GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary General
17 December 2024
On Friday, Western Cape Education MEC confirmed that Afrikaans medium Hoërskool Tulbagh would become a dual medium school from next year in order to accommodate English speaking learners from a local township – as the BELA Act provides.
Three days later, on Reconciliation Day, Maynier’s boss, DA Federal Council Chairperson Helen Zille, termed these very provisions in the Act a “revenge project against Afrikaans”.
These fundamentally contradictory positions expose Zille’s opposition to BELA for what it is: A disinformation campaign to persuade white Afrikaans speakers thinking of shifting support to the FF+ that supping at the GNU table doesn’t make the DA a lap dog.
Instead of sending her people to march in Pretoria with Afriforum, Solidarity and other Afrikaans interest organisations, Zille should invite the leaders of these organisations to Tulbagh to show them what her party is really doing – and that the sky hasn’t fallen on anyone’s head.
On 22 November 2024 the Chairperson of the Hoërskool Tulbagh governing body sent a letter to parents calling an “urgent meeting on 25 November 2024”.
One of the matters to be discussed was the Education Department’s plan to transfer isiXhosa-speaking learners currently registered at Lingcinga Zethu Secondary School and Lingomzo Primary School to Hoërskool Tulbagh in 2025.
After meeting with parents in Tulbagh, I submitted parliamentary questions to Maynier, who confirmed the arrangement, in a written reply on Friday 13 December 2024, “to address overcrowding at Lingcinga Zethu Secondary School”.
He said: “Tulbagh High School will start a Grade 8 English Language of Teaching and Learning stream at the school in 2025”.
Last week my office called the high school twice to ask about the language of teaching and Learning at the school, and were told emphatically that the school only teaches in Afrikaans.
According to Maynier, however, the school is “registered as a parallel medium school” and, “in order to accommodate the plan, the district will source educators that teach in the LOLT (language of learning and teaching) indicated. Additional resources will also be sourced as required”.
Maynier’s reasonable actions, in this instance, directly contradict Zille’s central assertion that by allowing for parallel medium schools the BELA Act was intended to wipe out Afrikaans as a language of teaching and learning.
The truth is that the DA is trapped in a disinformation cycle of its own making. Its anti-BELA campaign was a central strand of its 2024 election strategy, but the Western Cape Education Department it controls must juggle the realities of infrastructure and capacity deficits and disparities with its Constitutional obligation to ensure every child has access to education.
In practise, it is impossible for Maynier to sustain his party’s position on school language policy.
His management of overcrowding at Lingcinga Zethu Secondary School in Tulbagh
exposes the DA’s opposition to the BELA Act as a straw man argument – not even they implement their own policies where they have the power to do so.
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