Pretoria News - Students at Unisa have only until October 21 to enrol for courses next year and it is thus extremely urgent that the university be provisionally interdicted from implementing its new English-only language policy.
If not, thousands of students who want to study in Afrikaans would be severely prejudiced, and they may not be able to do so at Unisa.
This is according to advocate Johan du Toit, acting for AfriForum, which has not given up the fight to have Afrikaans as a language option for students at Unisa.
On Friday, for the third time, it turned to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, to try to force Unisa to put its all-English language policy on hold, pending a later application for the court to review and set aside the new policy.
Du Toit told Judge Roland Sutherland it had no option but to ask for an urgent order, as Unisa would not relent and wait until the court ruled before putting the policy in action.
Turning to the court in the normal way would take too long, as the litigation could take months, Afriforum argued.
Students will enrol for the second semester from April 3 to April 28 next year and an urgent order could also benefit them.
AfriForum in July lost its first-round effort to provisionally interdict Unisa from implementing its new language policy on a technical point,.
Judge Nomsa Khumalo found the matter not to be urgent.
This was in spite of the fact that students have started enrolling for the 2017 academic year.
Du Toit said on Friday it was difficult to understand why Unisa was in such a rush to change its language policy, 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 claimed Unisa would not be inconvenienced at all if an interim order was issued, placing the implementation of the new language policy on ice.
On the other hand, if the order was not granted, the prejudice to students and prospective students would be enormous and irreversible, Du Toit argued.
However, Unisa said that while English was its official medium of study from now on, the new language policy did not spell the end of Afrikaans as a language at Unisa.
It was said that while new 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 to. This exemption affects about 24 000 students.
It was argued on behalf of AfriForum that it heard for the first time on June 24 that Unisa was going to become an all-English institution. This decision was made without consulting with stakeholders involved, it claimed.
AfriForum’s understanding was that the Unisa senate still had to give the final go-ahead to the new policy in October. But counsel for Unisa said the decision to adopt the new language policy had been made in April this year. It was argued that it became policy then, with the senate due to get feedback on the implementation when it met next month.
According to the university, it was practically not possible to continue providing Afrikaans as a language of tuition at Unisa, and its policy was in line with that of other universities.
The court heard that Unisa had considered and debated the updating of its language policy on an ongoing basis since 2013, with change to the official language policy an agenda item since that time.
Judgment will be delivered on the matter on September 21.
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