Ermelo school loses language battle

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http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=322292&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/

A ruling by a full bench of the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday put another nail in the coffin of Afrikaans-only education in state schools.

Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe, Judge Willie Seriti and acting Judge Natvarial Ranchod dismissed with costs a review application by Hoërskool Ermelo to set aside a decision forcing it to admit English-speaking pupils and become a parallel-medium school.
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Who wants to bet this school will want to take it all the way to the Con Court?

Good ruling.
 
Who wants to be educated in a school where only the English teacher can speak proper English? I was in an English school, with Afrikaans teachers, science was especially difficult, because I spent more time trying to fix her grammar in my mind than anything else in that class.
Anyway, now the teachers have their work load doubled, because tests will have to be made available in Afrikaans and English. I can imagine that the effort which will go in to translation will be lacking in accuracy and professionalism.

I don't know if this was a fair ruling, I can't decide, I however think parents should not screw their children over by putting them in a majority Afrikaans school, with regards to the social and academic consequences.
 
If its a goverment school it should be catering for as many languages as possible.
What about the people with location restrictions and maybe financial, arent able to send them anywhere else... what happens to those kids?
 
lsuacner said:
Who wants to be educated in a school where only the English teacher can speak proper English? I was in an English school, with Afrikaans teachers, science was especially difficult, because I spent more time trying to fix her grammar in my mind than anything else in that class.
Anyway, now the teachers have their work load doubled, because tests will have to be made available in Afrikaans and English. I can imagine that the effort which will go in to translation will be lacking in accuracy and professionalism.

I don't know if this was a fair ruling, I can't decide, I however think parents should not screw their children over by putting them in a majority Afrikaans school, with regards to the social and academic consequences.
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Afrikaans is the majority language in the Western Cape. It is also derived from a European language, so translation of textbooks is easier - and the last government helped with that. There is no reason why any Afrikaner can't choose an Afrikaans medium school for their children if that is their desire.

What the government is trying to do, is remove their ability to choose by flooding Afrikaans schools with black people, so that inevitably the governing body is changed and over time the school is filled with ANC supporters. It's pure politicking and smells of hate and prejudice, which the ANC is very good at.
 
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So the quality of education should drop for all kids, instead of one child taking things the way it comes to him and being schooled in Afrikaans? I was schooled in English, as no Afrikaans school wanted to take me.

lsuacner said:
I did not receive education from grade 5 to grade 9. I started In grade 10 again and I passed with university exemption and have a degree now. I also qualified for Golden Key, which means I was in the top 10% in my faculty.

My sister did not receive grade 11 or 12, she went to work overseas and when she was 20 she took textbooks from grade 11 and 12 and worked through them on her own without any teachers in 2 months. She got 5 As and a B+ 0.5% short of an A for matric which she wrote at the South-African embassy. She has a Masters degree now, she never did not have a distinction for any subject at Potchefstroom.

In reality, highschool can be completed in less than a year.

It was difficult for me to enter in to school, as I had no foundation, but I was in the top ten every term from the start. I walked away with the subject prizes for English and Afrikaans.
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I could understand if it was an African language - it would be excessively difficult for a former Afrikaans school to teach in a language most of the teachers are unable to speak. However, English is widely spoken and understood in many place of the world and the transition shouldn't be exceedingly problematic.

That being said: should the Deutshe Schule be forced to teach in English? There are schools that exist for the benefit of a certain community (not just here, but everywhere in the world) - why should an Afrikaans only school be different?
 
Skeptik said:
Afrikaans is the majority language in the Western Cape. It is also derived from a European language, so translation of textbooks is easier - and the last government helped with that. There is no reason why any Afrikaner can't choose an Afrikaans medium school for their children if that is their desire.
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If it was a private school then yes maybe, feel free to choose an Afrikaans medium school. But it's a government school so tough luck, it should cater for more than one language so that it doesn't restric access to an education.
 
chiskop said:
The German school is not a government school - the one in Ermelo is.
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Fair enough, but I only see it as necessary should it benefit the community. Which is essentially the same thing. What next you have to teach in all 11 languages?
 
Unless you want to handicap your kid before they even get started, all education should take place in English
 
McSack said:
Unless you want to handicap your kid before they even get started, all education should take place in English
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That is true, so the judgement was correct, at least to the benefit of the children.
 
Now that the govt has forced the school to change they should provide money to build extra classrooms for the influx of extra children and they should also increase the money the school receives per month so that they can afford to hire teachers to teach the new children.

I am Afrikaans and I went to an Afrikaans high school and I'm glad I did.I now go to an English only Uni where I study engineering without any language difficulty.I will in all likely hood send my children to a Afrikaans highschool, private if necessary for the simple reason that the quality of education in Afr schools is generally better. I believe this is due to the fact that Afrikaans/white kids are generally better behaved than English/black kids and English/dual medium schools have much more black kids than afr only schools.

My friends mother has been a teacher at Rhodesfield technical school for many,many years and she has seen it go from a predominantly white to a predominantly black school.She has received multiple death threats from the black students, been assaulted by one and all that she can say is that she is glad that she is retiring soon.She simply cannot handle giving class to the black kids anymore because "they have no discipline"

I have an english friend that is sending his daughter to an Afrikaans school because all the English/dubble medium schools are mostly black and the classes are overcrowded, there is a lack of discipline and there is almost no sport and academics to speak of.

Why not build new schools instead of disrupting the already established ones?
 
timgaul said:
That being said: should the Deutshe Schule be forced to teach in English? There are schools that exist for the benefit of a certain community (not just here, but everywhere in the world) - why should an Afrikaans only school be different?
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I attended one of the German Schools and was taught in German up to std. 7. From Std.8 onwards most subjects are actually taught in English (bar the subjects German [duh :rolleyes:] Social Studies and Religion), due to the fact that all of the schools write the South African Matric.

Should students then choose to add on an extra year, called Abitur (similar to the UK A-levels) all subjects are once again taught in German.

All of this worked out quite well, although it was somewhat annoying when teachers whose knowledge of the English language was far from perfect had to then teach in English instead of German. Shame, some students gave them hell for bad pronunciation etc.
 
Toko said:
Why not build new schools instead of disrupting the already established ones?
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Because that would involve foresight, something that is very lacking in our government. Its like saying: "Why not build new power stations instead of disrupting electrical connections?". Grade-A typical bugger up that this country has become well known for.
 
I just have one question : how many state schools are actually dual medium?
 
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