Pressure mounts for President to sign Bela Act into law

Pressure is mounting on the President to sign the disputed Bela Act into law.

Citizens’ movement, Equal Education, is the latest organisation to make the call.

It says the country needs the urgent implementation of the Bela Act to achieve transformative change within the education system.

The organisation’s General Secretary, Noncedo Madubedube, says the system in its current form reflects the inequality that’s pervasive in South Africa.

“We believe that the Bela Bill allow people to be shown different ways to support and build stead capacity to provide an equal education for all,” remarks Madubedube.

Earlier this week, scores of parents held a protest at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria against the Bela Act, which aims to alter some parts of the South African Schools Act, with a concentrated observation on administrative and management processes at the school level.

The use of orange is not a coincidence. This is a meeting of people who are suffering from apartheid nostalgia. When you forgive people who never asked for forgiveness. They will never be remorseful.

Afrikaans Dutch Holland Bela Bela Bill pic.twitter.com/q3ejedkKMB

— Miss Tick (@AllNewsNetwork2) November 5, 2024

The DA, Freedom Front Plus, Patriotic Alliance, AfriForum and Solidarity had organised the march. They want parts of the Act tweaked before the President signs it into law, alleging that it takes away the right of school governing bodies to make important decisions about language and admissions.

Madubedube believes that the protest was by a minority group that’s attempting to protect its privilege.

“What that march has shown us as South Africans, is that truly, a minority in the broader education system are fighting to protect their privilege inside of the schooling system,” she adds.

She says the people who gathered under what looked like a national flag of pre-democratic SA, were basically asking the Government of National Unity (GNU) to keep their schools exclusively for those who speak Afrikaans; can afford exorbitant school fees and learn in environments with small classroom sizes.

“The idea that something becoming more just, more equitable, and open for all who live in SA, being synonymous with the degradation of the quality of tat right is poor nonsense,” says Madubedube.

“What we truly believe and want all South Africans to see is that those that are privileged, are offended by transformation, dignity, justice and equality.”

Madubedube says a just and equal system will afford the country effective and positive contribution to society.

“The schooling system in South Africa is as unequal as our society, and if we want to be able to build an immediate and a near future, where all people living in SA can contribute to its productivity, its cultural expression, its prosperity, and economic prosperity, then we have to insist on an equal and just schooling system.”

Equal Education believes that dignity needs to be afforded to every child and that the fulfilment of the right to education for all needs be defended by ensuring that children are allowed to attend schools, which cater to their immediate environment; considers and integrates their languages, social and moral values of their family units, that grant protection to parents who do not succeed in finding schooling for their children.

“Children should be allowed to attend schools that ensure dignified and equal education system and a conducive environment where schools are not overcrowded,” adds Madubedube.

She says the Bela Act should also try to ensure that the country is adequately legislating children’s ability – especially grade R entrants – to be part of an integrated schooling curriculum till the 12th grade.

“The country also needs a phased approached into to make sure that children enter foundation phase early, as it has massive implications to improving children’s right to literacy and numeracy,” the education rights activist says.

The Independent Liberation and Allied Workers Union has also condemned the uproar over the Act.

Like Equal Education, the union believes that the amended bill addresses challenges in basic education, which impede progress to redress the imbalances that exist within the country’s education system.

We support the call for the full implementation of the BELA Bill. pic.twitter.com/dTcRqVubmm

— Bongekile Filana 🇿🇦 (@BongekileFilana) November 7, 2024

Equal Education says 81% of grade 4 learners today, are unable to read for meaning because of these disproportionate experiences of children in marginalised communities. Written by Odirile Rabolao