South Africa: Ho ërskool verdict 'insults' Afrikaners

[Harold Schiffman]

PRETORIA
Hoërskool verdict 'insults' Afrikaners

Fri, 28 Mar 2008

The guilty verdict handed down by the Mpumalanga Education Department
against the principal of Hoërskool Ermelo was "an insult to the Afrikaans
community," the DA said on Friday "The fact that Koos Kruger was charged in
the first place and the predictable outcome exposes the ANC's perverted
desire to drive Afrikaans as a medium of instruction out of schools," said
DA provincial spokesperson Anthony Benadie. He said that the department had
targeted Kruger because it could not silence the School Governing Body
(SGB). "The SGB, charged with the power of determining the language policy
of a school was merely exercising their rights, and Mr Kruger had to carry
out the instructions of the SGB accordingly," the DA said.

What the department failed to understand was that it was the SGB and not the
principal who had challenged them in court, Benadie said. "It is blatant
that the department's intention was to punish the principal for the actions
of the SGB and hoped that such punishment would convince the SGB to drop the
legal proceedings against the department." Benadie said that there was no
doubt that the decision to find Kruger guilty and in probability expel him
as the principal of Hoërskool Ermelo, was a decision taken before the
disciplinary hearings of the department even commenced. Considering the
magnitude of the problems crippling the Mpumalanga Education Department, the
DA believed that rather than victimising and prosecuting Kruger, it should
focus on delivering textbooks and effectively managing and administering
exam procedures.

"It is absurd, that Mr Kruger is now being personally destroyed by an ANC
witch-hunt, to achieve political points," the DA said. The school had never
barred a black pupil, willing to be taught in Afrikaans, from enrolling,
Benadie said. The issue at hand, he said, was the language policy, while the
government was attempting to portray the issue as being about a race policy.
"Afrikaans is seriously under threat, Afrikaners are seriously under threat,
racial conciliation is seriously under threat and ultimately democracy is
seriously under threat — All at the hands of the ANC."

The Mpumalanga Education Department could not be reached for comment.

http://iafrica.com/news/sa/478669.htm

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