Skip to main content

Language crisis in schools resolved

6 July 1976
The minister of Bantu Education, M.C. Botha, announced that the South African Government had annulled the regulation that Black secondary school pupils be instructed equally in English and Afrikaans. New regulations were issued, leaving the choice of the medium of instruction to school principals. The announcement followed about three weeks after the Soweto riots. Sources: Muller, C.F.J. (ed)(1981). Five Hundred years: a history of South Africa; 3rd rev. ed., Pretoria: Academica, p. 534. Kalley, J.A.; Schoeman, E. & Andor, L.E. (eds)(1999). Southern African Political History: a chronology of key political events from independence to mid-1997, Westport: Greenwood.