DA: Stellenbosch should be bilingual rather than uni-lingual

Melon Radebe

16 November 2015

The Democratic Alliance believes Stellenbosch University’s decision to make English the main language is a hasty decision. The party believes that students should be taught in a language that they can understand if possible.

“They may well have gone too far in making the decision to go to English as the lingua franca of the university.”  DA Shadow Minister of Higher Education and Training Belinda Bozzoli said.

“We believe that it is people’s constitutional right to be taught in their mother tongue, if possible, if practical. Stellenbosch has been using Afrikaans mother tongue teaching for many years many years which means it is practical.”

“And therefore to simply drop this and cut dramatically the number of classes that are going to be offered in Afrikaans is a mistake. A constitutional era.” She concluded.