John Perry’s letter regarding Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi’s criticism of Solidarity’s proposed Afrikaans-language occupational training college takes me back to 14 years before Lesufi was born, when farmworkers started teaching me to speak Afrikaans because they all spoke the language in our area (“Afrikaans college meets critical need”, September 26).
I then went to an Afrikaans-medium primary school because that was all there was in close proximity to our farm.
It is a tragedy that people like Lesufi are sowing division by abusing race versus language. Nobody will be forced to go to the college envisaged by Solidarity, but those students who do will need to learn in Afrikaans. Perhaps Cosatu or some of the other unions should contemplate building a college for each of the African languages purely to enable anyone wanting to learn in their mother tongue to do so.
I am sure the Solidarity college won’t refuse entry to a Xhosa-speaking student (for example) who wants to study in Afrikaans.
John Johnston
Cape Town
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