We cannot have children begging at traffic lights: Angie Motshekga takes aim at education critics

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has slammed several bodies and organisations that have criticised the state of education in the country.

In a briefing on Sunday ahead of the start of the Matric final exams, Motshekga responded to concerns around the Bela Bill.

The contentious bill includes making Grade R the new compulsory school-starting age, formally penalising parents who fail to enroll their children for school, ensuring corporal punishment is no longer allowed at school, and requiring all language policy of a public school be submitted to the department for approval.

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The National Assembly passed the bill this week, ahead of it being presented before the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) and being signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa, but the DA has threatened to challenge the bill in the Constitutional Court.

Motshekga said government could not sit idle while children were exploited.

“The country cannot fold its arms as parents use children at traffic lights as beggars instead of sending them to school. That is why we have made basic education compulsory.

“The country also cannot afford for children to work on farms, or be used by others in service delivery protests at the expense of their education.”

She defended the bill’s policy on governing bodies, denying it was meant to take away their powers.

“The fact that language and admission policies were used by governing bodies without checks and balances led to abuse and the exclusion of learners in schools that use such discriminatory practices such as race, ability to pay school fees, academic achievement and sporting abilities.”

The minister said the Bela Bill seeks to harmonise governing bodies with local education departments

Oppenheimer Memorial Trust

Motshekga also took aim at a recent report on education by the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust on the future of education in the country.

She said the report was “in certain aspects inaccurate and one-sided”.

“So many of the proposals made in the report were drawn straight from the National Development Plan, meaning they are proposals currently being pursued by government with varying degrees of success.

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“The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust misses an opportunity to engage more deeply with what government is doing. The weakness in this report, particularly with respect to the diagnosis of the problem the basic education sector faces, is very deliberate in excluding issues of language and how it impacts on opportunities for learning.

“A proper desktop review of the education system would have ideally extended to not only government documents but also a critical view of teacher union policies, the education system by global bodies and how the media covers education.”

Additional reporting by Molefe Seeletsa