PRESSURE ON SCHOOLS TO MEET LANGUAGE PARITY
By Keith Ross

Sunday Weekend Argus Online
October 5 2008

Pressure on schools - many of them already struggling with scarce resources - to provide greater parity in language instruction has been increased by a judgment handed down by the Equality Court in Durban.

The court found last week that Durban High School had discriminated against a Grade 8 pupil last year by offering him Zulu tuition only at the lowest language level (LLC3).

The school at the time offered English as a first language at the LLC1 level and Afrikaans at LLC2.

This was discriminatory, the court found, in that learners whose home language was Afrikaans received a greater number of lessons at a higher level of tuition than those who were obliged to learn Zulu at the LLC3 level.

However, the ideal standard, the court judgment said, was one which "no school in this province or this country meets".

The national Department of Education said resources made it difficult to achieve this ideal. Its director general Duncan Hindle said: "Our policy has always been to build a multi-lingual nation and this judgment is very much in line with what we want to do."

But Hindle said the situation was complex. "It is a heck of a lot more complex in Gauteng with all 11 official languages being used - and some unofficial ones as well," he said. "Teachers of African languages are also among our most scarce resources."

However, Magistrate JV Sanders, in his personal view after delivering the judgment, said more seriousness was required from stakeholders to address the language imbalance.

In KwaZulu-Natal, Mbali Thusi, spokeswoman for Education MEC Ina Cronje, said every effort was being made to meet the language needs of the communities in the province.

Thusi said the number of high schools that offered Zulu at first-language level now stood at 1 471, an increase of 176 since 2004.