STATEMENT: STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY COUNCIL MEETING OF 30 NOVEMBER 2015

2 December 2015

Open Stellenbosch strongly reiterates its call for the dissolution of Council. It has become increasingly apparent that the Council is against transformation and multilingualism is merely used as a front for maintaining the privileged status of ‘Standaard Afrikaans’. The commitment Council has made to maintain the language policy adopted on 22 November 2014 indicates a failure to acknowledge that the conception and implementation of this policy is flawed.

The alternative language policy proposed by Open Stellenbosch has not been taken into consideration by Council despite the fact that, presently, it is the only proposal that prioritises access and promotes an enabling environment for true multilingualism, while taking cognisance of the intersectionality of language, class, gender, race and disability as experienced in academic, employment and social environments.

Management, however, has been left with the task of creatively interpreting the current language policy in terms of their statement released on 12 November 2015, which declared that English would be used as the primary medium of instruction and internal communication in 2016. Management received overwhelming support from staff, deans, Senate and student representative bodies to proceed in accordance with its statement of 12 November.

Open Stellenbosch, too, is in agreement with the principles of that statement. In general the statement was met with a positive response from those in favour of substantive transformation. Council’s decision to overrule management’s statement of 12 November points to their anti-transformation agenda.

The current language policy has proven, in its first year of implementation, to be an obstacle for many students. In statements released on 1 December 2015, (see here and here) Council stresses the point of extending and increasing Afrikaans as an academic offering. This is also indicated in the language policy in its current form, which emphasises the safeguarding of Afrikaans.

Although Council has sworn a commitment to allowing English to exceed its set target if need be this can only done if it concurrently increases the academic offering in Afrikaans. Multilingualism cannot be used in this sense to sugarcoat the ideological framework in which Afrikaans continues to be heralded above other languages in this institution.

If other official languages cannot be given the same status as Afrikaans, while allowing English to play its logical role as the working language of the institution (as it does within South African public institutions in general), use of the term multilingualism becomes merely lip service.

Council, yet again, has shown that its interest rests primarily with the preservation of not a language but an oppressive cultural system which allows a white minority group to flourish to the detriment of a majority black population, who are being denied the right to equitable access to education.

Previously Open Stellenbosch asserted that the Council of SU has, since the university was founded, promoted the interests of white Afrikaners in South Africa. From the statements released on 30 November 2015 Council’s decision exposes a conflict of interest and a failure in responsible, ethical governance. After the legislative end of apartheid, university councils should no longer represent the interests of a single, narrow grouping. We condemn Council’s sidelining of internal stakeholders and its refusal to act in the public interest.

Once again Open Stellenbosch calls for the dissolution of the Stellenbosch University Council.

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George Steyn, Chairperson of Stellenbosch University Council on 1 December 2015: "Let me start by saying that I want to unequivocally state that Stellenbosch University and the council of this university fully supports transformation."

His statement is clearly at odds with the composition of the Executive. According to an official statement, "in addition to Mr Steyn, Prof PW van der Walt, Prof Prieur du Plessis, Dr George du Toit, Prof Wim de Villiers (Rector and Vice-Chancellor), Prof Leopoldt van Huyssteen (Chief Operating Officer) and Prof Hansie Knoetze (Dean of the Faculty of Engineering) are the members of the Executive Committee."

Issued by Open Stellenbosch, through their Facebook page, 2 December 2015