By Karishma Dipa, Baldwin Ndaba, Norman Cloete and Sameer Naik.
Johannesburg - The DA has vowed to oppose the "draconian" new Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill accusing the ANC of forcing the controversial Bill through while ignoring the majority of public submissions.
This week the parliamentary portfolio committee on basic education adopted the controversial bill which is expected to cause widespread change in education.
Committee chairperson Bongiwe Mbinqo-Gigaba said the bill had been more than two decades in the making.
Proposals adopted in the bill include making Grade R the new compulsory school-starting age, imposing penalties on parents who do not ensure that their children are in school and confirming that corporal punishment was no longer allowed at schools with penalties for those found guilty of such offences.
It also establishes a language policy, demanding that governing bodies submit the language policy of a public school and any amendment to that policy to the head of department for approval.
Mbinqo-Gigaba said the language policy must take into consideration the language needs of the broader community.
“The committee further adopted the proposed amendment that the head of department, after consultation with the governing body of the school, has the final authority to admit a learner to a public school,” Mbinqo-Gigaba said.
The contentious proposed amendment regarding home education was partially agreed to.
“This amendment provided for the head of the department to, when considering an application, require a delegated official to conduct a pre-registration site visit,” the department said.
“It was agreed that the said site visits can happen at any place of choice should parents not agree to such visits at their homes.
“Furthermore, a report at the end of each phase will now be required by a qualified educator or assessor to prove the competency of the learner in that phase.”
Some other proposed amendments were scrapped entirely. This includes the proposed amendment regarding the sale of alcohol on school premises after hours during functions, which did not get the committee's support.
“The proposed amendment dealing with members of a governing body that must disclose on an annual basis all his or her financial interests and the financial interests of his or her spouse, partner and immediate family members also did not garner support and was deemed too onerous an administrative task,” the department said.
Mbinqo-Gigaba said the committee held extensive public hearings across the country. “We heard oral submissions in Parliament from stakeholders and thousands of written submissions were considered when debating and drafting this legislation.”
The bill and the report by the committee will now be referred to the National Assembly for debate and consideration.
But DA education spokesperson Baxolile "Bax" Nodada said yesterday his party and other parties vehemently opposed the adoption of the bill.
Nodada said the DA would vote against it in Parliament saying "we believe the public participation process has been ignored".
He said his party and the EFF had on a number of occasions pleaded with the committee to consider all submissions. According to Nodada, the portfolio committee failed to consider 9 500 written submissions, saying it meant that the majority of the people who made submissions were opposed to the Bela Act.
"A total of 18 000 opposed the bill and 14 000 supported it," Nodada said. He said his party would also explore the possibility of challenging the legality of the bill in court.
Nodada reiterated that his party had continuously raised objections to clauses in the bill that would disempower school governing bodies and communities from making decisions about their schools’ admission and language policies.
“We are concerned that these clauses would not only be used to target mother tongue education schools, but that those schools will have no true avenue for recourse because the provincial heads of basic education departments would be both player and referee.
"The clause-by-clause deliberations have been marked by a concerted ANC push for more centralisation and imbuing the minister with powers that intrude on the provincial sphere. One of the clauses that was particularly contentious with the public was on homeschooling. While Parliamentary Legal Services has committed to redraft the clause, the Department of Basic Education’s adamant refusal to further engage with and consult the homeschooling sector is a great concern.
"The DA still maintains that the Bela Bill is undesirable, and it objected to the motion of desirability based on the strong centralisation of power.
The National Association of School Governing Bodies (NASGB), which represents 9 000 schools, said while it considered the bill to be transformational and in line with the Constitution, there were points it strongly disagreed with.
General secretary Matakanye Matakanye said they were happy with the language provisions but were vehemently against the sale of alcohol on school premises.
“We know what alcohol does to society and our children. We also believe that religion is going to become an issue. Some religions have harmful practices and I fear that children may hurt themselves,” he said.
The NASGB applauded the new rule that Grade R must become compulsory, adding that it would provide all children with a level playing field to hopefully develop at the same rate.
“A child who has not completed Grade R will always fall behind,” he said.
On the issue of SGB members having to declare annual financials, Matakanye said this new rule may scare many people.
“We do not agree with the disclosure of financials. Must everyone now know that you live in a R10 million house or how much money you have in your bank account? This is going to be a dangerous one,” he said.
Education specialist Mary Metcalfe said one of the things she found interesting was that there were elements in the bill which were unchanged from the previous act which has been in place since about 1996.
“But what people are now worried about is the issue of compulsory education in the sense that most people would support education being compulsory.
"But to give meaning to what compulsory means, both the previous South African school acts and this amendment provide for parents who don't take their children to school, to go to jail. I would love someone to do research about whether any parents under the previous school acts have actually been taken to prison for not sending their children to school.
“I absolutely accept the Equal Education's stance that when children are not taken to school the solution is unlikely prison. The solution has to be support of action, and an understanding where the family is and why the children aren’t being taken to school," Metcalfe said.