AfriForum ready for submission on BELA Bill ‒ will oppose pressure on Gauteng schools to take in more learners
14 November 2022
On Tuesday, 15 November 2022, AfriForum will make an oral presentation on the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill (the so-called BELA Bill) to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Basic Education. This is in addition to the detailed comments submitted to the committee in June this year.
AfriForum’s position is that some of the proposed amendments in the bill are unconstitutional and seriously threaten the future of Afrikaans mother-language education. If these amendments were to be implemented, AfriForum would regard it to be an irreparable, unilateral and permanent breach of the constitutional settlement of 1994 by the ANC government. The organisation therefore requests that the bill should be revised comprehensively.
According to Alana Bailey, AfriForum’s Head of Cultural Affairs, the legal opinion that forms part of the organisation’s submission indicates that there are many grounds on which the bill must be rejected. “For the Afrikaans community, the proposals that the provincial heads of education should henceforth have the final say on the admission and language policy of schools are the most crucial aspect in this regard. Not only does this amount to an unacceptable increasing centralisation of power in the hands of the state, but it also destroys the current cooperation model between the state and school communities, as represented by democratically elected governing bodies of schools.”
In addition, AfriForum takes note with great concern of the pressure currently being exerted on school principals in Gauteng to accept more learners for 2023 than the schools’ capacity allows for. “The right of school governing bodies to make decisions on admission is apparently already being ignored in the province, as if the bill has already been passed and implemented. The overloading of schools with learners creates great risks not only for the quality of education, but even for the physical safety of the children. This is unacceptable and just another attempt by the provincial education department to try to cover up its inability to provide adequate schools. The country’s youth cannot continue paying the price for mismanaged education authorities,” Bailey said.
AfriForum is ready to provide legal aid to schools that experience this kind of pressure, or are intimidated to change their Afrikaans language policy.
Issued by Alana Bailey, Head: Cultural Affairs, AfriForum, 14 November 2022
