'Luister' made me uncomfortable, says Stellies VC - As it happened

“We’ve had personal interactions with members of the collective and that has been fruitful, and what we found most constructive to engage with bodies such as the SRC, DASO, SASCO and we hope it continues. 

“I really appreciate this input, and as I’ve said before, I want to welcome you to visit the campus in future.”

At that, Minister for Higher Education Blade Nzimande takes his leave to attend another meeting in Johannesburg.

“There is a good relationship between the municipality and the South African police force. There are efforts to get all the surrounding communities involved in the life of Stellenbosch.

“Second issue: in the video, there are about six Elsenburg students that are interviewed. Those students belong to the department of the Western Cape, they do not fall under the auspices of Stellenbosch University (although we do accredit one of those courses).

“Third: There is a lack of gender diversity. Generally, the amount of female lecturers is around 50%, but there is a bottleneck as we go to senior management.

“Fourth: It’s inadequate for us to have 17% of our staff as black, coloured and Indian. We share this issue with all SA higher education institutes. We also want to invest R70m to recruit senior role models to convince other black, coloured, Indian students to come to our institution.

“Fifth: With regard to multi-lingualism, the new first year student enrolments from this year, 47% say their home language is English, Afrikaans, 45%, Other 8-9%."

Four questions arose from MPs and invited guests during the very long question-asking session. They are:

- How many of those lectures are being translated, what is being done to improve translations?

- What's being done to ensure the university is multilingual and not simply marketed as multilingual?

- When all is said and done, the status of a black child won’t change. Do you agree with that?

- Why do black students feel so disillusioned with university management’s efforts to combat racism at the university?

“Transformation calls for us to embrace humanness first. The root of the problem is that there are students who don’t feel welcome.

“The leadership structure should understand its role.”

After greeting everyone in three languages, including isiXhosa, Qina says:

“Racism is unacceptable. There needs to be a social deconstruction of apartheid. Our vision for campus is for students to see each other as human beings first.

“Transformation is an organic change.”

"We monitor that the higher education policies of the department are being implemented.

"We could be doing a lot more on this regard, if I can be critical," says Burrows.

Le Roux Burrows of Stellenbosch University now speaking:

"Transformation first-and-foremost is a mindset change.

"Transformation much make you feel uncomfortable. We must keep on looking and actively listening."

“There is a broad support for transformation and progress at Stellenbosch University.

“We want to invite the committee and minister to come and experience for yourself what we have at Stellenbosch University,” he says in conclusion.

“Some people say that isiXhosa is only used as a front for multi-lingualism. The university is investing significantly in isiXhosa as a medium to teach, particularly in medicine.

“The purpose of this is to give instruction in a dualistic way.”

“Police matters, invitation matters and there were other matters.

“First of all, when it comes to policy issues, one of the issues, is that the word ‘safeguard’ means maintain the status and privilege of Afrikaans.

“How should that be rephrased to give equitable access to language, the task team will look into that.”

“Isixhosa at SU is a developing academic language.

“The language policy is through strategic intent aimed at giving access to black, coloured and indian students.”

“We want to not only diversify staff, but make sure there is transformation competence.

“We are in the process of establishing a fully-staffed office of transformation.

“This will be a researched-based journey. We will employ two full professors for transformation, reconciliation and Justice.

“By 2020, we want at least 50-50 demographics in the student body.”

“We strive to make a contribution to a South Africa of human dignity.

“The most foundational value is the value of human dignity.”

“We want to be a university where restitution is practiced and materializes.

“The transformation journey from exclusion to inclusion; sole ownership to joint ownership.

“From an Afrikaans university to a multilingual university; from division and discrimination to togetherness.”

"It's somewhat ironic that the video is entitled Luister.

"We have an initiative called Luister, live and learn. We are open to change. We are committed to an open discussion.

"We are listening, we are talking, we will continue to do so.

"We will continue to build a community of social justice and equal opportunity. We want to have inclusive and diverse experience for students and staff."

"We need to avoid the serious danger of polarisation.

"Social media has become awash with racist slurs.

"What's concerning is the 'us vs them' mentality that is re-emerging."

"On the accusation that management at the university ignores complaints of racism. This is simply not true.

"We are investigating the proposals from open Stellenbosch and the SRC, and we want to handle this correctly."

"There are still problems 21 years after democracy.

"The born frees have arrived on campus and they can think for themselves."

"Students should be critical. I have been promoting this since day one.

"There is turbulence on campuses countrywide, which is why we welcome the opportunity to discuss this in Parliament today."

"Let me now turn to the Luister video," de Villiers continued.

"The Luister video talks about very real issues.

"I watched it with my wife. We found it extremely uncomfortable. It contains valued lived experiences.

"And hearing these narratives of racism is painful to me.

"I'm not going to defend the indefensible. These things are wrong, end of story.

"What is wrong must be fixed."

"The university is intimately involved in many, many transformation programmes.

"We are proud of the transformation legacy."