Abstract

WOLHUTER, Charl. Afrikaans as language in education after 100 years: Achievements, shortcomings, challenges and future. Tydskr. geesteswet. [online]. 2025, vol.65, n.1, pp.238-255. ISSN 2224-7912.  https://doi.org/10.17159/2224-7912/2025/v65n1a11.

This article aims to explore the evolutionary trajectory of Afrikaans in the education sector, in anticipation of the upcoming celebration marking 100 years of Afrikaans as an official language of South Africa. The insights gained in this exercise are then used to suggest a strategy for the future and the continual entrenchment and promotion of Afrikaans as language in the education sector. This survey employs methodological tools of two related academic fields - comparative education and the history of education. Recommendations for a strategy to ensure the continued promotion of Afrikaans in the education sector are provided. Over the past century, Afrikaans has achieved remarkable milestones, evolving from a point in 1925 when even the Bible had not yet been translated, into a language empowered and used at the highest level, also in education, where it is the language of top-rated scholarly publications and doctoral theses. However, in their crusade to develop Afrikaans, the White Afrikaans-speaking community made three grave errors in their sizing up and factoring in of contextual realities or forces. They failed to include Afrikaans first-language speakers from other population groups, they did not gain the support of speakers of other indigenous South African languages, and they misinterpreted the international context. These errors cost those promoting the language project dearly with reference to the uncongenial situation in which Afrikaans finds itself in the present South African context. Bases of power for the project of promoting the language in the coming years include the demographic weight of the numbers of (first- as well as second-language) speakers and their economic muscle. The number of Afrikaans first-language speakers has increased from 6 855 930 in 2011, to 6 989 786 in 2016, to 7 080 042 in 2021 and is expected to rise further to 7 122 806 in 2031. Concerning the numbers of first-language speakers, Afrikaans is the third-largest language in South Africa (after isiZulu and isiXhosa). Likewise, Afrikaans is, measured by its number of second-language speakers, following on isiZulu and isiXhosa, the third-largest language in South Africa, with 10,3 million second-language speakers. With reference to the number of first- and second-language speakers combined, again, Afrikaans currently is, with 17,2 million first- and second-language speakers, the third-largest language in South Africa. For a dynamic, visionary promotion of Afrikaans in the next 100 years, it is imperative that opportunities that do arise are seized and it is necessary to observe and analyse the context closely and thoroughly and to act accordingly. Second, and related to this, is the task to take up once again ownership of the writing of the history of South Africa, after the Afrikaans voice in South African education historiography has gone much quieter in recent years. It is, unfortunately, the case that, despite the sociopolitical reconstruction that commenced in 1994, neither education historiography nor the general social-scientific literature on education in South Africa succeeded in breaking loose from the ideological-paradigmatic straitjacket they had been forced into, and so, they remain fossilised. In this regard, the 1994 Constitution and the Creed of Human Rights, as the moral code for a globalised world, can be suggested as central reference points for the writing of the history and the social-scientific study of education in South Africa.

Keywords : Afrikaans; comparative education; contextual factoring in; curriculum; demography; education; history of education; international context; language of learning and teaching; universities.

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