The Plight of Afrikaans: Has the Demise of Afrikaans-Medium Public Schools Been Pronounced Within the Educational Framework of South Africa?

Abstract

On 13 October 2017, the Department of Basic Education published the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill (BELA Bill), intending to amend certain sections within the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996. Subsequently, a complex process unfolded, with the receipt of 29,754 written submissions and the conduct of provincial consultations across all nine provinces by the Department. The National Assembly supported the final version of the BELA Bill on 26 October 2023, paving the way for its transmission to the National Council of Provinces. If the BELA Bill is supported at this level, the Bill will progress to the President for his signature and formal endorsement. The effective implementation of the amendments to the South African Schools Act will be subject to the President’s proclamation, circulated through an official notice in the Government Gazette. The crux of the BELA-Bill controversy revolves around contentious alterations to public schools’ language and admission policies. On the topic of language policy, the proposed amendment bestows authority on the provincial head of department to direct a school to adopt more than one language of instruction where it is practical to do so after a list of criteria has been exhausted. This article presents arguments from the perspective of an Afrikaans mother-tongue speaker who views the proposed amendments as a direct threat to the Afrikaans language and Afrikaans-medium schools. In addition, the article aims to uncover the uncommunicated reasons behind the African National Congress (ANC) government’s advocacy for the enactment of these amendments to the South African Schools Act. The article raises the pivotal question of how these amendments may potentially infringe upon the rights of Afrikaans learners, as articulated in section 29(2) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. This section unambiguously guarantees everyone the right to receive education in an official language or languages of choice in public educational institutions, where it is reasonably practicable to implement.