The Democratic Alliance (DA) is forging ahead with their commitment to making it possible for students across the country to study in their mother language at public schools and universities.
On Sunday [November 1], delegates at the Federal Congress of the Democratic Alliance (DA) unanimously affirmed the Party’s commitment, resolving that “the right to mother tongue education where reasonably practicable is a non-negotiable and fundamental element of the Bill of Rights, and is no less important than any other constitutional right.”
Going forward and both in government as well as in opposition, the DA will take “urgent and active steps to expand access to mother tongue education at every institution where it is reasonably practicable.”
The political party is also urging the state to expand investment in developing all of South Africa’s official languages to ensure that mother tongue education becomes ‘reasonably practicable’ in public primary schools, universities and all other public training institutions across the country.
“The reason why language rights are under assault in South Africa is because of a lack of political will to defend and promote these rights,” said Dr Leon Schreiber MP, DA Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration in a statement.
“Unfortunately, in recent years, the DA too did not always defend the right to mother language education as vigorously as we could have. For too long, the people did not have a political champion on their side to fight for their language rights.”
He continues: “The DA will shortly launch an unprecedented campaign aimed at making Afrikaans equal with English at Stellenbosch University, where an indigenous South African language was apparently removed for political reasons and where mother-tongue instruction is already ‘reasonably practicable’.”
In future, the DA plan to expand this to many more schools and universities in South Africa.
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