The Freedom Front Plus (FF+) on Tuesday appealed to Minister of Education Kader Asmal to see to it that provincial education departments do not put pressure on Afrikaans medium schools to change their language policy to make provision for a few English pupils.
The party said in a statement it has written a letter to Asmal and it has also appealed to the governing bodies of schools not to feel threatened by the provincial education departments.
FF+ spokesperson Leon Louw said governing bodies of schools have the right to determine the language policy of schools.
Louw said the Gauteng education department’s attempts to pressurise schools into changing from Afrikaans-medium teaching is a deliberate attempt to marginalise Afrikaans in schools and to replace it with English.
”If parents and governing bodies submit to this pressure, it would just place more pressure on Afrikaans in schools and on tertiary level,” he said.
He said the department’s action is even more worrying in view of a court decision last year to allow a school to continue as an Afrikaans-medium institution. The South African Schools Act also allows governing bodies to determine the language policy of schools. — Sapa