Staff Reporter.
The Constitutional Court has given Unisa until the start of the 2023 academic year to revise its language policy.
In a unanimous judgment handed down, the ConCourt upheld a ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) which found Unisa’s decision to discontinue teaching and learning in Afrikaans was in contravention of Section 29(2) of the Constitution, which deals with the right to receive an education in an official language or language of choice.
“In this context, Unisa was constraint to justify the decision it took by demonstrating that it had applied its minds to the considerations in section 29(2) and that it complied with the prescripts of that section,” it found.
The ConCourt said there was no evidence Unisa applied the section when making the decision to change its policy in 2016.
Mojalefa Motalane, who represented Unisa in the case, welcomed the ruling that would give it time to change the policy.
“We are yet to take instructions from our client Unisa, but as the legal team, we are fairly happy with the fact that the Constitutional Court exercised quite a bit of wisdom to suspend its order and give our client an opportunity to make a decision as to whether it will revert to its old policy or decide to introduce a new policy all together which will give it an opportunity to follow all the right processes in compliance with the Constitution,” he said.
Meanwhile the Economic Freedom Fighters weighed in on the recent Constitutional Court decision that Afrikaans should be reinstated at the University of South Africa (Unisa) by 2023.
The EFF has remained unimpressed, since it says Afrikaans should not be given any special treatment over other African languages, “including Swahili”, as primary languages of academic instruction. They pointed out that the ruling would have implications for a similar decision in 2016 at the University of Pretoria.
They called the “selective choice of Afrikaans as a superior language” a perpetuation of superiority over indigenous languages, and claimed it was insulting to Africans.
The EFF called on Unisa to “do away with the 1976 language of national oppression, racial segregation, exclusion and supremacy” by being more “lawful and precise” in its procedures to do so.