Afrikaans in higher education

Abstract

The main issue dealt with in the article is the case for the retention of Afrikaans as a language of higher education. Given its association with apartheid, the attempts to impose it on black learners in the 1970s, its continuing stigmatisation in many communities and the total loss of political of its white speakers, the question to be asked is whether it should be retained as medium of instruction in higher education in post-1994 democratic South Africa, and, if there are valid reasons in support of its retention in this capacity, what its role should be and how its revitalisation should be handled. Six arguments are presented in support of the maintenance of Afrikaans as an academic language.