Teachers unions and education organisations in the Western Cape have pledged their support of the school law amendment bill public hearings starting in the Western Cape this weekend.
Katherine Sutherland, a legal researcher at the Equal Education Law Centre, said the 2022 Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill provides a crucial opportunity for civil society and communities to contribute to shaping education laws for the foreseeable future.
“The purpose of the bill is to bring laws governing schools, namely the South African Schools Act (Sasa) and the Employment of Educators Act (EEA), in line with the significant developments in the law over the last decade related to the right to basic education. The bill will potentially bring the biggest changes to basic education laws in the last decade,” she said.
She said the Bela Bill included important changes related to the powers of SGBs on admissions and language policies.
Sutherland said the Equal Education movement and Equal Education Law Centre were hoping for amendments in three components of the bill that dealt with alcohol in schools, required documentation and criminal sanctions.
“The Bela Bill says that alcohol can be sold and consumed at some school events, but not during school hours. This will be regulated, but EE and the EELC are deeply concerned that this will harm learners because it will not be properly implemented and monitored. We urge this amendment to be removed in its entirety,” she said.
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) Western Cape said it supported the bill, although it felt there were parts of it that needed to be strengthened.
“We support the responsibility imposed on parents to ensure that their children attend school regularly. On the issue of the increased penalties, in the form of fines and sentences, we are for the retention of the current six months but more stringent measures must be put in place to ensure that parents carry out their responsibilities. Before any actions are taken, interaction with the parent must take place to determine the reasons why parents are not fulfilling their responsibilities.
“Sadtu lends support on action against persons who disrupt schooling, especially during community protests or by gangs. We also want the bill to differentiate between non-violent, legally protected strike action and disruption of schools.
“The language and admission policies of all schools must be determined by the parents, and not only left to school governing bodies. We support the HOD being the final arbiter in learner admissions and language policy because within the South African context, some former Model C school governing bodies still use admission policies and language policies to exclude learners from the poor working class. One example is a case where a domestic worker is unable to gain admission for their children in areas where they work,” Sadtu said.
Vanessa le Roux, of Parents for Equal Education SA (Peesa), said: “In terms of the criminalisation of parents who fail to see that their children attend school, I support their criminalisation, because these children that are not in school, we will eventually find them in court or juvenile centres. However, we focus on the parents, yet we say nothing about the government that fails to provide basic education to these learners; this is a chain of stakeholders. If schools are full and the government fails to place these children, we must equally ask what the punishment for these institutions is. We are talking about poor parents that don’t have the resources to lodge a Constitutional Court application, yet their constitutional right is being violated, with no consequences to the government.
“Alcohol should be kept from institutions of learning, and schools must find other ways to fund-raise. Many domestic crimes and abuse stem from excessive alcohol abuse and we definitely don't need to take that culture to the school grounds. We already are facing huge discipline problems in schools, and any contributing factor should be kept from the premises. We as society tend to normalise the abnormal.”
The public hearings will take place in the Montana Community Hall in Angelier Street, Wolseley, in Ceres, from 12pm – 4pm today and at the Gugulethu Indoor Sports Complex from 12pm – 4pm tomorrow.