44% of Maties convocation want Afrikaans

[Harold F. Schiffman]

44% of Maties convocation want Afrikaans

By Karen Breytenbach

A poll at Stellenbosch University on the eve of the election of a new
council found that most of its convocation members wished it to be a
world-class institution, and nearly half wanted the university to be
purely Afrikaans. The university uses Afrikaans as the primary language of
instruction for undergraduates, while English is used more widely at
post-graduate level. A heated public debate about the university's
language policy sprang from a controversial policy of dual-medium
instruction in all first to third-year classrooms in the faculty of arts.

Debates in newspapers and on the Internet show that language purists like
Hermann Giliomee believe devoting equal attention to both languages in one
lecture puts Afrikaans on "a slippery slope". Other council candidates,
like business tycoon Christo Wiese and Carte Blanche presenter Ruda
Landman, are in favour of a bilingual language policy for the university
to fit into a globalising world. The survey was conducted by Blue Stream
Consulting.

University spokesperson on language vice-rector Russel Botman expressed
concern at convocation members' limited grasp of the issues. Few were
aware of the prospective council members' viewpoints on language, for
example. According to university spokesperson Mohamed Shaikh, 70 percent
supported the language policy and 98 percent were in favour of
Stellenbosch being internationally competitive. But 44 percent wanted
Stellenbosch to be exclusively Afrikaans.

"The poll found 83 percent of convocation members are aware the university
promotes Afrikaans. Support for the language policy was greatest among
woman members, with 81 percent being in favour of the current language
policy," said Shaikh.

Botman suggested the university should "undertake risk analysis of the
language policy".

This article was originally published on page 3 of The Cape Times on March
20, 2006

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