LANGUAGE policies in schools are perpetuating racism and are a major failing of the government, two Bay anti-apartheid heroes say.
As the country looks back 40 years to the Soweto Uprising, little has changed for marginalised children in South Africa’s townships, with restrictive policies still impeding their academic success, Bay businessman and former leading anti-apartheid activist Khusta Jack and former mayor Nceba Faku say.
But while the Department of Education agrees that more still needs to be done, it says great strides have been made in changing language policies in the province.
Jack said the government should have ensured that all official languages were available and offered on an equal footing in all state schools.
“We do not have equal treatment when it comes to languages,” he said.
“The destruction of African languages was done purposely by the apartheid system and colonialists.
“They changed the names of our rivers, towns and mountains and the government has not done enough to elevate our African languages.”
However, Jack said parents living in the townships who chose to send their children to schools in the northern areas did this knowing that they would have to do Afrikaans as a second language.
“That is their choice. However, if someone wants to grow up to become an engineer they have to be fluent in English.
“Our universities have not made the change either.
“If you look at other countries you will see that the majority of Germans do not speak English.
“The majority of people living in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden do not speak English.
“They actively seek to learn English if they wish to, but here in South Africa the majority of our legal and official documents are in English and that is a failure on the part of our government,” he said.
Former ANC regional chairman Faku said the apartheid government had attempted to elevate Afrikaans to a higher level than English in 1976.
“I believe the students who protested back then succeeded,” he said.
“They were militant and vocal and made sure that the world and other white people sat up and took notice of what that government was doing at the time.
“The world saw that something was very wrong in our country.”
He said even at their places of work black people had been forced to speak Afrikaans, referring to their employers as “baas” or “madam”.
“Although some schools have the option, the system needs to be revisited as it discriminates against black kids coming from areas outside the community the school is situated in. Even beyond primary
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