AfriForum to proceed with legal steps as soon as President signs BELA

11 September 2024

AfriForum views the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill (BELA) as an attempt at cultural ethnic cleansing by the ANC government, as the implementation of the Bill will enable the destruction of a linguistic and cultural community’s schools, thereby jeopardising the group’s cultural existence. For this reason, AfriForum’s legal team is ready to take steps against its implementation as soon as the Bill is signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa. AfriForum made its announcement today during a joint media conference by AfriForum, Solidarity, Solidarity Helping Hand, the Skoleondersteuningsentrum (SOS) and the FAK.

Since the first draft of this Bill appeared in 2017, AfriForum has steadfastly been objecting to the articles in it which amends the right of governing bodies to have the final say about schools’ admission and language policies. According to Alana Bailey, AfriForum’s Head of Cultural Affairs, over the years thousands of members of AfriForum and the wider public have pledged their support to this organisation’s opposition to the Bill.

There was continuous participation in all public consultation events at provincial and national level. “The more information about its contents became known, the more the opposition to it escalated. It is therefore extremely disappointing that the President plans to sign the Bill into law. It is an aggressive act of contempt for public opinion that transforms the government of national unity into a government of national disunity,” says Bailey.

Afrikaans schools nationwide are under pressure from provincial officials to offer English instruction. Now that provincial heads of education will have the right to take final decisions about schools’ language and admissions policies, the door is open to change single-medium Afrikaans schools to dual- or parallel-medium schools. The inevitable end of this process will be that the schools will become single-medium English institutions.

Bailey mentions that despite the declarations of support that the Department of Basic Education has recently made about the value of mother-language education, it is a right that is increasingly being denied to Afrikaans-speaking learners. “Afrikaans has already been eroded in the country’s public universities in a similar way. The shrinking number of schools that still use Afrikaans as a language of instruction now is the next target. AfriForum is therefore preparing for both national and international legal action to oppose this,” she says.

Statement issued by Alana Bailey, Head: Cultural Affairs, AfriForum, 11 September 2024