[lg policy] South Africa: Stellenbosch agrees to keep Afrikaans

[Harold Schiffman]

Stellenbosch agrees to keep Afrikaans
news/crime-courts <http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts> /
13 February 2016 at 14:57pm
*By:* *Fatima Schroeder*

Cape Town - Afrikaans has returned to Stellenbosch University as a medium
of instruction after a Western Cape High Court dispute over the issue with
activist group AfriForum Youth was settled on Friday.

As a result of the settlement, a group of nine English-speaking students,
who are at various stages of their studies at the university, abandoned
their bid to intervene in the proceedings.

But their attorney, Mandy Mudarikwa of the Legal Resources Centre, said
they were still considering their options.

In affidavits they filed before abandoning their application, the students
said they had difficulty following lectures presented in Afrikaans, and
many found that the use of interpretation devices did not improve the
situation.

One student had stopped attending classes.

Some said they last used Afrikaans at primary school level, while one
student said she could not follow the “academic Afrikaans” used during
lectures.

Another student, Rabia Abba Omar, said she had attended school in Joburg
and had lived in Muscat, Oman, and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

She had no knowledge of or ability to speak, write or understand Afrikaans
and often had to ask fellow students to explain the lessons.

Thokozani Chili, a third-year engineering student, said her home language
was Zulu.

“I could not follow the content of the class because the translations were
hard to follow, since I could hear both the translator and the lecturer at
the same time.”

She said she had been forced to leave the university.

Philemon Mogale, a final-year engineering student, said meetings in
residences were conducted exclusively in Afrikaans, “which fed into the
racist traditions which permeated many of the more traditionally Afrikaner
residences”.

The language controversy began last year, when student activist movement
Open Stellenbosch lobbied for the introduction of English as the medium of
instruction.

AfriForum took the issue to court after the university’s engineering and
law faculties decided last month to use English as the primary language of
instruction. This, they claimed, was in conflict with the university’s
language policy.

The matter was settled on Friday after the university gave AfriForum a
written undertaking that steps would be taken to ensure all faculties
implement the university’s language policy and plan, as well as the
language specifications published in the 2016 yearbook.

This meant Afrikaans would have equal status to English as a medium of
instruction, AfriForum Youth said.

http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/stellenbosch-agrees-to-keep-afrikaans-1984129


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