By Dr Nick Taylor, Senior Research Fellow at JET Education Services
The signing of the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill (BELA Bill) today by President Cyril Ramaphosa, thus converting proposals in the Bill into an Act of law, raises two important implications.
School language policy
The issue generating far and away the most heat in the public domain revolves around school language policy. Until today school governing bodies (SGBs) had the authority to determine the language(s) of instruction of the school, and hence of its admissions policy. Although government is obliged to consult the SGB on language policy, BELA places the authority firmly in the hands of the head of department of the respective provincial department. Under great pressure by the movement of large numbers of learners to urban areas, greatly aggravated by a tight squeeze on the fiscus, government argues that this step is in the interests of ensuring that a school place be found for every learner.
This argument is countered by certain lobby groups, contending that BELA removes the constitutionally entrenched right of any child to be schooled in their mother tongue. This is the view expressed by Theuns Eloff, chair of the Trust for Afrikaans Education (Trust vir Afrikaans Onderwys), and quoted in yesterday’s Daily Maverick (Haffejee, 2024). The question as to what extent this issue is a purely policy matter, which government has the right to determine without interference from the courts, and to what extent it constitutes a fundamental constitutional principal is likely to challenge the wisdom of the judges of our highest court for months and even years to come.
Making Grade R compulsory
An equally important issue, although far less aired than the language question, is the question of Grade R. BELA mandates that attendance in a Grade R class is now compulsory, extending the period of compulsory education by a year (Grade R to Grade 9). This sounds like a good idea, and certainly would be if we could raise the current abysmal quality of teaching and learning in the majority of Grade R classes[1].
However, the full implications of this law are simply unimplementable because of the costs it would entail. Although more than 90% of 5-6 year-old children are currently in a Grade R class, it is estimated that some R4bn will be required to provide the infrastructure and materials required to adequately roll out this policy. But this sum pales into insignificance compared to human resource demands entailed by the decision to render Grade R mandatory. Currently Grade R teachers experience very different conditions of service in the various provinces, but by and large their conditions are far inferior to those of teachers in Grades 1-12. Making Grade R compulsory will require the upgrading of these conditions, at great annual cost.
In other words, BELA is a typical example of government decisions to cavalierly issue ‘unfunded mandates’, the financial implications of which provinces have no hope of addressing[2]. And since this is a purely policy decision, challenging it in court has no hope of succeeding.
References
Haffajee, F. (2024). Bela Bill will immediately be taken to court if signed into law, says powerful lobby group. Daily Maverick, 12 September 2024. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-09-12-bela-bill-will-immediately-be-taken-to-court-if-signed-into-law-says-powerful-lobby-
van der Berg, S., Girdwood, E., Shepherd, D., van Wyk, C., Kruger, J., Viljoen, J., Eziobi, O., & Ntaka, P. (2013). THE IMPACT OF THE INTRODUCTION OF GRADE R ON LEARNING OUTCOMES. Research on Socio-Economic Policy, University of Stellenbosch. https://resep.sun.ac.za/the-impact-on-the-reflection-of-grade-r-programme/sample-post/
[1] An evaluation conducted by van der Berg et al (2013) concluded that Grade R children in Quintile 1-3 schools gain nothing from this experience and that, consequently, Grade R is effectively aggravating learning inequalities in the country.
[2] Although they are not supported by legislation and therefore do not carry the same weight, other recent examples of this practice are DBE plans the regarding the Three Streams Model and the Mother-tongue Based Bilingual Education initiative.
