afrikaans

Afrikaans at Unisa Latest: Con Court ruling expected

Unisa earlier appealed a court ruling in favour of Afriforum that it must advertise the availability of certain courses in Afrikaans.

afrikaans

AfriForum’s case against the monolingual English language policy of the University of South Africa (Unisa) is expected to be heard virtually by the Constitutional Court on Thursday. 

This follows a ruling in the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2020  in favour of AfriForum, which found that Unisa’s language policy had not been adopted and implemented in line with the requirements of the constitution. 

IOL reported at the time that President of the SCA Judge Mandisa Maya had noted in his digital ruling that while the rationale for the new language policy – that the demand for Afrikaans was decreasing – could not be disputed, there was still a significant number of students who still wanted it.

Alana Bailey, AfriForum’s Head of Cultural Affairs said that the ruling had ordered that the university had to publish prominent notices in three Afrikaans newspapers and on the university’s own website to bring the ruling to the attention of students, as well as the general public.

The notices also had to include a list of all of the course modules that had been offered in Afrikaans up to the adoption of the current policy in April 2016, so that prospective students who want to enrol for these modules would know that they will from now be able to again study these modules in Afrikaans from first-year level. 

The ruling further ordered costs in favour of AfriForum. Unisa then approached the Constitutional Court for leave to appeal against the ruling and it was granted the right to appeal.

“With the case that will be heard tomorrow, the more than 30 000 Afrikaans-speaking students studying at Unisa will after more than five years finally get clarity about their access to mother language education, a right that is guaranteed by the Constitution, but which is still being disputed by Unisa,” Bailey said.