Table 5: Percentage students per course registration who passed selected first-year courses in 1999 at the University of Pretoria, by language used as medium of instruction (MoI)
Source: University of Pretoria Student Data Bureau The average difference between the first-language students and the second-language students in Table 5 is 24.5%. Approaching this matter more conservatively, it would probably be fair to suggest that ESL students are likely to perform at least 10% below their potential. This situation is clearly unfair to ESL students and, also, constitutes an unjust advantage for students whose primary language is English (24% of the UP student population). As indicated in Table 6 below, 76% of the students at UP are users of ESL (with about 28% being black users of ESL). In so far as these students are taught in English, they are academically potentially at a disadvantage, and language functions as an obstacle to full educational access and equity.
