By: Katherine Grzadkowska, Junior Research Associate, PILPG-NL
Stellenbosch University’s (SU) language policy has, again, come into the forefront of public debate in South Africa. Earlier this year, reports surfaced that residence leaders told Afrikaans-speaking students not to speak Afrikaans at school events or privately among themselves on campus, and to converse in English instead. The University has denied that its language policy bans the use of Afrikaans and says that it has investigated and addressed these isolated incidents accordingly. Nevertheless, the situation has sparked outrage among Afrikaans advocacy groups who believe that SU is unfairly discriminating against Afrikaans-speaking students in an effort to fully anglicize the University. These groups, along with some SU students, have lodged complaints at the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), which is currently investigating the matter.
This blog post will examine SU’s language policy from the perspective of international human rights instruments and the South African Constitution. While Stellenbosch has made significant strides to become a more accessible and inclusive University, banning the use of Afrikaans on campus may infringe on international and constitutional principles concerning minority language rights.
The Right to Language and Education
Discrimination on the basis of language is prohibited in a multitude of international/regional treaties and non-binding human rights declarations. Minority groups are also afforded special protections to not be denied the use of their languages under Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Human Rights Council (HRC) has recognized the negative impact that colonization in the past and globalization in the present have had on minority languages across the world, specifically their minimized use in education. As such, in order to meet international human rights obligations, the HRC has recommended that states provide education in minority languages where it is reasonably practicable to do so according to regional factors and resources. The Council has also insisted on a broad definition of the term “minority,” which includes any “ethnic, religious or linguistic [group] which constitutes less than half of the population in the entire territory of the state.”
The right to be educated in a particular language has not been examined in depth by treaty bodies with jurisdiction over the African continent. However, the African Commission of Human and Peoples Rights has held that states have an obligation to provide certain public services in official languages as set out in their respective constitutions. Moreover, the Human Rights Committee has found that states should implement non-official languages in public administration where there exists a significant historic minority population, such as the Afrikaans-speaking population in Namibia.
The South African Constitution of 1996 recognizes 11 official languages, all of which enjoy equal status in public administration. Nine of these languages are indigenous African languages while two, English and Afrikaans, have European origins. Like the international instruments, the Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of languages, and individuals belonging to linguistic groups may not be denied the right to speak their languages. While today native Afrikaans-speakers make up a minority of about 13% of South Africa’s population, Afrikaans was historically privileged as the dominant language of instruction at many universities.
For these reasons, Section 29 of the Constitution explicitly recognizes the need to rectify historic inequalities in education and puts a positive duty on the state to ensure that tertiary education is “progressively available and accessible” for all students who wish to pursue it. Under Section 29, students in South Africa are also afforded “the right to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice” so long as it is equitable and practicable, with special emphasis given to “the need to redress the results of past racially discriminatory laws and practices.”
Stellenbosch’s 2016 Language Policy
Stellenbosch was founded as an Afrikaans university in the late 1800s. However, with the fall of Apartheid, the general rise of English as a global language, and pressure from student protest groups, SU has undergone a substantial shift towards English teaching. In 2016, Stellenbosch overhauled its language policy from its previous 50/50 English-Afrikaans parallel teaching model to its current formulation making English the predominant language of instruction. According to the policy’s preamble, these changes were made in light of Section 29 of the Constitution, as English enjoys much wider speakership and preference across South African’s historically disenfranchised black community.
This change was not greeted kindly by some members of the Afrikaans-speaking community, which saw the shift to English predominance as an infringement of their Constitutional language and education rights. SU’s language policy was nevertheless upheld by the South African Constitutional Court in 2019, which found that the diminished use of Afrikaans was justifiable under Section 29 since it was aimed at making the University more accessible. While the Court sympathized with applicants’ concern regarding the general disuse of Afrikaans at South African universities against the “deluge of English,” it held that this was an unfortunate reality faced by minority languages worldwide and not the responsibility of a single university to rectify.
Analysis
The present issue at Stellenbosch concerns the use of Afrikaans outside of classrooms, meaning, at school social events as well as in private settings among students. The language policy provides that “in residences and other living environments, language is used in such a way that, where reasonably practicable, no stakeholder is excluded from participating in any formal activities in these environments.” While this provision is not in itself infringing, the way it may have been implemented by some University officials could be problematic from a constitutional and human rights perspective.
The Constitutional Court did not look into student social life in-depth in 2019 but it did mention the University’s past predominance of Afrikaans in “other aspects of campus life, including residence meetings and official University events,” which had exclusionary effects on black students. Accordingly, SU’s insistence on the use of English for official school activities could be justified as a means of creating a more inclusive environment in school-related activities. An outright ban for students on campus to converse in Afrikaans would likely go beyond this aim. As stated by the HRC, “for language rights in private activities, the defining principle would be a laissez-faire approach” where state institutions do not interfere with what languages individuals use when communicating with one another. This is especially important when the language in question is spoken by a minority group, like Afrikaans native speakers in South Africa.
Conclusion
Stellenbosch University’s language policy is laudable as it seeks to remove some of the historic privileges enjoyed by Afrikaans-speaking students to create a more accessible and welcoming environment for its diverse student population. Yet, if it did, in fact, prohibit Afrikaans on campus, it may have discriminated against a significant segment of its student body.