UNISA language policy: Afrikaans to be reinstated

AfriForum wins and gets UNISA to teach in Afrikaans again

By / / Viral
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On Wednesday, 22 September 2021, the Constitutional Court ruled that the University of South Africa (UNISA) must have Afrikaans as a medium of teaching and learning.

Why must UNISA now teach in Afrikaans?

Five years ago, UNISA decided to revise its language policy and phase out Afrikaans as a medium of teaching and learning. However, after the decision was made AfriForum, an organisation that seeks to protect the rights of Afrikaans-speakers, took UNISA to court. This led to the Constitutional Court reviewing the decision and declaring it unconstitutional.

The basis of the arguments raised against the decision made by UNISA to stop the teaching in Afrikaans was because the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) felt that the decision contradicted Section 9(2) of the constitution. Section 9(2) states that everyone has the right to receive education in the official language of their choice.

The media statement released by the ConCourt stated that UNISA decided to revise its language policy in 2016 to be respectful of other indigenous African languages. Therefore, the UNISA Senate and council saw it best to remove all courses taught in both English and Afrikaans. UNISA was given until the beginning of the 2023 academic year to revise its language policy.

Social Media reactions to the ruling of the Constitutional court

After the ConCourt announced the victory of the Afriforum organisation, many on social media felt the implementation of Afrikaans as a medium of teaching and learning at UNISA is not representative of all the other official languages in South Africa.


Here are some of the tweets that we picked out.