The South African government is planning on empowering itself around the linguistic policies at the country’s schools. The Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) vests the final authority of making language policies and admission in the regional heads of the department. So far, this authority was in the hands of the school boards.
The bill is under due consideration in the parliament.
The Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill grants the final authority for admission and language policies to regional heads of the department, considerable in parliament. Now
school boards have this authority.
The bill provides for system improvements in terms of admission of learners, particularly admission of undocumented amateurs.
It also provides for boards and regional divisions’ financial and public responsibility frameworks and authorises the HOD to order uniting or mergers of schools.
The opposition called it a ‘coup’ against school boards and criticised the bill.
The opposition Democratic Alliance has heavily criticised the proposed provisions, calling it a ‘coup’ against school governing bodies.
Mr Baxolile Babongile Nodada, a parliament member from the Democratic Alliance (DA) party, said the bill (BELA) is all ready for the coup against the parents and children of South Africa.
other specific concerns remarked by the DA include:
Section 4 of the bill authorises officials and MECs to revise the admission policies of any 24,000 public schools across the country.
Section 5 will authorise MECs to change the language policy of any of the thousands of public schools in the country and to direct any public school to change its language of teaching.
Section 13 will give officials and MECs authority to merge and name any merged public school in South Africa.
Although MCEs and officials have to follow multiple judicial steps to conduct these cases, it also portrays that the final authority will be not in the school committee’s hands but under the control of departments and members of the MCEs, the DA added.
If school boards or school communities want a change in their policies, they can only appeal to the same MCEs who changed their policies.
