UP Management yields to claim that Afrikaans be removed
What does Afrikaans classes have to do with class fees? That is the question that many Afrikaans Tuks students ask themselves after it was discovered that Prof. Cheryl de la Rey, Principal of the University of Pretoria (UP), has agreed to revise UP’s language policy. According to Ian Cameron, AfriForum Youth’s spokesperson, this is latest in a wave of attacks on mother tongue education at universities.
In the last month, Afrikaans came under fire when the University of Stellenbosch as well as the University of the Free State agreed to processes which may see the end of Afrikaans in these universities. Similar demands are currently raised at the Potchefstroom campus of the North-West University.
According to Cameron, the UP management agreed the day before yesterday (26 October 2015) to launch an investigation into changing UP’s language policy to such an extent that only English will be used in future. This step disregards the right of Afrikaans students at UP to receive education in their mother tongue. The University’s management yields to student groups who want to render campuses ungovernable through violence and intimidation. Would Afrikaans students have to protest in similar fashion (such as the #FeesMustFall group) to have our rights protected?
UP has been dragging its feet for a decade to ensure a safe place for Afrikaans at UP, according to Cameron. Investigations undertaken from 2007 to 2010 by UP indicate that Afrikaans education is indeed affordable.
Most Afrikaner students today were born after 1994. They have grown up under the current Constitution. Yet, in practice, Afrikaner students do not have the same freedom as their fellow students. Today’s Afrikaner students played no part in Apartheid, yet they bear the brunt of policies aimed at redressing the effects of that system. In this regard, the discriminatory effects of race-based acceptance quotas, race-based financial assistance and the denial of mother tongue education are the instruments that government and universities use against us.
AfriForum Youth will hand over a memorandum to the UP management next week in which the organisation will demand that Afrikaans enjoys equal treatment to English.
Issued by Ian Cameron, Spokesperson, AfriForum Youth, 28 October 2015
