Statement by Adv. A. GAUM, Western Cape Provincial Minister of Education and MPP for Stellenbosch

It is welcome news that Professor Kader Asmal's plan for reorganising higher education in the Western Cape is aimed at promoting meaningful change rather than at trying to reinvent the wheel and consequently causing unnecessary disruption.

It is especially heartening that the report allows a university like Stellenbosch, which does not teach in English, to keep Afrikaans as its medium of instruction. Stellenbosch must, however, heed the report's call to the universities to strive constantly towards greater inclusivity, especially in the recruiting of more coloured students. This poses a further challenge to US to cater genuinely for all the Afrikaans-speakers in the Western Cape community.

The wisdom of merging a career-training institution like the Peninsula Technikon with the University of the Western Cape must, however, be questioned. Career-training education, with the improved chance it gives students of finding a place in the labour market, is exactly what there needs to be a greater focus on in the Western Cape. The education system needs to be revised specifically to promote career-training education.