Frustrated parents at a top Johannesburg public school who are spending thousands of rands on fees and more on private tutors for their children who are struggling with Afrikaans are at their wits end after receiving letters encouraging their children to watch TV programmes and listen to radio programme in the language to improve their proficiency.
The parents of Bonolo Masemene – who has been struggling with Afrikaans, despite her parents paying additional money on a tutor in addition to the extra classes she has been attending at school – had no choice but to change her first additional language (FAL) if they want her to stay at her current school.
Kgaugelo Masemene, the mother of the grade nine pupil at Park Town High School for Girls in Johannesburg, said their home language is Sepedi. The school offers Afrikaans or isiZulu as a FAL.
“She has been doing English as a home language and Afrikaans as a FAL since primary.
“She almost failed Afrikaans in grade eight. We decided as a family that she must switch to isiZulu,” she said, adding that because she speaks isiZulu at work, she is also able to now help her with her homework.
“With Afrikaans, I couldn’t even help her,” she said.
“I understand isiZulu better,” said Bonolo. “I doesn’t feel like I started studying the language this year,” she said.
But for another parent, switching to another language that is not his home language is not an option for his children.
The parent, who refused to be named saying he does not want his child to be victimised, said children are still forced to learn Afrikaans at former Model C schools.
He said when he received a letter from his child’s school informing him that he must encourage his child to watch Afrikaans TV programmes, listen to Afrikaans radio stations, read Afrikaans books and attend extra lessons to improve their proficiency of the language, he was flabbergasted.
“If you want your child to go to a good school, then you must accept that they are not going to learn their mother tongue because most of these former Model C schools do not offer vernacular languages. If they do it is only one language in a country with 11 official languages.
“I’m considering taking my children to study in Limpopo so that they learn their mother tongue,” he said.
The 46-year-old father of three said with his children exposed to Sepedi only at home by making sure that they speak to them in Sepedi and listen to Sepedi radio programmes, it is going to be a struggle to juggle Sepedi and Afrikaans.
According to the latest available census data, 22.7% of people in South Africa speak isiZulu as a first language, followed by isiXhosa (16%), Afrikaans (13.5%), English (9.6%), Sepedi (9.1%), Setswana (7.6%), Xitshonga (4.5%), Siswati (2.6%), TshiVenda (2.4%), isiNdebele (2.1%), Other (1.6%) and Sign Language (0.5%).
Interestingly, the matric pass rate for the home languages was higher in the vernacular languages than in English and Afrikaans. According to the department of education’s matric results report for the Class of 2022, the national pass rate for vernacular home languages was higher at between 98.7% and 99.9% for other official languages compared to English (93.6%) and Afrikaans (94.5%). Sign Language achieved the lowest pass rate at 77.1%.
Students who wrote vernacular languages as a FAL achieved a pass rate of between 98.8% for isiZulu and 100% for isiNdebele, XiTshonga and TshiVenda, compared to 99.2% for English and 93.8% for Afrikaans.
IsiZulu teachers Ntombifikile Sithole and Philisiwe Mavuso have observed some interesting trends in their school.
Sithole said black children change from Afrikaans FAL to isiZulu FAL because they struggle with Afrikaans.
“We have children who change from Afrikaans FAL to isiZulu FAL even in grade 11.
“These black children who change from Afrikaans FAL sometimes even outperform the isiZulu home language speakers. I think that is because they are also more committed to learning the language and attend the intervention classes that are offered to assist them, while sometimes home language speakers take it for granted that it is their mother tongue and do not go the extra mile.
“In my class I have some learners whose home language is isiZulu, and those who speak other languages, including white, Indian and Chinese learners,” said Sithole.
Mavuso said while isiZulu classes are still very small – two compared to nine Afrikaans teachers per grade – there is a small but encouraging number of parents who chose isiZulu over Afrikaans, though they are not mother tongue speakers of the language.
“Interestingly, for the white, Indian and Chinese learners in my class; they took isiZulu when they started school,” she said.
Mavuso said it warmed her heart when one of her white pupils, now a medical doctor, contacted her to tell her that her isiZulu classes have been an added advantage in his work.
Mavuso said whether the school offers Setswana or Sepedi or any another vernacular language as an option, the question is always “why doesn’t the school offer my own language”.
“While parents have a problem with their children learning another vernacular language, the same cannot be said for Afrikaans,” she said, “Some parents will even choose Afrikaans instead of their home language even when it is offered,” she said.
“As black people we also need to stop undermining our own languages when we send our children to these schools,” she said.
Prof Thabo Ditsele, an associate professor of sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology at Tshwane University of Technology, said the role played by language is often taken for granted in South Africa.
The NRF-rated researcher said the law in South Africa allows and empowers parents to choose two languages for their children, one of which should be used as a language or learning and teaching. He said the law does not say English and Afrikaans, but parents at ex-Model C schools tend to go with these.
“Parents see the teaching of African languages that are not their home languages in a similar lens as during the apartheid era, that is, as empowering someone else’s home language and not theirs. As such, Afrikaans becomes a compromise due to its neutral position, as it were.
“Unless and until the country engages in an open and frank discussion of what it means to promote the use of different languages, at our own peril, we will continue to joke about the disproportionate institutional support for isiZulu and isiXhosa in the public domain at the disadvantage of other African languages, as well as grappling with the issue of keeping Afrikaans even at schools where an overwhelming majority of learners are black and non-home speakers of this language,” said Ditsele.
Gauteng department of education spokesperson Steve Mabona was not able to provide a response, saying he would not be able to reach schools because the comment was sent to him on Friday evening.
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