[lg policy] South Africa: No change to UP language policy despite court order

[Harold Schiffman]

 No change to UP language policy despite court order
AddThis Sharing Buttons
Share to Facebook3Share to TwitterShare to WhatsAppShare to Email
Rorisang Kgosana
[image: University of Pretoria building. 13 July 2014. Picture: Supplied]

University of Pretoria building. 13 July 2014. Picture: Supplied
The university said the current policy still stands, pending the outcome of
an appeal application by AfriForum.

Despite a high court ruling to continue phasing out Afrikaans as a medium
of instruction at the University of Pretoria (UP) from 2017, timetables for
first year students showed scheduled Afrikaans classes.

According to the timetables, Afrikaans classes are offered across the
Hatfield, Groenkloof and School of Engineering campuses, with bilingual
classes across all campuses, including the Mamelodi campus.

The university said the language policy remained the same as AfriForum
filed an application for leave to appeal the court’s December ruling.

UP spokesperson Rikus Delport told The Citizen the current policy still
stands, pending the appeal application outcome.

“Once a decision is made and in our favour, it needs to go to the
department of higher education for approval before we can change the
policy. We don’t know yet when that will be as the application is
apparently not on the roll yet,” he said.

AfriForum, however, said not only should the education department approve
the new language policy, they first had to grant permission to change the
institution’s statute.

Referring to a letter sent in July last year, AfriForum deputy CEO Alana
Bailey said the department had refused to grant the university permission
to change the language policy until the court process was concluded.

*READ MORE: UP’s language shift on hold for legal nod
<http://citizen.co.za/news/1242432/ups-language-shift-on-hold-for-legal-nod/>*

The letter read: “The minister has not yet taken a decision on the issue
and shall not take such a decision to approve and publish the amended
Institutional Statute of the University of Pretoria pending the
determination of the high court review proceedings.”

Former leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters Student Command at UP and
also leader of the #AfrikaansMustFall movement, Kabelo Mahlobogwane, said
AfriForum was in a “state of denial” over transformation at the university.

“This is our struggle. We are going to force transformation with all means
necessary. They [AfriForum] are confronted by a reality, which is hard for
them to believe. The time for white Afrikaner supremacy is no more.
AfriForum will have to accept that,” he said.

http://citizen.co.za/news/news-national/1423428/no-change-to-up-language-policy-despite-court-order/


-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its
members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or
sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write
directly to the original sender of any offensive message.  A copy of this
may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman, Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20170210/4b6a3a34/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list