The Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill, or BELA Bill as it is commonly known, has been the subject of debate among key stakeholders in the sector. The bill is aimed at amending the South African Schools Act of 1996 and the Employment of Educators Act of 1998.
The BELA Bill was initially drafted in 2017 by the Department of Basic Education and given to the Portfolio Committee with roughly 56 proposed amendments.
Public hearings over the legislative amendment were held nationwide across all provinces and spanned a period of four months. The process will then be followed by a draft report and a debate by the portfolio committee. Some of the key proposed amendments to the bill include the following:
- Making Grade R the new compulsory school starting age, as opposed to Grade 1, as is currently the case.
- Compelling the registration of homeschooled learners.
- Criminalising parents who do not ensure their child or children are in school, with fines or jail time up to 12 months.
- Holding school governing bodies more accountable for disclosures of financial interests - including those related to their spouses and family members.
- Prohibiting educators from conducting business with the state or being a director of public or private companies conducting business with the state.
- Abolishing corporal punishment and initiation/hazing practices.
- Allowing schools to sell alcohol outside of school hours.
- Giving government department heads power over language policies and the curriculums a school must adopt.
The bill focuses on governance concerns as well as the management of the education sector.
However, the bill appears to have been met with a mixed reception according to the department’s spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga. Mhlanga stated that during the public hearings, members of the public oppose the entire Bill due to disagreeing with some of its clauses.
The most recent objection to the Bill came from the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP). The political party associates the bill with the encouragement of abortions among school learners.
A member of the ACDP, who also happens to be a member of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education, published posters labelling the BELA bill 'The Schools Abortion Bill'. The poster is also in opposition to the closure and merger of non-viable schools.
In response, Mhlanga stated that this is unfounded as abortions are a matter of Public Health and do not form part of the BELA Bill.
There's no need to be upset about something that is not there because the BELA bill doesn't talk about abortion, it focuses only on matters around governance in schools.
Furthermore, according to a statement by parliament, those opposed to the Bill raised concerns that the BELA Bill was advocating for comprehensive sexual education, something they view as a foreign tendency seeking to impose a form of colonialism in the education system.
Those who support the bill believe that requiring a quarterly reporting period would put an early stop to the issue of financial mismanagement and guarantee that school funds are handled properly.
Additionally, they said that this quarterly reporting cycle would give communities knowledge about the financial administration of schools, which would lessen instances of corruption and the waste of limited resources.
