Please find attached English soundbite by Baxolile ‘Bax’ Nodada MP, and Afrikaans soundbite by Desiree van der Walt MP.
The DA has submitted our petitions to #StopSchoolCapture to Parliament. Our English and Afrikaans petitions against the problematic Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill have received more than 27 000 signatures combined.
We have also submitted our concerns in writing to the secretary of the parliamentary portfolio committee on basic education, Llewellyn Brown, and we call on all South Africans to submit their concerns regarding the BELA Bill before 16:00 today.
The Bill has a number of concerning clauses, including the ‘Lesufi clauses’ that seeks to disempower school governing bodies (SGBs) and communities from determining their schools’ language and admissions policies.
The BELA Bill in its current form also
- Fails to address the effective regulation of blended and online learning;
- Fails to engage properly with the home schooling sector to determine accountability measures to ensure quality education; and
- Fails to take into account the financial, human resources and infrastructure impacts of compulsory grade R education.
Had the Department of Basic Education (DBE) truly consulted with the basic education sector it would not have submitted a sub-par Bill that only seeks to consolidate power within the governing party and does nothing to address the serious concerns affecting the country’s learners.
Instead of trying to disenfranchise SGBs and communities, the Department must work to address the high rate of learner dropouts, the dilapidated and unsafe infrastructure still found at many public schools, and the poor quality teaching robbing our learners of hope for bright futures.
Concerns must be submitted in writing to Llewellyn Brown via email: belaBill02@parliament.gov.za, online at https://forms.gle/MoC6AdbdQyYPk3Y49 or via WhatsApp: +27 60 550 9848 by no later than 16:00 today, 15 August 2022.