FF+: Keep Afrikaans schools

2004-01-13 18:12

Johannesburg - The Freedom Front Plus (FF+) on Tuesday appealed to Education Minister Kader Asmal to see to it that provincial education departments did 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 had written a letter to Asmal and it had also appealed to the governing bodies of schools not to let them be threatened by the provincial education departments.

FF+ spokesperson Leon Louw said governing bodies of schools had 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, was 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 was 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 allowed governing bodies to determine the language policy of schools.

- SAPA