Stellenbosch University agrees to keep Afrikaans

Mudarikwa of the Legal Resources Centre, said they were still considering their options.

In affidavits they filed before abandoning their application, the students said they had difficulty following lectures presented in Afrikaans, and many found that the use of interpretation devices did not improve the situation.

One student had stopped attending classes.

Some said they last used Afrikaans at primary school level, while one student said she could not follow the “academic Afrikaans” used during lectures.

Another student, Rabia Abba Omar, said she had attended school in Joburg and had lived in Muscat, Oman, and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

She had no knowledge of or ability to speak, write or understand Afrikaans and often had to ask fellow students to explain the lessons.

Thokozani Chili, a thirdyear engineering student, said her home language was Zulu.

“I could not follow the content of the class because the translations were hard to follow, since I could hear both the translator and the lecturer at the same time.”

She said she had been forced to leave the university.

Philemon Mogale, a finalyear engineering student, said meetings in residences were conducted exclusively in Afrikaans, “which fed into the racist traditions which perme- ated many of the more traditionally Afrikaner residences”.

The language controversy began last year, when student activist movement Open Stellenbosch lobbied for the introduction of English as the medium of instruction.

AfriForum took the issue to court after the university’s engineering and law faculties decided last month to use Eng- lish as the primary language of instruction. This, they claimed, was in conflict with the university’s language policy.

The matter was settled yesterday after the university gave AfriForum a written undertaking that steps would be taken to ensure all faculties implement the university’s language policy and plan, as well as the language specifications published in the 2016 yearbook.

This meant Afrikaans would have equal status to English as a medium of instruction, AfriForum Youth said.