Educational institutions should be anchored in cultural communities

(Parliamentary debate: The right of communities to participate in the management and development of both private and public educational institutions)

Dr. Wynand Boshoff

FF Plus MP and chief spokesperson: Basic and Higher Education

24 November 2023

In a debate of national importance, requested by the FF Plus, the role of cultural communities was a hot topic that sent sparks flying in Parliament today.

To introduce the debate, the FF Plus quoted from the United Nations' (UN) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1976, which was ratified in South Africa in 2015.

Section 1 of this treaty instructs states to afford the peoples within their territory the opportunity to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

This is in stark contrast to the ANC government's deliberate attempt to annihilate cultural diversity through education.

The current onslaught on the compromise reached in the 1996 Schools Act whereby communities were allowed to manage their schools, while government would determine learning content aims to place education totally under government's control. This applies to scholastic and post-scholastic training.

While educational experts have tried their very best to steer clear of using words such as "self-determination" until recently, it is becoming obvious that this is precisely the right that cultural groups who want to keep education true to their nature will have to invoke.

It is an internationally recognised right which is also formally recognised by our government.

In response, the ANC and EFF once again took the stance which prompted the debate in the first place: Minorities in South Africa should conform to the majority and should stop trying to express their own cultures through education.

Soltech was even attacked for allegedly being non-inclusive as it offers training in Afrikaans.

This accusation was countered with a question: If all public colleges that offer technical training exclude Afrikaans, how can a single institution created with that language community's own funds be labelled as exclusive?

The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from this debate is that the ANC wants to establish, and maintain, a tyranny of the majority.

Merely defeating the ANC at the polls next year is not enough. A constitutional dispensation that recognises the country's cultural diversity should be established to supersede the current oppression of minorities.

Issued by the FF Plus, 24 November 2023