Sean Baker sits with his son Juan-Jacques until the early hours of the morning, explaining in English topics in textbooks for five subjects that are in Afrikaans.
The 14-year-old and his classmate Yolanda Makhambi, the only two English-speaking pupils in Grade 8 at Hoërskool Namakwaland at Springbok in the Northern Cape, are battling to learn because they are taught in Afrikaans.
Makhambi is the daughter of Brenda Matebe, who has been campaigning tirelessly over the past few years for English classes to be introduced at schools in the Namakwa district.
She cancelled plans to picket outside parliament last Wednesday to demand pupils also be taught in English at Afrikaans-medium schools after being informed that basic education minister Angie Motshekga would not be in Cape Town to receive her memorandum.
All 74 public schools in the Namakwa district municipality are Afrikaans-medium.
In November, Matebe told members of the basic education portfolio committee during a Zoom meeting that the exclusive use of Afrikaans in schools in the Namakwa district municipality “is limiting our black children’s capability of getting good marks”.
Baker, 49, who was born into an Afrikaans family and grew up speaking the language, enrolled Juan-Jacques at Hoërskool Namakwaland on August 2 after moving from Cape Town, where, since Grade R, his son had attended an English school.
He said he asked acting principal Tania van Wyk if his son could be provided with the question papers in English instead of Afrikaans for tests that were recently written, but she refused.
“She said the papers will be in Afrikaans, but my son can answer them in English. But when he approached one of the teachers, he was told that if he puts any answers in English, even if the answer is right, it will be marked wrong because the teacher can’t mark papers in English and Afrikaans.”
Baker said, however, that several teachers were helping his son by translating lessons from Afrikaans to English.
He said Juan-Jacques was studying nine subjects, but had only been given English textbooks for maths, technology and life orientation.
Said Baker: “In all these years, there is no English school in Namakwa. My question is, if the people in Namaqualand don’t want English schooling, why do they send their children to live with friends and relatives in Cape Town to attend English schools?”
He was waiting anxiously to see how his son performed in the quarterly tests as he had always done well at his previous schools.
“I am going to cry my eyeballs out if this child doesn’t make it because I have seen with my own eyes and I experienced it within this last month how hard this boy is trying.
“He is being taught in a language he doesn’t understand. He’s never failed in his life and he said: ‘Daddy, I don’t want to fail this year.’”
Van Wyk declined to speak to Sunday Times Daily.
Meanwhile, Matebe said she emailed the memorandum of demands to Motshekga, as well as a list of 706 signatures of parents who supported the call for the implementation of English education in the Namakwa district.
The biggest demand in her six-page memorandum was that English classes be offered from next year.
“We demand that our children be allowed to write tests and exams in English ... and that textbooks in English be provided.”
She said an “empty promise of textbooks” was made by the Northern Cape education department during last November’s virtual meeting with the portfolio committee of education in parliament.
Her daughter is forced to use Afrikaans textbooks to study drama, social science and natural sciences.
In an email to Matebe, Motshekga’s private secretary, Steve Mabua, acknowledged receipt of her memorandum of demands and indicated it would be forwarded to her and the director-general of basic education, Mathanzima Mweli, for their consideration.
Northern Cape education department spokesperson Geoffrey van der Merwe said they had explored the feasibility of implementing English classes at schools in the Namakwa district for the past two years.
He said a survey conducted this year indicated that 299 parents living in various towns were in favour of English as a medium of instruction.
“The responses were mainly from towns around Springbok, Port Nolloth and Calvinia, and across all grades.”
But he said the number of pupils per grade did not meet the requirements of the norms and standards for the language policy in public schools.
“It stipulates that it is reasonably practicable to provide education in a particular language of learning and teaching if at least 40 learners in Grades 1 to 6 or 35 in Grades 7 to 12 in a particular grade request it in a school.”
He said Hoërskool Namakwaland could not supply Baker’s son all the English textbooks as they were ordered in August last year for 2021.
“The teachers distance themselves from the accusation that one of the teachers would mark all the answers wrong on the answer script of the learner. The circuit manager will further investigate the matter on Monday.”
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