The Politics of Language in Education: TheMikroCase in South Africa

Abstract

School language policies stand at the nexus of identity politics and human rights in contemporary South Africa. Since 1996, litigation on school language policies has been resolved on the basis of language rights. Courts have emphasized that the mere mention of single-medium schools in the constitution in no way privileges these institutions over dual-medium schools, parallel-medium schools, or schools that otherwise accommodate multilingualism. In turn, legal proceedings have consistently upheld the letter of the law in terms of language rights, and English-speaking students have almost always been accommodated at former Afrikaans-medium public schools. But the constitutional goal of cooperative government remains unfulfilled. As a result, disputes over language policy continue to be costly, emotional, and directed at what “ought to be done” about one specific language, Afrikaans. This article focuses on the shortcomings of one case, the Mikro case, to argue that the vision of public education must be revised in order to consider language rights alongside principles of cooperative government.

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