Bela legislation will damage education profoundly ‒ AfriForum will litigate if it is passed

9 August 2023

AfriForum emphasises that Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill (also known as the BELA Bill) will damage education in the country profoundly if accepted in its current format. This statement follows in response to the preliminary national report on Parliament’s public participation process regarding the bill that has just become known. According to this report, great support was expressed by the public for the bill.

Alana Bailey, AfriForum’s head of Cultural Affairs, however mentions that the experience of staff and branch members of the organisation who participated in the public consultation sessions in the nine provinces, was that there had been overwhelming opposition to the bill. This had been expressed by means of thoroughly motivated submissions and not simply with populist statements such as that single-medium Afrikaans tuition is supposedly racist and hinders transformation.

“Apart from the public’s opinions, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee for Basic Education should take note that several provisions in the proposed bill contravenes provisions of the Constitution, as well as judgments of the Constitutional Court. By trying to steamroll the bill through Parliament before the national elections of 2024, the door is left open for many legal actions which are of course not paid for by the officials personally, but by the state, and therefore ultimately by the already overburdened taxpayers,” Bailey adds.

However, Bailey explains that litigation will be essential, as the legislation will damage aspects such as the right of access to mother-language education, the privacy of school governing body members, limited class sizes for the sake of quality education and the active involvement of school communities via democratically elected school governing bodies.

“Education specialists know that this is just another attempt to deprive the community of power by centralising it in the hands of the state. Instead of focusing on the state’s inability to rehabilitate its 80% dysfunctional schools, the myth is proclaimed that by giving children access to former Model C schools, all problems will be solved.”

She concludes by stating that AfriForum’s legal team is ready to oppose the bill if it were to be passed.

Issued by Alana Bailey, Head: Cultural Affairs, AfriForum, 9 August 2023