A cultural battle is taking place at Potch University, where white student leaders are resisting any change to language policy, writes Max Gebhardt
Afrikaans-medium universities are living on borrowed time. The South African Student Congress (Sasco) this week placed Afrikaans tertiary institutions firmly in the firing line after last weeks clashes at the University of Potchefstroom.
Four people were arrested during violent student demonstrations — the latest in a series of confrontations between Sasco members and the management of tertiary institutions over the transformation process on Afrikaans campuses.
But central to these increasingly racial clashes among students is language. Sasco is clear — it will not accept Afrikaans universities which use language as a means to exclude other racial groups from tertiary education.
White student leaders on Potch campus say they will resist any change to the current language policy. They say Sasco threatens what is most precious to them — their language.
Stephenie Allais, Sasco’s education officer, said: “The use of Afrikaans makes these institutions inaccessible to a large percentage of black students. This is unacceptable for a public institution.” An institution she pointed out which is funded by taxpayers.
Potchefstroom receives 47% of its funding from the state, the balance is received from private donations and university fees.
The University of Pretoria, which has seen similar clashes, has already implemented various programmes to accommodate the needs of other language groups and is attempting to phase in English courses as quickly as possible.
Sasco has refused to participate in any student organisations and has withdrawn from the Potchefstroom’s Transformation Council, until after a university summit next month. At the summit, the major stakeholders in the transformation process will thrash out their grievances, among them language.
According to an agreement reached by Sasco and Potch’s university management after last week’s demonstrations, the governing body will, in the short term, have to “discuss the existing language policy in order to deal with problems in the present situation”.
Although the Potch campus, surrounded by the rich maizelands of the North-West province, was tranquil earlier this week, black and white students avoided each other near the administration block, ironically known as “Lover’s Lane”, site of last week’s demonstrations.
Sasco says it doesn’t want people to feel there is any attack on Afrikaans, but that no language should dominate another. What they would like to see is Afrikaans universities and colleges implement a dual- or parallel-medium of instruction where students are offered lectures in either English or Afrikaans.
But white students at universities like Potchefstroom see this as a direct attack on their “culture and traditions”. Students at “Pukkies”, as the students call the university, see these traditions threatened by Sasco.
Outgoing chairman of the Potch student council, Dirk Herman, says Sasco has hijacked worker/management disputes to further its own aim. These worker issues have to be removed from the transformation process, he said.
Although university management might be preaching transformation and racial tolerance, the message isn’t filtering down to the lecture theatres.
“We have a very clear position on the student council, that this is an Afrikaans university and must stay an Afrikaans university,” Herman said. He believes Afrikaans students have a constitutionally guaranteed right to be taught in Afrikaans.
This has been dismissed by several constitutional experts at the University of Witwatersrand who say neither the interim nor new constitution make such guarantees.
Herman accepts “Pukkies” is a national asset, and must produce graduates, but he says, Potch must remain an Afrikaans institution.
“The problems on campus are not racial, but political.”
But Smuts Matshe, local Sasco chairman, says the structures at Potch are only there to keep the status quo.
At national level, Sasco accuses Potchefstroom of “window dressing”. And it says racial tensions are so high its members are afraid to sleep in the hostels for fear of reprisals after last week’s demonstrations.
“Sasco doesn’t even have an office on the campus. How can we transform this university if we don’t have any access to resources?” said Matshe from the public phone at his hostel, his only means of communication with the outside world.
The language issue, Matshe believes, needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. “Right now the university is only satisfying the resources of a minority group.”
They are all paying university fees and students should have at least some say in the medium of instruction they receive.
According to Potch’s vice-chancellor Professor Carools Reinecke, the main language is Afrikaans according to the university’s founding charter. However the charter makes provision for other languages to be used if the university’s senate approves.
“Part of transformation in my opinion is democratisation. We need to engage in open and frank discussions. But we have to remember that we have to fulfil the expectations of management, staff and students,” he said.
Reinecke hopes the recommendations by the Commission on Higher Education on tertiary education, will help guide the university’s transformation process.
According to Doctor Johan Hendrickz, marketing director at Pretoria University, the commerce faculty already offers all its courses in both English and Afrikaans and half of the engineering courses are now offered in parallel-medium.
“The university’s stated policy is that we will not use any language to exclude people or as a form of discrimination.”
Iain Currie of the Wits Law School believes the days of strictly Afrikaans-medium tertiary institutions are numbered. “They are just not palatable in today’s current political climate.”
He said instruction in Afrikaans is being squeezed out at tertiary institutions. This, he says, has already been happening at other Afrikaans universities.
Potchefstroom it seems is the last to follow the trend.