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Media statement
1 June 2016
Chairperson of the SU Council
‘Promote Afrikaans and expand English’
Statement by Mr George Steyn, Chairperson of the Council of Stellenbosch University (SU), issued with the approval of the Executive Committee of the Council, consequent to Adv Jan Heunis’s personal opinion article (“No chance for Afrikaans”) in Die Burger of 1 June 2016.
Adv Heunis’s opinion and version of decisions are one-sided, incomplete and misleading and I would therefore briefly like to contextualise and answer his allegations.
The University Council did indeed reject Adv Heunis’s motion at its special meeting of 21 May 2016 with a majority of votes. His motion – that the Council commit to upholding Afrikaans and English as languages of equal status and as languages of instruction and to developing isiXhosa as an academic language – would entail a significant number of students, specifically black (African) students, who do not understand Afrikaans being deprived of access to instruction at SU because English as a language of instruction would not be able to be developed sufficiently.
Such an outcome would contradict both SU’s Institutional Intent and Strategy and previous Council decisions, particularly the Council decision of 30 November 2015. At this meeting, the Council very clearly stated that students may not be excluded from SU’s academic offering on the basis of language. Approximately 60% of black (African) students at SU are not proficient in Afrikaans. Management was therefore requested “to expand the necessary mechanisms to this end, and to monitor these continuously. If this should imply that the English academic offering exceeds the set target, it will be supported by Council.” The Council concurrently stated that this “may not be to the detriment of the agreed minimum target for the Afrikaans offering” and requested that “the Afrikaans undergraduate academic offering should also be increased.”
At the special Council meeting of 21 May, Adv Andrew Breitenbach SC delivered a presentation on the legal principles applicable to and the legal framework within which a new language policy should be formulated to comply with constitutional requirements. After his presentation, which was also distributed to the members, the Council unanimously (Adv Heunis included) accepted two motions in respect of the presentation. Firstly, the Council expressed its gratitude towards Adv Breitenbach for his excellent presentation and, secondly, the Council accepted the full presentation as a directional document.
The following are some of the points of Adv Breitenbach’s presentation:
· The presentation of lectures in Afrikaans impairs access to and successful study at SU for the majority of black (African) students.
· Both the Equality Act and sections 9(3), 29(1)(b) and 29(2) of the Constitution require SU to devise and implement measures to increase its English offering systematically.
Sections 29(1)(b) and (2) of the Constitution, however, also require SU not to diminish its Afrikaans offering without appropriate justification.
The solution that best fits both the Equality Act and sections 9(3), 29(1)(b) and 29(2) of the Constitution is to increase the English offering systematically without significantly diminishing the Afrikaans offering. If achievable, the Afrikaans offering should be maintained at the same level or even be increased.
The Council, with due account of Adv Breitenbach’s presentation, held an in-depth discussion on the principles applicable to the proposed language policy and took consideration of a number of motions, some of which it accepted and some of which it did not. The Council overwhelmingly voted in favour of the motion that, in accordance with its decision of 30 November 2015, the English offering be expanded, that no enrolled student be excluded on the basis of language, that, at the same time, the Afrikaans offering not be diminished, that Afrikaans, as a language of instruction, be further expanded and that the commitment to the development and promotion of isiXhosa as an academic language be honoured.
I reject the accusation made in a previous media statement by Adv Heunis that the motion is “without content” and “meaningless” and that it was accepted because of my comment during the meeting that “SU will burn”. This comment, made in respect of Adv Heunis’s proposed motion − which would exclude students not proficient in Afrikaans from lectures − was made against the historically known background of the countrywide protest actions of 2015.
In March of this year, I gave an affidavit pointing out that excluding students on the basis of language could lead to protest action and to the closure of our campus. SU has a responsibility towards all its students and to the wider community. My comment was not decisive; Council members do, after all, bring out their votes on the basis of a full context and background.
With reference to the statement that SU’s Management deviated from SU’s language policy unlawfully and on a large scale, I confirmed earlier this year that this had indeed been the case. I was the one who, because of these digressions, convened an extraordinary Council meeting on 20 February 2016. The outcome of this meeting was the appointment of an independent commissioner to investigate the digressions from the implementation of the language policy and the establishment of a language committee.
Retired Judge Craig Howie, a former President of the Supreme Court of Appeal, was appointed to conduct the investigation. The Council accepted his report on 9 May 2016. Judge Howie’s conclusions included the following:
“Had the Faculties, the RMT* and Council not taken die anti-exclusionary decisions and action they did the University would, on grounds explained in Counsel’s opinion, have been vulnerable to constitutional challenge by students not proficient in Afrikaans. It is no small irony that, having taken those steps, it felt vulnerable to the court challenges mounted by Afrikaans students but this only serves to highlight the wisdom of having instituted the current review process aimed at amendment of the Policy and Plan. On the strength of the interviews and the documentation made available to me I am of the opinion that all concerned were motivated to maintain and preserve the function, reputation and welfare of the University without infringing any students’ constitutional rights.”
The review process of SU’s language policy is still underway; it is a complex matter with many different facets. It is regrettable that Adv Heunis turns to the media whenever he does not agree with Council decisions or whenever the Council rejects his motions. He serves on the University Council in his capacity as an elected member, not as President of the Convocation. In his media statement, he expresses his own discontent with Council decisions. It is a personal statement and therefore not an official communication by the President of the Convocation to the members of the Convocation. SU cannot disseminate a personal attack on its Management and Council via its alumni database.
The innuendo that University Management is succumbing to a small group of activists is simply not true. The campaign against Afrikaans (#AfrikaansMustFall) garnered very little support at SU. The plea in 2015 was, after all, for SU’s academic offering to be fully accessible to students not proficient enough to study in Afrikaans and not for Afrikaans to be done away with as a language of instruction. This reasonable request is in line with the Constitution, the Equality Act and SU’s Institutional Intent and Strategy, with its vision for an inclusive, innovative and future-focused institution.
As the Council, we remain committed to multilingualism. We regard both Afrikaans and English as fully-fledged languages of instruction at SU. It is a unique asset and a distinct characteristic in the South African higher-education landscape.
· The members of the Executive Committee of the Council are Mr George Steyn (Chairperson), Prof PW van der Walt (Vice-Chairperson), Ms Khungeka Njobe, Mr Ainsley Moos, Mr Jannie Durand, Prof Wim de Villiers (Rector and Vice-Chancellor) and Prof Leopoldt van Huyssteen (Chief Operating Officer).
RMT*: Rector’s Management Team