AfriForum: "History has disproven Vice-Chancellor Kgwadi's reassurances re language"
AfriForum has taken note of Prof Dan Kgwadi's remarks yesterday that "Afrikaans will never die out at the PotchefstroomCampus of the NWU", but that the access of non-Afrikaans speakers to the institution may not be limited. At first, these words may sound reassuring, but unfortunately practice has proven that the words offer no comfort.
Other tertiaryinstitutions where Afrikaans medium education had been offered, made the same statements when switching to dual orparallel medium instruction. Thereafter the decline in the offer of Afrikaans medium instruction started and students increasingly felt alienated to the degree where more and more of them migrated to other campuses.
According to Alana Bailey, Deputy CEO of AfriForum concerned with language issues, the University of Johannesburg is a striking example in this regard. "In the previous century, Afrikaners in Johannesburg desired access to education intheir mother language. For years, ordinary people raised funds and eventually the Rand Afrikaans University was established. With the same words of comfort that Afrikaans would never be threatened, the university then transformedand today in practice the universities in Johannesburg again all are English."
"Prof Kgwadi continually refers to the fact that non-Afrikaans speakers cannot be excluded. They are not excluded fromNWU though. Simultaneous translation offers a brilliant multilingual alternative. So brilliant in fact, that other institutions,including the University of Stellenbosch, are testing and implementing the system. Suddenly it is now being alleged thatno evidence proves the system's efficacy and that it should be reevaluated - this amounts to the redesigning of the wheel," she added.
Bailey says it is a fallacy that prospective students can be empowered by denying others of their rights. "Access to mother-language teaching is an internationally recognized right. At the Potchefstroom campus Afrikaans students enjoy this right, while English and Setswana students also have access to education in their respective mother languages.
Had the main medium of instruction however been English (which in the long run, as has already been seen, in effect will mean the only medium of instruction), the right of the Afrikaans students would have been denied. Except for a small minority of students who have English as their mother language, and can choose from more than thirty English campuses in the country, the rest of the students would then all be ‘equal' in the sense that they would all be studying in a second language. In which way does this amount to empowerment or the recognition of students' rights?" Bailey wanted to know.
Prof Kgwadi alleges mother-language education primarily is a need of older people "who are struggling to adapt". The fact that young Afrikaans students from all over the country choose to study at Potchefstroom, proves their need for an Afrikaans tertiary institution. The recognition of the right to mother-language education is a right that is only being properly recognised now. "Imposing a single colonial language on all in fact is the dinosaur in the argument," Bailey said.
Statement issued by Alana Bailey, Deputy CEO, AfriForum, June 26 2014
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