By Zandri van Greunen
The isiXhosa student contracts will be available soon. This was announced by Johan Weideman, 2025/2026 Students’ Representative Council (SRC) General Member and head of the Transformation and Multilingualism portfolios, during the Student Parliament (SP) plenary sitting on 6 August.
Weideman said at SP he advocated for more isiXhosa within university spaces, such as an isiXhosa version of the SU Student Contract and final offer letter for prospective students. He updated the SP on the development of the final offer letter by reading communication that he had received on 6 August from the Registrar’s Office:
“The registrar has approved that we proceed with the translation of the student contract into isiXhosa, as an immediate action to support SU’s multilingualism agenda.
“The development of a final offer letter in isiXhosa, however, is considerably more complex. To implement this effectively, the university would need to translate all qualifications’ names into isiXhosa, incorporate these translations into the student information system, and establish processes to maintain and update the database whenever program changes occur.
“Given the complexity and institutional applications of this undertaking, members of the Registrar’s Management Team have been tasked with investigating its feasibility as an immediate priority.
“While this work is receiving attention, it is likely that implementation of the isiXhosa final offer letter may need to be placed on the backlog of outstanding institutional projects,” depending on “the outcome of the feasibility assessment and consideration of competing priorities,” Weideman read.
Heated discussion about credit
His portfolios were subsequently heavily debated at SP.
Weideman was re-elected as a SRC member for 2026/2027. During his campaign in 2026, Weideman said that he wanted to continue with the same portfolios.
Questions regarding the current Transformation and Multilingualism portfolios were raised by members of SP under the agenda point of “Oversight and Engagement: Multilingualism”.
The Speaker of SP, Solomzi Mphambo, read the prompt which said the Multilingualism portfolio should “advance multilingualism on campus and address language barriers affecting students”.
As part of the prompt introducing the agenda point about multilingualism, Mphambo told members of SP that Weideman indicated he played a role in the initiative to provide final SU offer letters to prospective students in isiXhosa.
Mphambo said the agenda point “seeks clarity on the specific initiatives, programs or policy interventions that have been undertaken by the Multilingualism portfolio during [Weideman’s] term and that can be attributed to his leadership”.
Weideman told Die Matie on 8 August he has “lobbied for these improvements, but we need not argue about who deserves the credit for this new development. We should rather try to celebrate this new development in the pursuit of multilingualism.”
Portfolios questioned
Weideman further addressed the agenda point by explaining the history of the Transformation and Multilingualism portfolios.
Weideman told Die Matie the impression that the Transformation portfolio had been replaced by the Multilingualism portfolio, or that the two portfolios had been merged together, is simply inaccurate. “These are two separate portfolios, and the [decision] stems from a lack of initiatives by the Transformation portfolio.
“I identified a gap within the SRC structure: there was no dedicated portfolio for language matters, and there was no direct link between the SRC and the Language Centre,” Weideman told Die Matie.
He said the vision of the Multilingualism portfolio is “to provide students with a direct channel through which language-related concerns can be raised and addressed”, while also “to promote and strengthen multilingualism at SU through collaboration with stakeholders, societies, and institutional structures” like the SU Language Centre.
“In my [2025/2026] term, I have strengthened the relationship between the SRC, Student Governance and the SU Language Centre,” he said. Weideman told SP that he presented some initial ideas to the 2025/2026 SRC, like the appointment of an isiXhosa and Afrikaans transcriber who would transcribe documents for Student Governance.
Weideman also told Die Matie part of his initial plan for the Multilingualism portfolio was to work on the release of “all its statements in the three official languages of communication as stipulated by the Language Policy of the university”.
Weideman said the SU Language Centre brought to his attention that transcribing services can be requested from them. “Student Governance is now aware that resources are available for tran-scribing and other language-related matters,” he said.
Weideman said the SRC is not always aware that “they sit on a Language Planning Committee”.
“With this new Multilingualism portfolio, the SRC now has a dedicated member that could sit on this Language Planning Committee. This is one of many avenues where the SRC are there for students, in terms of advocating for language issues,” he said.
At SP, Weideman said his portfolio “is still in its formative stages” and that he is focused on “building the pillars of a sustainable future for multilingualism and its links to the SRC”. He said that he accepts and appreciates any suggestions for improvement.
