Experts say Bela Bill is no danger to schools

Despite the South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR) warning that the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill of 2022 cannot fix South Africa’s schooling crisis – and was likely to make it worse – experts say otherwise.

Education policy expert Brahm Fleisch said although the Bill was not going to fix the learning crisis in SA’s schools, he “doubts it is going to make it worse”.

He said the Bill wasn’t designed to address the core problems of early-grade reading.

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It was essentially fixing some of the major missing components in schools. “It is designed to address some key procedures of the legislation,” he added.

The IRR reported that under the Bill, single-medium Afrikaans public schools – now numbering about 1 260 out of 22 600 – will probably be compelled to start teaching in English, too.

The IRR said: “However, the Bill’s wording is broad enough to require that all public schools start teaching in isiXhosa, isiZulu and other official languages, in addition to English and/or Afrikaans.”

Fleisch said SA’s constitution did not require home-language instruction – everyone was entitled to choose the language they wanted to be educated in.

He said Section 29(2) stated that: “Everyone has the right to receive education in the official language or languages of his/her choice in public educational institutions where such education is reasonably practicable.”

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IRR head of policy research Dr Anthea Jeffery said mother-tongue schooling had value, but many parents wanted their children to be taught in English.

“Shortages of teachers and teaching materials may also make it difficult to implement the policy successfully,” she said.

“While the attempt to do so could overburden many schools… a change of this magnitude should be debated and decided by parliament and not introduced by bureaucrats under the Bill,” she added.

The IRR said the Bill’s main aim was to authorise provincial bureaucrats to compel elected school governing bodies to change the admission and language policies of public schools without regard to what parents and pupils might prefer