Africa-Press – South-Africa. Department of Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga says the controversial Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill should not be seen as an attack on Afrikaans, but rather as protection of every child’s right to access education.
Motshekga was speaking during a media briefing hosted by the department on Sunday to celebrate Teachers’ Month.
She welcomed the adoption of the BELA Bill by Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Basic Education.
“The aim of the bill is to bring about certain technical and substantive adjustments in the South African Schools Act and the Employment of Educators Act. The bill also seeks to clarify certain existing provisions and to insert certain provisions to cover matters which are not provided for in the existing legislation,” said Motshekga.
She added that between 1994 and 1995, she was privileged to be part of the committee that wrote the basic education laws.
Motshekga said that some of the compromises they made were in the spirit of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa negotiations, to ensure peace in the country.
“We are at the stage where we have to say, yes, we’ve worked together for 20 years or more. It’s time that we do the right things the right way. You can’t have a situation where you say government has to give full access to schooling as law, then say, there’s a body, called the governing body, that has the right to decide who gets admitted or not. It can’t be!”
The minister said the department visited a school in the Vaal where a pupil had died, and discovered that the school governing body had been placing pupils from other areas to fill up the school so that it remained an Afrikaans-speaking school.
She added:
On Tuesday, the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education agreed to adopt the bill, and it will now go before the National Assembly.
The new proposals state that the school’s governing body must submit the language policy of a public school and any amendment to the head of department for approval.
The language policy must also take into consideration the language needs of the broader community.
Other proposals that were adopted in the bill include: making Grade R the new compulsory school-starting age, penalties for parents who do not ensure that their children are in school, and confirmation that corporal punishment is no longer allowed at schools – with penalties for those found guilty of such offences.
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