaking many of the continents smaller languages.

How can we create a sustainable space for a small language in the presence
of a large international language? Brink wrote last month. Stellenbosch is
under attack from all sides, having been accused of using Afrikaans, seen
by many as the language of apartheid, to exclude black students, few of
whom speak Afrikaans well or want to study in it. It also faces charges
from hardliners of deserting the language, which needs protection, from a
direct attack. The Freedom Front Plus, influential academics and business
leaders have claimed Afrikaans is under direct attack countrywide because
of its history and because English, as SAs only world language, is so
widely spoken .

Many believe that the fate of Afrikaans is similar to that of the other
nine indigenous languages, which are less developed academically and have
less clout, despite the constitutional equality of all 11 official
languages.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A112578