Members of SP questioned Weideman’s progress in the Transformation and Multilingualism portfolios. Weideman told Die Matie that some projects he was working on within the Multilingualism portfolio took longer to develop than he anticipated and that he had to navigate “institutional processes and bureaucratic hurdles”.
“However, establishing a new portfolio requires a process of testing ideas, learning from challenges, and identifying practical ways to strengthen multilingualism on campus. Through this trial-and-error approach, valuable foundations have been laid for future initiatives,” Weideman said.
He also encouraged students to send any ideas concerning language matters at SU to the Multilingualism Instagram ac-count (@src.multilingualism).
“The institutional promotion of multilingualism is most effective when it is embraced collectively by students, student leaders, and the university,” said Weideman.
SU’s tongue-tied language evolution
By Die Matie team
Ten years ago, Afrikaans was still the dominant language of instruction at undergraduate level at Stellenbosch University (SU), but today SU is a multilingual university that has established itself on the international stage. But what does multilingualism mean in practice, can everyone be accommodated, and what are the duties of student leaders regarding language on campus? Die Matie explored these questions.
‘More choices, broader access’
In 2015 and 2016, the Rhodes Must Fall and #FeesMustFall movements sparked a national debate regarding the decolonisation of higher education, access and inclusion. Subsequently, the Open Stellenbosch movement campaigned for an inclusive and transformed SU with an urgent need for a language policy that will not exclude any students.
Leaders of Open Stellenbosch argued that the use of Afrikaans as the primary language of undergraduate instruction con-tributed to cultural exclusion and negatively affected the academic participation of many students. However, there were also interest groups that campaigned for the protection of Afrikaans at SU, maintaining that the university had a historical and moral obligation to safeguard the language.
On 20 August 2015, Luister (“Listen”), a documentary por-traying the personal stories of 32 black students studying at SU regarding racism, exclusion and discrimination based on language and race was released on YouTube by Dan Corder. In the video, SU students recounted instances of racial prejudice and the enormous challenges that they faced due to the use of Afrikaans as the primary language of teaching at the university.
Prof. Wim de Villiers, SU Rector and Vice-Chancellor from 2015 to 2025, shared his insights from that difficult time with Die Matie:
“SU’s Language Policy has been shaped by the needs of the students that we serve.
“With the resultant changing demographics of the university in its endeavour to provide broader access to higher education opportunities for people that were previously excluded from enrolling at the university, the language policy has had to be constantly reviewed and assessed as the bridge to meaningful education of its students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
“This was a process that naturally had to continue when I took over the rectorship of the university in April 2015 – against the backdrop of perennial contestations from some quarters of the university community that it will lead to the relegation of the use of Afrikaans or even the ‘death knell’ of the language at SU. And, whilst we were executing a clear stipulation for a review of the Policy within a given timeframe, we experienced the socio-economic developments and challenges of the Rhodes Must Fall and FeesMustFall movements as well as Open Stellenbosch.
“Yet, the sentiments from students of colour were clear – they felt alienated in the lecture rooms and elsewhere in the university where Afrikaans dominated. Moreover, their academic success was jeopardised by this situation.
“The result was the substantive amendments to the 2016 Language Policy to allow for multilingualism in the classroom – namely the use of both English and Afrikaans during lectures (which extended into translanguaging during lectures and practical work) to allow for deeper engagement of students of all language groups when dealing with key concepts.
“I was thus vindicated in my belief that our approach to language provides our students with more choices, broader access and a better future.”
Tips for a Maties multilingual mindset
“Students have an important role to play because multilingualism is lived most powerfully in everyday interactions. This can start with simple practices: learning to pronounce names correctly, greeting one another in different languages, being curious about people’s language journeys, asking for explanation rather than assuming exclusion, and making space for people to use the languages in which they think and connect. Student leaders can also help shift language conversations away from rules alone and towards shared values such as respect, compassion, equity, integrity and belonging. The most important contribution students can make is to model generosity: to listen well, to use language to include, and to help multilingualism become a bridge rather than a barrier.”
Information provided by the SU Language Centre.
