Kriel, Lesufi tackle Afrikaans vs English

019 02/06/16 Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza lesufi debates the lauguage policy with Afriforum head kallie kriel at Tembisa hall in Johannesburg. Picture:Nokuthula Mbatha

019 02/06/16 Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza lesufi debates the lauguage policy with Afriforum head kallie kriel at Tembisa hall in Johannesburg. Picture:Nokuthula Mbatha

Published Jun 3, 2016

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Pretoria - Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi bore a deep vengeance against the apartheid government and was retaliating against Afrikaans people, according to AfriForum leader Kallie Kriel.

But the MEC on Thursday gave as good as he got during a public debate in Tembisa on the preservation of Afrikaans in schools, saying he simply wanted equal education for all.

Lesufi also disclosed he was doing research on Hoërskool Waterkloof in Pretoria, one of the many Afrikaans schools in the city, to establish a non-racial educational system to include other languages in schools.

The debate followed a Constitutional Court ruling and the proposed plan to change offensive school names, which were believed to glorify apartheid icons.

The proposed plan was met with serious concern by the civil rights organisation, which said the department was unfairly targeting Afrikaans schools.

A subsequent disagreement on Twitter led to the public debate.

The court had ruled in favour of the department and said children from outside a school’s traditional catchment area should not be turned away.

During the debate, Kriel accused Lesufi of holding a deep vengeance against the apartheid government.

He said this was causing the MEC to retaliate against Afrikaans people.

He said the MEC had stated his irritation that in 2016, Afrikaans was still being taught in schools. “That irritation may stop Afrikaans schools from operating,” Kriel said.

Education in English only, Kriel said, would be to the detriment of children who spoke the language. “English is a barrier to good education,” he said.

In defence of the proposed plan, Lesufi argued that the Constitution and the Freedom Charter maintained that all were equal and that the doors of learning should be opened for all.

Lesufi said the department’s actions were not driven by a sense of vengeance.

He was in no way trying to undermine Afrikaans or starting a race war, he said.

His mission was to do the opposite of what Hendrik Verwoerd had done when he engineered apartheid.

“I want equal education for all, not education for a black child and education for a white child.

“I differ with the notion of creating a school that wants to teach Afrikaans only,” he said.

However, Kriel said Lesufi gave him a background of what his real intentions were when he paid “lip-service” to non-racialism while hiding his anti-Afrikaner tendencies.

“He said you oppressed our grandparents and our fathers; we won’t allow you to do it again’.

“Who is the you’ that he is speaking of? It seems like he is driven by vengeance,” Kriel said.

Kriel added that he did not find it funny that teachers aligned to the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) were not in front of their pupils for more than three hours a day.

He blamed the union for the poor state of education in the country and said Lesufi was using the Afrikaans community as a scapegoat.

“The real enemy is not Afrikaans,” Kriel said.

In response to Lesufi’s question about who made the schools dysfunctional, Kriel said: “Your government has been in power for 22 years. It is not Verwoerd’s fault if you go to a school now and you don’t find a teacher in front of the class.”

When Kriel accused Lesufi and the department of attacking Afrikaans as a language, the MEC replied that no one language should enjoy the privilege of a superior status in society.

He said all languages should be equal as this is enshrined in the Constitution. “The Constitution doesn’t say Afrikaans, Sotho, Ndebele or Zulu; it says all languages are equal.

“I wouldn’t stand here and say Zulu, Ndebele or Afrikaans is under attack when the Constitution that I took an oath on says all languages are equal,” stated Kriel.

The implementation strategies on creating non-racial schools had proven possible in schools like Curro Roodeplaat Independent School, Lesufi said, where children are playing together regardless of their skin colour.

“I don’t want us to undermine each other’s language or promote one language at the expense of another. All I want is equal education for all our children regardless of their skin colour,” he said.

But Kriel said the MEC was complaining about township schools not being given the chance to compete in sports activities, yet those schools did not have the requisite facilities or sporting programmes for those sport codes.

Kriel said the 1976 uprisings were unfortunate and urged the department not to repeat that mistake, as a new struggle could start for Afrikaans schools.

As the debate continued, Lesufi accused the Afrikaner community of wanting to defend their territory, and not just education.

“You are defending your territory. Do Afrikaans schools play rugby with non-Afrikaans schools? No.”

Every school had the right to have a single medium of education, but he was against schools where children of a single race interacted on their own, Lesufi said.

If his intentions were malicious, the MEC said, he would dismantle those schools with just a signature.

He said Afrikaans schools did not promote the learning of the history of the country.

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