Unisa Afrikaans battle hotting up

AS UNISA’S enrolment deadline of October 21 looms, AfriForum ramps up its effort to fight the institution’s plans to implement an Englishlanguage only policy for its classes.

Yesterday, for the third time, AfriForum turned to the high court in Pretoria to halt the all-English language policy, pending an application for the court to review and set aside the new policy, that AfriForum finds prejudicial.

AfriForum advocate Johan Du Toit told Judge Roland Sutherland that it had no option but to ask for an urgent order, as Unisa would not wait until the court ruled before putting the policy in action. Turning to the court in the normal way could take too long, he argued.

In July, AfriForum lost its firstround effort to provisionally interdict Unisa from implementing its new language policy, on a technical point. This, in spite of the fact that students had already started enrolling for the 2017 academic year.

Du Toit said yesterday that it was difficult to understand why Unisa was in such a rush to change, arguing that the status quo could continue until there was resolution of what AfriForum believed was a vitally important constitutional issue: the right of students to study in the language of their choice.

He said Unisa would not be at all inconvenienced if the implementation of the new language policy were put on ice. But if the order wasn’t granted, the prejudice to students and prospective students would be enormous and irreversible, Du Toit argued.

Unisa said that while first-year students enrolling at Unisa did not have Afrikaans as an option, second and third-year students would be able to complete their studies in Afrikaans if they chose.

AfriForum claimed that the new language policy was formulated without consulting the stakeholders involved. AfriForum’s understanding was that the Unisa Senate still had to give the final go-ahead to the new policy in October. Judgment will be delivered on Wednesday.