Court upholds MECs decision on Afrikaans

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From Business Day, _ Tuesday, 25 October 2005

Court upholds MECs decision on Afrikaans
Sue Blaine

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Education Correspondent

AN ORDER by Northern Cape education MEC Archie Lucas that three of the
province's Afrikaans-medium schools should allow teaching in English to
accommodate black pupils was upheld by a Kimberley judge yesterday. We are
very relieved, Lucas said yesterday of the judgment that will see Kurumans
Kalahari High School and Seodin Primary School and the Northern Cape
Agricultural High School in Jankempdorp change their language and
admissions policies. The Northern Cape High Court judgment is opposite to
that made by a Western Cape High Court judge in the case of Cape Towns
Mikro Primary School that the schools governing body should set the
institutions language policy.

Lawyer Papi Motingoe, who represented the education department, said,
however, that the issues in the Northern Cape case were different. It was
not a language decision, it was a places decision, Motingoe said.  Lucas
ordered the language and admissions policy changes because of overcrowding
in other schools in Northern Cape towns, while in the Mikro case there had
been places available in other schools for the 21 children involved.

The teacher-pupil ratio at the mostly white Kalahari High School is 1:28,
with only 436 pupils attending. The mostly white Seodin Primary School has
a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:24. These numbers contrast with Kurumans
Bankara Bodulong Combined School, where the teacher-pupil ratio is 1:49.
Handing down judgment, Northern Cape Judge President Frans Kgomo said the
court found that the three schools did not have an approved language
policy.

It would be a sad day in the South African historical annals that hundreds
of children remained illiterate or dropped out of school because they were
excluded from underutilised schools purportedly to protect and preserve
the status of certain schools as single-medium Afrikaans schools, Kgomos
judgment reads. Kgomo also found a suggestion that the Northern Cape
education department targeted only Afrikaans schools was wrong.

(It)  is over-simplistic but certainly not the case in the current matter,
he said. After the Mikro ruling in February, Education Minister Naledi
Pandor discussed with delegates from the FW de Klerk Foundation the place
and status of Afrikaans mother tongue tuition in schools. They resolved to
conduct research into the demand for Afrikaans as a medium of school
instruction.

Motingoe said the schools had been forced to comply with Lucas order while
the litigation was afoot, and the status quo at the schools would now
remain. Chairman of the Federation of Associations of Governing Bodies of
South African Schools, Paul Colditz was not immediately available for
comment.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A105688