[lg policy] South Africa: Afriforum hopeful over language row

[Harold Schiffman]

Afriforum hopeful over language row

Jul 6, 2011 | Michael Tlhakudi

AFRIFORUM Youth is still confident that they will reach an
out-of-court settlement with Central University of Technology over a
language policy dispute. The youth forum filed a complaint in the
Bloemfontein Equality Court on March 31 after the university changed
the language policy from Afrikaans to English without consulting
students. AfriForum cited unfair language discrimination.

AfriForum spokesperson Ernst Roets said students were not consulted in
the matter, and that their decision to enrol at the university was
because they were offered courses in Afrikaans. Students, who had
mostly enrolled for a degree in agriculture, were not pleased with the
management pronouncement to change the language policy to English.

Roets said they had engaged the university about the possible strategy
that could be used to offer the predominately Afrikaans-speaking
students with assistance. He said: "We have written the letter to the
university requesting them to re-visit the matter with the aim of
coming to an out-of-court settlement."
Roets said that the students were only told on registration that their
course was going to be in English and they felt that this was language
discrimination.

University spokesperson Leandra Jordaan said they were not aware of
the letter. She said as far as they were concerned, they would offer
the course in English. "Nothing has changed. Our lawyers are still
going ahead with the hearing. We are not intending to change our
language policy as it was agreed upon by the management," said
Jordaan. She said the affected students would go ahead with English as
their medium of instruction.

She further said that they were awaiting their legal team to finalise
the court hearing date. "We certainly hope that the case will be heard
way in advance before the final exams," said Jordaan. However, Roets
was upbeat that the matter would be settled soon. "We hope we would
have settled the matter when the students return from their winter
holidays sometime in July," Roets said.

http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2011/07/06/afriforum-hopeful-over-language-row

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