Cape Town – In a groundbreaking judgment delivered in English and Xhosa yesterday, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) upheld an appeal challenging the legality of Unisa's senate and council adopting a new language policy with English as its language of learning and tuition.
The SCA considered Afrikaner interest group AfriForum’s appeal that the decisions contravened the Constitution; that the Senate did not follow its rules in the conduct of its meeting; and that Unisa failed to consult the persons who would be most affected by the new language policy.
The court found that Unisa's new language policy was unconstitutional and that the university had failed to establish that it was not “reasonably practicable” to continue offering tuition in Afrikaans.
The court ordered the university to publish prominent notices in three Afrikaans newspapers and on its website to bring the ruling to the attention of students and the public.
The notice must also include a complete list of all modules that were available in Afrikaans until the implementation of the current language policy in April 2016 to allow prospective students who want to register for these subjects to take them again from their first year onwards.
These subjects must again be offered completely and in all academic years in Afrikaans.
The SCA found that while the rationale for the new language policy, that the demand for Afrikaans was decreasing was indisputable, the evidence showed a significant number of students still wanted it but their actual numbers were not placed before the senate and council when these bodies decided to discontinue Afrikaans as one of Unisa’s languages of learning.
The SCA also found Unisa’s position was distinguishable from other recent language policy cases involving the Universities of Stellenbosch and the Free State, in which those policies were set aside for unlawfulness to protect racial harmony and prevent racial supremacy threatened by racially segregated classes and the exclusion of non-Afrikaans speaking students from campus life by the use of Afrikaans.
AfriForum described the ruling as an enormous victory for Afrikaans, Afrikaans students and also for language rights in the country.
AfriForum Cultural Affairs head Alana Bailey said: “Unisa has yet again recently excluded Afrikaans from their plans to encourage staff and students to master more languages. The ruling emphasises that Afrikaans also has a place on government-supported campuses,” Bailey said.
Unisa did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.