Finance minister Tito Mboweni left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths after he posted a tweet saying he disagrees with the removal of Afrikaans as a medium language of instruction at the University of Pretoria.
I publicly, and in my personal capacity, DISAGREE, with the phasing out of Afrikaans as one of the mediums of teaching at the University of Pretoria. As a country, you are shooting yourselves down. You will regret it in 30 years’ time. pic.twitter.com/qNe43ErSQz
— Tito Mboweni (@tito_mboweni) January 24, 2019
According to reports as of this year (2019), English is the medium language of teaching for all first-year classes at the university. This came after the AfriForum Youth and Solidarity lost a high court battle in 2016 to challenge the language policy.
The finance ministers opinion on the matter was not appreciated by some students who felt the use of Afrikaans in the university was excluding non-Afrikaans speaking students from attaining certain information during lectures.
I was taught physics in a bilingual class at Tuks… it was the hardest thing due to language barrier. O bolela dichila
— Queen Mills ❤ (@milliselale) January 24, 2019
I decided not to respond to Tito Mboweni’s tweet last nite. I couldn’t believe that he sits so high up that he can’t see that Afrikaans was and still is used to uphold & entrench exclusion of Blacks in institutions. His disregard of the suffering of Black students makes me livid.
— Tebogo 🇿🇦🇳🇬 (@tebogo_rametse) January 25, 2019
The same Afrikaans that kids died for in 1976? We need an enquiry into how institutional racism has affected black students (with Afrikaans as a weapon) and maybe a brief reminder of the significance of June 16 1976, pic.twitter.com/4h2x5Ubjxv
— Woke_Makoti (@WokeMakoti) January 25, 2019
Dear Minister @tito_mboweni
At NWU I saw how Afrikaans forced Balck students to sleep in toilets & petrol stations because lecturers were told that if they want to reach in English it had to be at night. So no, I will not regret being part of a movement to do away with it
— Tessa Dooms (@tessie18) January 25, 2019
What is even disturbing about @tito_mboweni is that he is not advocating for the development and use of indigenous languages to be at a level where they should become the medium of instruction at primary, secondary and tertiary level, disappointing indeed
— Afrika (@Thami42876171) January 25, 2019
Watching Tito Mboweni pulling a Kanye West on us pic.twitter.com/zQJXqAXDvZ
— SuccessOnlife (@SuccessOnLife) January 25, 2019
