Newly- appointed Minister of Basic Education, Siviwe Gwarube. File Picture: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers
ActionSA welcomes Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube’s announcement of her intention to request that President Cyril Ramaphosa halts signing the flawed Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill into law.
This comes after Gwarube announced on Tuesday that the Bela Bill aims to strengthen the Department of Education's control over the language and admissions policies that school governing bodies need to develop.
The Bela Bill was passed in the National Assembly on May 17, before the end of the sixth administration.
As stated by ActionSA Parliamentary Caucus Chief Whip Lerato Ngobeni, ActionSA will fight to ensure that the Bill, if referred back to Parliament, reflects the substantive contributions and necessary amendments, including those proposed by civil society, to address the real deficiencies that have led to the decline of the country’s education system.
Ngobeni said the party urges the minister to ensure that her petition to Ramaphosa makes clear that the Bela Bill simply will not make the necessary inroads to improve the dysfunction within the education system.
Ngobeni further noted that ActionSA has long argued that the Bela Bill, marred by widespread objection, is fundamentally flawed.
Ngobeni said the legislative attempt to camouflage the structural deficiencies of South Africa’s education system resulting from decades of systemic mismanagement, fails to address the existing challenges in our education system.
“The Minister’s communicated intention comes as a relief following the stubborn posture taken by the ANC in the 6th administration, who were hell-bent on pushing through the legislation which undoubtedly would only serve to compound the challenges by introducing a series of proposals that lack coherence and fail to align with the actual needs and realities of our education landscape.
“The ill-thought-out introduction of compulsory Grade R, and the outdated use of the Socio-Economic Impact Assessment which does not adequately estimate the fiscal and economic impact of implementing the Bill, are some of the reasons why this bill must urgently be sent back to Parliament for revision,’’ Ngobeni said.
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