[lg policy] Afrikaans residences at University of Pretoria defy request for inclusivity

[Harold Schiffman]

 Afrikaans residences at University of Pretoria defy request for
inclusivity
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Virginia Keppler
[image: EFF Student Command members argue with police outside the
department of higher education and training in Pretoria yesterday. They are
protesting because they are unable to register at higher institutions of
learning due to historical debt. Picture: Jacques Nelles]

EFF Student Command members argue with police outside the department of
higher education and training in Pretoria yesterday. They are protesting
because they are unable to register at higher institutions of learning due
to historical debt. Picture: Jacques Nelles
The university has decided to exclude students in the residences from all
university activities, including the upcoming 1nSync and Rag events.

The management of Sonop and De Goede Hoop residences, the Afrikaans
majority-white residences hosting mostly University of Pretoria students,
will not make any changes despite allegations they are not inclusive of
other races and languages.

A Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural,
Religious and Linguistic Communities investigation of De Goede Hoop last
year found that it was a white-only Afrikaans residence.

It was thus not representative of all the demographics of South African
society.

The commission recommended that the residence’s admission committee
represent all the demographics of SA society; that the commission should
help to appoint members of the admission committee and that the Afrikaans
essay as part of the application for residence should be scrapped.

But Kallie Kriel, AfriForum CEO and chairperson of the board of De Goede
Hoop, said the commission had exceeded their powers and that the
recommendations would not be implemented at the residences.

“It seems that transformation means you have to be exclusively English.
“Sonop has a dual language policy,” he added.

University spokesperson Rikus Delport said De Goede Hoop was not registered
as a private residence with the university.

The university has decided to exclude students in the residences from all
university activities, including the upcoming 1nSync and Rag events.

Regarding this, Kriel said: “We have already started our own rugby
tournament and other sports and we are all-inclusive.”

The commission’s investigation was set in motion when social activist Yusuf
Abramjee complained in March 2017 that: “The institution’s criteria are
intended to exclude members of other races who are not Afrikaans speakers.

“Other than writing an application for residence, each applicant must write
an Afrikaans essay wherein the student must state why he or she should be
considered.”

Abramjee said only Christian applicants were considered and that the
admission criteria did not contribute to nation-building and social
cohesion.

Chairperson of the commission Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said they conducted a
site inspection on November 24 last year.

They found that “only white people were resident in De Goede Hoop and there
was no person of any other colour”.

But Kriel said that at the time of the commission’s visit most of the
students in the residence had already gone home for the holiday.

He added: “The commission also just wanted to speak to one coloured student
and excluded other students.”



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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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